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How to properly expose Tri-X 7278 Super 8 film??


Christopher Lee

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Hi all, I just got a roll of expired tri-x 7278 super 8 film and i was wondering whats the proper way to expose in a Nizo S 560? I realize the S560 only reads up to 160asa in tungsten and 100asa in daylight and if i am going to shoot in mostly daylight, how would i go about doing so? I'm also looking for a good color stock to shoot so suggestions would be great!

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Tri-X is 160T/200D so will expose fine at 160 ASA. Besides, if you use anything like a yellow to red filter, you'll probably want to be at 160 ASA anyway (since that is converting the incoming light towards the redder end of the spectrum). If the camera has an internal 85 filter switch, then you can use that as a pseudo-orange filter to add some contrast to your skies, though it is more subtle than what a red filter gets you. Plus you'll need some sort of ND or red filtering just to cut the light levels down in bright sunlight. Remember the Sunny 16 rule... which tells you that at 50 ASA with a 1/50th shutter time, your exposure in direct sunlight is f/16.

 

Testing would be a good idea. The contrast of Tri-X is high enough that you may want to manually adjust your exposures from what the meter tells you, stopping down a little more for light or bright subjects and opening up a little more for dark subjects.

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Tri-X is 160T/200D so will expose fine at 160 ASA. Besides, if you use anything like a yellow to red filter, you'll probably want to be at 160 ASA anyway (since that is converting the incoming light towards the redder end of the spectrum). If the camera has an internal 85 filter switch, then you can use that as a pseudo-orange filter to add some contrast to your skies, though it is more subtle than what a red filter gets you. Plus you'll need some sort of ND or red filtering just to cut the light levels down in bright sunlight. Remember the Sunny 16 rule... which tells you that at 50 ASA with a 1/50th shutter time, your exposure in direct sunlight is f/16.

 

Testing would be a good idea. The contrast of Tri-X is high enough that you may want to manually adjust your exposures from what the meter tells you, stopping down a little more for light or bright subjects and opening up a little more for dark subjects.

 

Thank you! So shoot at 160asa, use red filter (necessary for bright sunlight use and better contrast), and maybe manually adjust my exposure? I was thinking the camera's auto exposure could take care of that for me (correct me if i'm wrong). Also would i need to compensate for expiration? Over expose one stop per decade? Example, meter reads f8 and I manually change it to f5.6 for one decade. I'm not even sure if i can find the expiration date for this film.

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Since reversal stock doesn't handle overexposure well, I don't know how much you should compensate for the aging, you'd have to shoot a test roll to figure that out.

 

I don't know your camera, but when I shot Super-8, I used the camera's meter as a spot meter, I'd zoom into what I wanted the camera to expose for and then lock the exposure there and then zoom out and reframe... but sometimes from experience I'd then adjust it up or down. Just depends.

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I have found that with aged reversal you are best to get as close to the original exposure/Iso as possible. Over exposing just Leads to way less highlight detail and, with color, way less saturation. If it were negative i'd say over expose by one stop but that's just too hard to do correctly with trix.

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I have found that with aged reversal you are best to get as close to the original exposure/Iso as possible. Over exposing just Leads to way less highlight detail and, with color, way less saturation. If it were negative i'd say over expose by one stop but that's just too hard to do correctly with trix.

160asa it is! Thank you for your input!

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Also, I just read the box of the expired Tri-X 7278 film and it says that with the daylight filter on, it will be read at 100asa which I'm guessing means I can just set my Nizo S560 to the daylight switch and I will get a proper exposure at 100 asa. Sorry about all the questions, I'm quite new to this format.

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