Inaccurate meter on Elan II?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Canon EOS FAQ forum : One Thread

Has anyone else seen consistent underexposure with their Elan II? My camera is only a few months old, and I've put through about 10 rolls through it, so I may be wrong, but I notice that I have to shoot Sensia at at least ISO 80, and my prints from print film seem unusually unsharp and grainy. I was getting better results with my Olympus P&S! Furthermore, the Elan II consistently meters one stop under my old A-1.

-- Mani Varadarajan (mani@best.com), March 22, 1999

Answers

On my Elan II I set the ISO 1/3 stop low, i.e. for Sensia 100 I would set the ISO to 80. This gives me the same exposure readings as several other EOS bodies I've checked it against, plus incident readings from a Minolta Autometer III. The slides look just fine. I'm sure that with print film I'd never notice 1/3 stop, but slides do look better with the correction.

I don't think it's too unusual for exposure to be a little off with any camera. Just shoot a test roll, see what looks best and use that info for future reference

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), March 23, 1999.


I just did a 10-roll shoot for a model's portfolio, using Portra 160 and 400, Tri-X, XP400, and Velvia all rated at nominal manufacturer's suggestions and I was amazed at how well my ElanIIE's meter worked. Every shot was exactly on. I double-checked a couple with my Sekonic 508 and got exactly the same reading.

-- John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com), March 23, 1999.

I just thought I'd followup on my own question. The problem was not my meter; I checked it against a friend's recently tested Nikon and they were essentially the same. The problem was with the processing of my print film. I took it to a pro lab and I now have beautiful results with the standard metering.

-- Mani Varadarajan (mani@best.com), March 31, 1999.

I have EOS 50 (Australian ELAN) exposure spot on and consistent But EOS3 underexposes 1 stop. Why should we have to keep re-setting ASA when the camera is supposed to read the details ACCURATELY from the film cannister. It's ok to say test. Why doesn't Canon test and calibrate instead of getting us to do their work for them. Have contacted Canon ..... NO REPLY

-- Lawrie Weston (westonl@melbpc.org.au), November 10, 1999.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ