John A. Lind |
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Sherii,
You've listed three problems, so we'll take them one at a time:Blurring:
There are two major causes for blurring: camera shake, subject movement, or a combination of both. With camera shake, everything will be blurred. With subject movement, only the moving object will be blurred, but stationary ones will be sharp. The root of this is a slow shutter speed. There are three ways to increase the shutter speed: more light, faster lens, or faster film. If you cannot increase ambient lighting, then consider a flash (subject distance will have to be close enough to make this feasible). If you cannot do either, then consider a faster lens. Faster film is a last resort as it increases grain. If the problem is only camera shake, the other methods of increasing shutter speed will also work plus consider using a tripod or monopod with a cable or remote shutter release to stabilize the camera. "Green Tinge":
You didn't mention what kind of lighting you are under, but it sounds like fluorescent, which is notorious for this. Fluorescent lights do not give off the same type of light as daylight (from the sun). The only real solution, unless you can use a flash, is using an "FL-D" filter to balance the fluorescent lighting to daylight for the film. Even with a skilled print processor, it's almost impossible to do the color balance with enlarger filters when making the print. The problem with this solution is you will lose light with the FL-D filter, meaning your shutter speed will drop more. This means you will have to do more to solve the blurring problem. A quick note about other types of man-made lighting. Incandescents can be easier to balance for by using "tungsten" films which will very nearly balance them completely to daylight. Other nightmarish light sources include sodium vapor and mercury vapor lamps found in large industrial buildings, street lights, and indoor or outdoor stadia. There are no single filters for these, but require experimentation with combinations of special "CC" type filters for correction. The problem with these lamps (and fluorescents) is they produce narrow bands of visible light, not the broader one found with incandescent lamps. This makes correcting them to daylight very difficult, the easiest being fluorescents. Overexposing:
Without more details, it's hard to diagnose this one. There is a possibility you are really underexposing and in trying to make a properly exposed print you get a washed-out result that looks grainy. Look at your negatives. If they look "thin" (almost clear) then it is underexposure. If they look "thick" (dark with a lot of emulsion on them) then it really is overexposure. If you find underexposure instead, then solving the first problem of blurring may help this problem. However, either way you could still have something happening that is causing this apart from the other two issues. Take things one at a time and see what happens. -- John
February 12, 2001
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