# Is my Canon A1 Light-Meter Faulty?



## judejenz (May 27, 2016)

Hey guys,
So I bought  a Canon A1 the other day with a 50mm lense and shot my first few rolls of film at a party and in the city at night. What I find strange my light meter and the exposures that its giving me. So I shot at ISO400 at the party which was indoors with decent lighting, and it asked me to shoot at shutter speeds slower that 1/30! Not to mention it pushed my lense to its higher aperture (f/1.8). Even in my room at night, WITH a lightbulb fully illuminating the whole room, my Camera was still a asking for 1/20 shutter speeds. Anyway, so I'm a noob and didn't know my photos would expose like they did in photo 1. BUT... When I took it into the city and my uni, the light meter seemed to work spot on. It gave me perfect exposures even at night (as shown in picture 2) where the lighting was even worse than the party! Pretty sure my camera wanted me to use a shutter speed below 1/30 also for Photo 2, although, don't quote me on it. Maybe my light meter only works correctly in well lit areas and I got really lucky and held my camera super still for photo 2. But I'm still not sure. What do y'all think? Is it me or the light meter? 

PHOTO 1 (Party)





PHOTO 2 




PHOTO 3, At Uni


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## gsgary (May 27, 2016)

Light meter sounds like it is working perfectly because in a room at night with light bulb iso would normally be at iso1600  or iso3200 to get a fast enough shutter speed, it might look bright to your eyes but it is not seen as bright by your lightmeter 

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## judejenz (May 27, 2016)

gsgary said:


> Light meter sounds like it is working perfectly because in a room at night with light bulb iso would normally be at iso1600  or iso3200 to get a fast enough shutter speed, it might look bright to your eyes but it is not seen as bright by your lightmeter
> 
> Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk


Thanks  for the quick response. Alright that's a relief to hear! Just out of curiosity though, how come the Photo 2 exposed well. I mean that was also at night too...


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## gsgary (May 27, 2016)

judejenz said:


> gsgary said:
> 
> 
> > Light meter sounds like it is working perfectly because in a room at night with light bulb iso would normally be at iso1600  or iso3200 to get a fast enough shutter speed, it might look bright to your eyes but it is not seen as bright by your lightmeter
> ...


Because there was probably me light than in the room

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## CarlH (May 27, 2016)

from reading your first post it reads like you were using you A1 like a dslr? changing iso settings to try and get the shutter speed up? What film did you have in the camera?


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## judejenz (May 27, 2016)

CarlH said:


> from reading your first post it reads like you were using you A1 like a dslr? changing iso settings to try and get the shutter speed up? What film did you have in the camera?


Hey Carl,
I definitely had the correct film in there. I was using Fuji Superia X ISO400. I didn't toggle with the ISO settings on the A1 at all. It stayed smack bang on 400 the whole time.


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## CarlH (May 28, 2016)

here's a link to Fuji's data sheet for the film, http://www.fujifilm.com/products/consumer_film/pdf/superia_xtra400_datasheet.pdf
as you can see from the table the meter readings are about right for the lighting conditions you had.
Also using a daylight film under tungsten lights will give you the off colors in the first two pictures.


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## gsgary (May 28, 2016)

There is nothing wrong with your camera go out and shoot in daylight 

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