Craig,
Alpha_7 wrote:
I'm seeing a couple of things in this image ... and in the link to all of the images, also look at the two that immediately follow this one.
This one clearly lacks contrast, and from the shadows, it can be seen that you are shooting basically towards the sun. Hence the issue of lens flare comes up as a possibility.
But (let's forget about the issue of poor film quality, because some of the images are very bright) this image is also seriously grainy.
But it
looks like exposure is fine, doesn't it? What's going on?
The following image offers us some valuable clues: it too is very grainy, but there's no evidence of lens flare here. What gives?
The images posted come from the lab - from a CD they've given you, right? What do these negatives look like?
I'm going to guess that that these two, and the following one, are somewhat thin. Much thinner than those that seem to sparkle.
What's I think has happened is that these images show underexposure - I'm guessing two plus stops - but the lab's processing through to the CD (and also to prints) has compensated so it's a bit more difficult to assess.
Spend some time looking at the negs - look at each frame, and look for solid and consistent frame density. Take one of the good ones as an example: every other frame should have a similar density and opacity level. Thinness indicates underexposure, resulting in a darker and grainier image. The darkness can be (and has been) compensated for in the (automatic) processing, but the grain is telltale here. And the negative will tell all.
Overexposure is indicated by too much density in the negs, resulting in an image that's too bright. Again, this can and will be compensated for by the lab's automatic printing processes.