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  • your blacks are all blocked up too but it looks like a flat lit overcast day?
    i still think it will be easier to asses your metering if you shot a roll of 400 at 400 and developed 'normally' then you will know where the problem lies as this will show if your metering is out.

    at some point it should all fit into place. at college i started to use a modified zone system technique using a spot meter and when shooting 35mm using the exposure lock button and seeing what the meter values were as i moved the metering area from ground to sky and then making a note to push or pull a little depending on how the lighting was for the day.
    you could be certain what detail was going to be printable as you viewed the scene you were shooting. no happy accidents or 'oh dear that didn't come out too well'.
    my negs were easy to spot in the drying cabinet as there were no dark or nearly clear frames inbetween the good ones. :-)

    if you take on board what's in the zone book and nail the metering everything else in the chain should fall into place.

    I do a similar thing when I'm shooting digitally. Pretty much always shoot on aperture priority, spot meter, have one button set to lock the exposure while pressed and one set to lock it until I press it again. Since starting to shoot like that I'm hardly throwing away any shots because of poor exposure.
    I know I can get it right, it'll just take bit of practice.

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