Yuck!
For an easy beginning take your camera OUTDOORS on a nice sunny day.
Use the average recommended settings for daylight color film:
set the shutter speed for 1/50 second and the lens opening to f/6.3-
midway between the 5.6 and 8 markings on your camera.

That advice, repeated several times troughout the book, would almost certainly result in slides that are badly overexposed and probably unusable!

The reason for this is simple, it was based on the film widely available at the time which was typically ASA 10 . No, I'm not kidding, that's ASA TEN, not one hundred. By the late 50s ASA 32 was common and by the late 60s and early 70s ASA 64 was common place, so that advice became dated soon after the book was published. Most of today's slide shooting is done with ASA 64 or ASA 100. It should also be noted that contemporary slide film has much more lattitude than 50s era films and slide film is far more tolerant of underexposure than overexposure. In fact, slight undexposure improves saturation and gives a very pleasing effect with many subjects. With these facts in mind, I will offer the following advice for present day users of Realist cameras:

In mid morning or late afternoon on a clear, sunny day, set your camera to maximum shutter speed ( 1/150 or 1/200, depending on your realist model) with an FSTOP of f/11. Set focus to 15 feet.
If you take pictures between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in bright sun (not recommended!) you may want to try f/16 or even f/22.


Of course, the best advice for inexperienced photographers who don't have a more experienced user to give them direct guidance is to follow the guidelines given by the package or insert that came with the film they purchased.
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