Burning Curtains and other Beginner Questions

[Herr Barnack]

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...Just take care as said not to leave the camera pointing towards bright sunlight for any prolonged period of time...

Problem solved. 

 

This precaution is not an onerous burden; it's no more work than taking care to not knock your camera off of a table, drop it or carry it unprotected in a torrential downpour. 

[Michael Hiles]

I don't let my cameras sit with the lens pointed at the sun. That has kept me out of trouble for ever. 

 

Regarding meters, I spent years using a Leicameter and enjoyed it. Accurate and reliable. Now there are battery considerations.

 

These days I make educated guesses most of the time, and I rarely have a negative that is much less than optimum. For tricky situations when there is time (not often), I use a Soligor 1 degree spot meter and apply zone principles of pre-visualization. 

Edited October 13, 2015 by Michael Hiles

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[spydrxx]

I rarely worried about the "hole in the curtain" issue, more about stuff either getting on the lens or scratching it, as my first years with a Leica were mostly at sea. These days I generally have a cap on traveling to and from my destination, off while I'm actively shooting. For a number of years I had and actively used a Leica MR4 meter, as it worked great, looked fine, and locked into the shutter speed dial. As I became an increasingly incident light type person, I took the meter along less and less, and even with an incident light handheld meter, I often compared my guesstimates with it until I rarely used it either. These days, if I'm really not sure about exposure...I take a quick reading before I go out, leave the meter at home, and rely on experience and the "sunny 16 " rule to get my exposures right. Low light, I use the decades old paper "jiffy exposure meter" and things come out just fine.

[hepcat]

 I really couldn’t believe that Leicas were so vulnerable to something as common as the sun. In either case, I had wondered into a forum on some other website and there seemed to be some people worked up about it.

 

About the meter, I guess I’ll be doing more research.

The thing about forums is that someone is always worked up about some issue that has little or no impact on anyone in real life.  Yes holes VERY occasionally get burned in shutters.  No, with a little common sense precautions, it likely will never happen to you.  I have had a couple of cameras over the years with patches on the shutter.  NOT a big deal.

 

Each roll of factory boxed film comes with a nifty little exposure guide included in that piece of paper that everyone pulls out and throws away and never reads.  Basically it reinforces the "sunny 16" rule:  Match the shutter speed and ISO numbers, and shoot at f/16 in full sun.  Open up for shade or overcast, and vary your exposure as required to compensate for faster shutter speeds when required.

 

Last, I know you bought a 308, and I really like mine too... but since you mentioned your pockets being full of stuff including your cell phone,  there are some free light meter apps available for smart phones that work pretty darn well... and save you from having to carry that 308 every time you go out.  

[Michael Hiles]

Match the shutter speed and ISO numbers, and shoot at f/16 in full sun.

 

This is a good idea, and helps when making educated estimates of exposure. But in my experience "Sunny 16" is wrong. On a bright sunny day, in my experience the rule should be "Sunny 5.6". I habitually expose XP2 for 200 ASA, and I always start with 5.6 at 1/250. On a bright day outdoors, this produces outstandingly good negatives. I adjust from there, depending on the light and scene. There are excellent guides to help with the estimate. If I used 16 at /1250 my negatives would be so thin as to be unusable.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Michael Hiles