StS Posted March 1, 2010 Share #21 Posted March 1, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) Welcome to the forum, but a small warning from my side - my first Leica was a M3 too, which was bought some time ago for occasional use. However, I'm up to three Leica bodies now and use them almost exclusively. Some more background information, in case you are interested: When it comes to negative film, the rule of thumb asks for a slight over-exposure, if in doubt, where for slide film, it asks for a slight under-exposure. Both will produce structures, which are slightly too dense. In the 'classic' days, a powerful projector lamp could 'punch' even through very dense slides, where an enlarger would eventually find some structure in a very dense negative (I remember exposing a dense negative for one hour to get an useable result). Scanners should in theory be more limited, but appear to be pretty robust to dense films as well - the picture in the link below was exposed for the shadows and scanned with my 350Euro Quato scanner: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/architecture/111460-hamburg-city-hall-taken-subway-staircase.html Should I ever expose a negative too dense for my scanner; I would try the limits of my lab's Noritsu or Imacon... (2nd edit) a slight warning - the span between "no structure" and "black" can be surprisingly small for slide film... The M3 is a wonderful tool - enjoy it Stefan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 1, 2010 Posted March 1, 2010 Hi StS, Take a look here How do I convert new light meter numbers into M3 dial numbers?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Xmas Posted March 1, 2010 Share #22 Posted March 1, 2010 Hi That is excellent advice, if you were shooting Kodachromes for projection then you might need to be more careful and calibrate, the meter, the shutter, etc. or bracket, if the situation allows.But the biggest variable is probably the subject, a reflective reading assumes the subject is an average subject as does an incident reading, each can be seduced... The ZM lenses are click stopped at 1/3 stop intervals If you are good at sums in head you can work at 1/3 stop compensation, only meaningful for a calibrated shutter, the M shutter is more reliable not (rather less) calibrated, except for M7... If you look at a Weston meter (most) are calibrated in 1/3 stop stops and speeds, so you dont need to do any sums, it will have all your shutter speeds on the scale. There is a slight difference between the B&W film and the color, the B&W has a 1.25 stop safety factor built in to protect against a systemic error, it was 2.5 stops until about 1961... XP2 or similar likes over exposure, up to a point, when printing ot scanning is difficult, oodles of latitude. But the big effect is you need to understand how the meter works if you need to expose difficult subjects. Sorry Noel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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