Shooting black and White M7 camera settings

[erl]

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You probably know most of this stuff already if you shot film in an F6. It's just a matter of adjusting to the fact that the M7 meter is a heavily center-weighted semi-spot meter, rather than a matrix meter that claims to think for you, even if it doesn't.

Permit me to be pedantic here.

 

The M6/7 meter is NOT centre weighted, it is centre specific. Hence the term 'fat spot'. There is NO metering of the area surrounding the white spot. IMO this makes for an accurate metering technique in many situations, whilst employing a relatively simple meter system. It largely avoids bright sky areas (but you must still be aware of them) and ignores dark peripheral areas as frequently found in stage and theatre situations.

[budrichard]

I would suggest a course in B&W analog photography, not HOW to take pictures but why emulsions, exposure and development accomplish what your final goal is.

Tri-X and indeed any B&W emulsion will be exposed at different indices depending on the brightness range of a scene and developed according to those parameters.

I use a roll of B&W at only one index and one development. You cannot for optimum results photograph scenes of differing brightness ranges at one index and one development time.

In leu of that knowledge, expose at 400 and develop normally.-Dick

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[stevesurf]

Permit me to be pedantic here.

 

The M6/7 meter is NOT centre weighted, it is centre specific. Hence the term 'fat spot'. There is NO metering of the area surrounding the white spot. IMO this makes for an accurate metering technique in many situations, whilst employing a relatively simple meter system. It largely avoids bright sky areas (but you must still be aware of them) and ignores dark peripheral areas as frequently found in stage and theatre situations.

 

Not to get too OT, but I wanted to share one of the illustrations in the excellent reference book, "Leica M Advanced Photo School" Here, the metering patterns are shown as a function of the bright-line VF frames:

 

 

This really nice reference is available at Amazon and has information about metering, filters and light control in BW and color photography.

[Nick_S]

Permit me to be pedantic here.

 

The M6/7 meter is NOT centre weighted, it is centre specific. Hence the term 'fat spot'.

...

This large, but specific, central metering area is what Leica referred to as selective metering.

 

There is a nice graph with the sensitivity pattern of the M9 and the correspondng area of the M6 superimposed in this thread:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/226355-m9-metering-pattern.html

 

The actual plot is this one:

http://www.photoplaza.nl/lindolfi/m9andm6sens.png

 

Nick

Edited April 13, 2014 by Nick_S

[erl]

Thanks for that Nick. The expression 'Fat Spot' is one I coined from working many years with a Hasselblad 203FE which meters in the same way. I guess I prefer if from a sense of familiarity.

[Guest Ansel_Adams]

I would shoot at box speed for a while and not use any filters. Get to know the camera and enjoy yourself.

[philipus]

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Not to get too OT, but I wanted to share one of the illustrations in the excellent reference book, "Leica M Advanced Photo School" Here, the metering patterns are shown as a function of the bright-line VF frames

 

Thanks for referring to that book, Steve, it's a really good book.

 

I just wanted to note that this diagram is also in the M6 and M6TTL manuals. It is also in the M7 manual though the illustrations are slightly different.

 

What the M7 manual lacks, however, are the examples of more or less tricky metering situations which are found in the M6/TTL manuals (it does have some such information, but not as much). I have found these examples helpful particularly in conjunction with the information about how the metering area corresponds to the size of the relevant focal length frame.

 

Here's the M6 manual (esp. pp 23 onwards for the examples), here's the TTL manual (pp 30 onwards for the examples) and here's the M7 manual (around p 102 onwards).

 

Cheers

Philip

[Berth]

Thanks for referring to that book, Steve, it's a really good book.

 

I just wanted to note that this diagram is also in the M6 and M6TTL manuals. It is also in the M7 manual though the illustrations are slightly different.

 

What the M7 manual lacks, however, are the examples of more or less tricky metering situations which are found in the M6/TTL manuals (it does have some such information, but not as much). I have found these examples helpful particularly in conjunction with the information about how the metering area corresponds to the size of the relevant focal length frame.

 

Here's the M6 manual (esp. pp 23 onwards for the examples), here's the TTL manual (pp 30 onwards for the examples) and here's the M7 manual (around p 102 onwards).

 

Cheers

Philip

 

 

Now that's really useful, I should have paid more attention to my own manuals.

[VictoriaC]

Thank you for all the fabulous information being shared on this thread. The diagrams were very illuminating too, pardon the pun ;-)