Old Leicas and guessing exposure...

[frogfish]

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vor 20 Minuten schrieb 250swb:

Leica cameras do not 'wear' and need servicing as much as some people imagine, but I can't imagine why anybody would 'guess' the exposure in a situation where somebody is paying you for doing a competent job. You know how much a hand held meter costs? You shouldn't be metering every shot, just as the light changes, and if you can't see when the light changes you need an auto camera.

if its sunny, then its f16... no meter needed for that. The rest goes from there.

we make ourselves to depend on technical features. If you start this route you can easily say, every pro need a modern mirrorless camera, because what you see is what you get. Only by this you can make sure that every exposure is exactly where you want it to be.

 

heiko

[earleygallery]

Photography is all about light. A light meter reads the light, more consistently and accurately than our own eyes.

Sunny 16 is fine in decent light and with film with a wide latitude. I can guess a lot of the time. 

Sometimes though even I prefer to rely on an accurate reading from a reliable meter. Especially incident readings in tricky conditions. 

 

 

[Ko.Fe.]

3 hours ago, 250swb said:

Leica cameras do not 'wear' and need servicing as much as some people imagine, but I can't imagine why anybody would 'guess' the exposure in a situation where somebody is paying you for doing a competent job. You know how much a hand held meter costs? You shouldn't be metering every shot, just as the light changes, and if you can't see when the light changes you need an auto camera.

Edited. Just LOL  

Edited May 18, 2019 by Ko.Fe.

[earleygallery]

2 hours ago, frogfish said:

if its sunny, then its f16... no meter needed for that. The rest goes from there.

we make ourselves to depend on technical features. If you start this route you can easily say, every pro need a modern mirrorless camera, because what you see is what you get. Only by this you can make sure that every exposure is exactly where you want it to be.

 

heiko

Only that Sunny 16 isn’t consistent. In most of the UK it’s more like Sunny 11.

You started a thread about light metering but don’t want to hear anything that doesn’t reinforce your own opinion on the matter.

As long as your clients are happy I guess that’s OK. Carry on.

[Jeff S]

The first posted pic is supposed to impress regarding exposure?

Jeff

[Ko.Fe.]

32 minutes ago, earleygallery said:

Only that Sunny 16 isn’t consistent. In most of the UK it’s more like Sunny 11.

You started a thread about light metering but don’t want to hear anything that doesn’t reinforce your own opinion on the matter.

As long as your clients are happy I guess that’s OK. Carry on.

Everyone could share their opinion. None has to agree.

S16 is just common name for exposure rules, btw. If person is getting paid for not always perfect exposures what is the point to argue?

Have you seen Winogrand work, prints? Not always perfect exposures are on the display around the world. But how many knows Winogrand and how many knows anyone from LUF where wisdom of using exposure meter for every shot is common?

Not GW, nor HCB used exposure meter for every shot. Yet, they used meterless Ms...

[frogfish]

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vor 56 Minuten schrieb earleygallery:

Only that Sunny 16 isn’t consistent. In most of the UK it’s more like Sunny 11.

You started a thread about light metering but don’t want to hear anything that doesn’t reinforce your own opinion on the matter.

As long as your clients are happy I guess that’s OK. Carry on.

Oh, I want to hear it, but I think I do not necessarily have to agree, right?

 

heiko

[frogfish]

vor 28 Minuten schrieb Jeff S:

The first posted pic is supposed to impress regarding exposure?

Jeff

I think we all agree here that there is not anything like "correct" exposure. It lies always in the eyes of the creator.
My work is not about the zone system or that you still "need" to see all the details in the darks and in the highlight of an image.

I tell stories, I capture moments, I create images that provoke emotions... for that my "guessing" is good enough. 
My experience is that the more one is concentrated on "perfect" technic and the "best possible" quality the more boring the images are...

 

heiko

[Mute-on]

I my view, there is no doubt that the M2 (or M3) is the best value meterless Leica M available today. Of course you can get the M-A at 5x the price, but that isn’t economical or even affordable for everyone. Variants of the M4 are a different proposition entirely  

Of MP, M4 and M2, my M2 easily feels the most accurately and robustly engineered. In any event, if it works for you, then that’s all that matters. 

As for exposure, who cares what anyone other than your clients thinks. Your job is to make your clients happy by meeting or exceeding their expectations. If you’ve done that, you’ve succeeded admirably. 

You have your own unique style, Heiko. Those who like it will pay for it and be happy. Those who don’t will go elsewhere. Everything else is just white noise. 

[Jeff S]

Sure, and the viewer is similarly entitled to an opinion for him/herself.  And in this case, we were invited to the party.  

Jeff

[frogfish]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb Jeff S:

Sure, and the viewer is similarly entitled to an opinion for him/herself.  And in this case, we were invited to the party.  

Jeff

Of course 🙂

thats why we are here, right?

 

heiko

[spydrxx]

These days I only shoot a few times each month so I occasionally drag out the light meter to basically establish my starting point or confirm that my exposure opinion matches what the meter measures, and then I'm good to go meterless the rest of the day or week. I do agree that being really familiar with the film latitude one uses, and intimately comfortable with aperture/shutter speed combinations in various lighting scenarios speeds things up. Conceptually I don't believe in "perfect exposure" due to film latitude and personal opinion of what constitutes the perfect exposure except when one is able to control all the variables in a static setting, even then most of us don't consider ALL the variables, because many are too inconsequential...the one I most frequently disregard is spectral sensitivity across the spectrum of colors in my subject when I'm shooting B&W films.

[earleygallery]

18 hours ago, frogfish said:

lucky me that I do not need to ask for apology.

What question?

 

heiko

You said you wondered if you really need a light meter. That’s what I responded to. 

Obviously what you do is entirely up to you. 

I can guess exposure in most cases but I still like to have a meter. 

[250swb]

On 5/19/2019 at 1:03 AM, Ko.Fe. said:

Not GW, nor HCB used exposure meter for every shot. Yet, they used meterless Ms...

Yet there is a massive difference between a guess and knowledge. WG and HCB didn't shoot thousands of rolls a year to practice their exposure techniques. They may have done away with a meter, but they hadn't done away with knowledge. In their early careers they learned to see the subtle differences in light recorded by a meter, they remembered this from shooting a lot of film and making a lot of meter readings, so it's not guesswork.

I suppose each and every film photographer using a manual camera has grabbed a shot because the moment wouldn't happen again, only to find he should have changed the exposure if he'd had time. This also is not guessing the exposure because the bottom line is that the photograph may be good, but the good photographer can still recognise when it is hideously over exposed, they know why it is over exposed, and they know what to do about it in future so they don't have to make any further excuses.

[david strachan]

Yes, i find "guess" the wrong word for sunny sixteen...always irritates me.  I think estimate or calculate are better words to arrive at exposure setting.

As Steve says it does take some experience to get accurate...otherwise it is just a useless guess.

 

...

[Ko.Fe.]

9 hours ago, 250swb said:

Yet there is a massive difference between a guess and knowledge. WG and HCB didn't shoot thousands of rolls a year to practice their exposure techniques. They may have done away with a meter, but they hadn't done away with knowledge. In their early careers they learned to see the subtle differences in light recorded by a meter, they remembered this from shooting a lot of film and making a lot of meter readings, so it's not guesswork.

I suppose each and every film photographer using a manual camera has grabbed a shot because the moment wouldn't happen again, only to find he should have changed the exposure if he'd had time. This also is not guessing the exposure because the bottom line is that the photograph may be good, but the good photographer can still recognise when it is hideously over exposed, they know why it is over exposed, and they know what to do about it in future so they don't have to make any further excuses.

Yes...

I took tens of thousand exposures in full manual mode, before I tossed light meter.

[oldwino]

On 5/31/2019 at 12:39 AM, david strachan said:

Yes, i find "guess" the wrong word for sunny sixteen...always irritates me.  I think estimate or calculate are better words to arrive at exposure setting.

As Steve says it does take some experience to get accurate...otherwise it is just a useless guess.

 

...

Guesstimate?

[evikne]

I shot only manually for about ten years with Canon, together with spot metering. I could just point the middle of the viewfinder anywhere in the scene (dark, light or middle gray), and then set the exposure to match this. To me, this was the most natural way to use the camera, always with predictable and steady results.

When I migrated to Leica two and a half years ago (M9 and now M10), I found the metering too inaccurate for this method, so I've started to just ignore the metering suggestions (red arrows and bullet) in the viewfinder and trust my experience. I think of it as an enjoyable challenge to myself. And this works very well. Because I love to shoot at wide apertures, I use my own "reverse sunny sixteen", which is based on the widest aperture instead of the narrowest. This way I get away with fewer calculations. My back screen is turned off, but I have the possibility to take a look if I'm in doubt, and I can eventually make some adjustments before the next shot. But my next Leica will probably be a screenless M11-D or something. I'm no professional, so I can live with the results if I go wrong. My photography is just for fun, and this is the way I like to do it.

[frogfish]

Yeah, „guess“ might be wrong word.

I used to shoot 70.000 images per year, the last 5 years. In manual mode.

With more experience this slowed down now to about 30.000.

 

heiko

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by frogfish
typo

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[Jon Glass]

Man - this technology stuff is a tough consideration. 

I switched to film because I liked how it slowed me down and forced me to consider my shots more before taking them...I was  okay losing auto-focus because again, I felt that the deliberate nature of manual focusing engaged me more as a photographer and I could see how it benefited the output of my photos.  Same with manually setting aperture, using primes instead of zooms, and being constrained to a specific film speed - these considerations, rather than being limitations, provided a better framework for me to be creative.

Interestingly, I feel the exact opposite way about eliminating the in-camera light meter.  Some of this is almost certainly because I have never shot full-time without one and thus have some apprehension, and I can acknowledge that...but even after reading this thread and really considering it, I have to believe that the repeatability and objectivity of an in-camera light meter is going to ultimately be more accurate than my subjective perceptions, even if I put in years of practice.  I think the meter really is one of those technology leaps that complements a human deficiency (the inherent variability of our visual perception in changing light environments).  It's nice to know I can operate without a meter using an informed and structured way to estimate light, but I don't think I will ever choose to do so when there is a meter available.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Jon Glass