View Full Version : Teach me how to get rid of the light meter
Since I became member of RFF, I came across with many people stating the don't use or seldom use their light meter.
Could you tell your personal story about it, how did you come to know your technique, and propose me a method about how to learn it.
(I know the sunny rule, what's beyond ?)
Many thanks
Ruben
Forty and more years ago I worked without a meter because I had none. Now, I find myself reaching for my meter even in blazing sunlight. Technology chews up the brain, someone said.
I don't know if this can help. It helped me...
http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm
And the lesson for me is ? ......
Well i've never used a light meter, simply because i never had one and i didn't want to spend my money to get one, i've just started shooting and observing, the sunny 16 rule works, and then there's your sense for the light(i am not gonna say i've a great sense) but i am sure using a light meter for a while, you know some default sets, you are not gonna be as accurate but it's gonna work.
Ruben, if you take plenty of pictures in different lighting and circumstances, soon you should have the different exposures memorised. A good memory and a good eye can come pretty close to an exposure meter.
Film dino
06-14-2007, 00:35
I quite often don't meter under known lighting conditions. Most of my documentary shots are made under identical & even lighting all the time- teaching labs & classrooms, where i already know the exposure for ISO 320 (my rating for XP2)
ClaremontPhoto
06-14-2007, 00:39
Plan A: I look out the window and estimate the light. Then I meter the light and discover how accurate I was. Then I set up the camera and go out and make photos without fiddling with the settings: the light does not change every three seconds.
Plan B: Some days I put the camera on automatic.
It helps that I stick with two basic films both ISO 100.
The big eye opener for me was that most single use cameras work with a fixed ca. f11 and 1/60.
That, and that I once forgot to take the lightmeter along with my meterless 6x6. So, remembring the SUC thing, I set 1/125 and f8, and every picture proved properly exposed..
manfromh
06-14-2007, 00:41
I have a lightmeter, but I dont think its accurate, so i dont use it. The first time I picked up a manual RF, I started using the sunny 16 method. Yeah, I sucked at first, but its actualy quite easy to guesstimate in any light. If I shoot indoors and the only light is coming from the window, I think what exposure I would choose if I was outside and then open up a bit until it feels right.
Last time I shot, I got about 85% of the exposures correct.
Bobfrance
06-14-2007, 00:42
Lately I've been trying to pre-empt the light meter on my Fuji GS645. I set the aperture and film speed according to my best guess then check it against the light meter reading. I hope, over time, to train myself for better accuracy.
laptoprob
06-14-2007, 00:49
Recently I started checking out shady 5,6. 3 stops down from sunny 16. That helps a lot in judging when shade is a little brighter but no sun yet, for example.
Recently I started checking out shady 5,6. 3 stops down from sunny 16. That helps a lot in judging when shade is a little brighter but no sun yet, for example.
In the open shade is the weirdest thing ever.
I find that in the open shade it's always f5.6.. It's f5.6 when the sun is brightly shining, and it's also f5.6 when it's overcast. I can only guess that when it's overcast, the clouds act as a giant fill-in reflector.
Forty and more years ago I worked without a meter because I had none. Now, I find myself reaching for my meter even in blazing sunlight. Technology chews up the brain, someone said.
Ditto…exactly
Ruben, since my venture into RF, I found zone system approach (once grasped) helps tremendously. I learnt that few years back specifically to utilize the power of spot metering (which requires manual compensation in most cases to obtain working exposure). Now, once getting deeply in RF I used to utilize kind of large "spot metering" of my M6 (which is very precise) and then compensate manually judging the necessary adjustment based on my zone estimation. From my experience it works quite reliable even with slides (I used to shoot Sensia) once more or less comprehended (just some experience and understanding, no PhD degree required...:-) ) in virtually any lighting situation.
However, few montsh after acquiring my RF, I picked an incident meter (Polaris digital) just to make easier on me for quick work. Once on outings I keep it with me and use routinely and find it very easy and reliable (except and the lighting changes drastically and fast which is rare situations). Having said that, incident meter usage combined with Sunny-16 rule helps me to develop an intuitive exposure judgement skills. I just learnt few Sunny-16 standard situations (open sun, lightly clouded sun, clouded sky and open shade such as forest for instance or similar) and figure the intuition can be developed quite reliably. Often I guess the exposure evaluating the skyes and type of lighting and then reach for my incident meter to check my guestimate. I found with more and more experience I'b able to nail the exposure quite precisely in many cases, ot at least be within hlaf to 1 stop from the correct one.
In more difficult situations I aim with my M6's metering combined with my zone judgement, when incident is not appropriate.
Bottom line: IMHO, zone system approach + Sunny-16 multiplied by experience are your best friends....
vicmortelmans
06-14-2007, 02:16
For outdoors, only two things to remember: sunny 16 and shady 5.6.
Send out your fully-electronic SLR for a thorough CLA-job abroad and 'loose' the batteries from your old-school SLR or RF.
At first, it may be a good idea to bring along a hand-held light meter, so you can occasionally get confirmation that sunny 16 and shady 5.6 do work.
Obviously, you won't be happy during dawn or sunset or on a walk in the woods... but then again, it's just a couple of stops below shady 5.6.
Groeten,
Vic
I'd like to echo that. Sunny 16, shady 5,6, a little bit of calculation about what these f-stops really mean, and experience for some trickier lighting conditions.
The most useful thing for me was a table of lighting situations, listing how many f-stops down from f/16 they were. And I spent some time running around with a lightmeter, occasionally looking somewhere, estimating things in my head and then crosschecking. For a time I used to take a lot of pictures in Berlin's subway system with my Kiev, and there once I found out that f/2.8 and 1/30 was OK for the film I use, I could stop using a lightmeter and just fire away, give or take the occasional stop if a station was particularly well or badly lit. Voilà, experience value.
For example, here I shoot XP2 at 250 ASA; the film is very tolerant to overexposure, so in blazing sunlight I normally shoot at 1/250 and f/11 to f/16, in the shade I shoot it at 1/60 and f/8, and underground I shoot at 1/30 and f/2.8 where applicable from Berlin experience. I've had a couple of underexposed prints from interior scenes on the market or from pictures taken at dawn, but then I'm still learning :)
IMHO, you don't need a meter outdoors in daylight, once you have a little experience. In twilight, at night, indoors, and in any unusual lighting conditions I really believe one needs a meter for reliable results. I do, anyway.
On a second thought, i seriously spend so much time experimenting with exposures more than actually taking photos i wanted, but it was satisfactory(on the rolls count,it's quite the opposite), after my first roll, some photos could be under or over exposed or need some photoshop work but it's never blown...Counting on your senses makes you feel skilled even if you make mistakes...
Lately i've been satisfied with the fact of not having to think twice before setting an exposure value, almost... It's not difficult to get rid of the meter luxury, only getting over the thought it'd be 1000 times easier if you use it...
bmattock
06-14-2007, 03:32
This should probably be a separate post, but I'll reply as briefly as I can.
First, there is a common misconception that light meters tell us 'correct exposure'.
They do nothing of the sort.
First, because there is no such thing as an objective 'correct exposure' and second, because all they do is measure the light that strikes their sensor and report that value.
The fancier meters built into many cameras nowadays take light measurements from one or more points in a scene and apply canned logic to determine what is most likely to be a 'correct exposure' in many common cases.
This may or may not be what the photographer intends for any given photograph. And 'correct exposure' is the exposure that a photographer intends, nothing more and nothing less. We may critique a photograph and comment that it is 'over exposed' or 'under exposed' and we are referring to a commonly-accepted standard for exposure - in most cases, we're right. But that does not mean the photographer did not intend exactly the result achieved, in which case the exposure is correct.
So the meter without the human brain, coupled with an understanding of what exposure actually is, is useless.
However, the human brain, coupled with the human eye, is easily misled and lied to by the environment. It is part of our design to average, compensate, and make allowances. We can't determine proper exposure with our eyes alone. Those who believe they can are relying on a life's experiences with having guessed correctly more often than not, coupled with film's usual latitude that allows for some errors.
A properly-functioning light meter can inform me of what the correct exposure for middle-tone grey would be for the amount of light currently falling on the light sensor of the meter. It is up to me to make sure the light I want to measure is the light falling on that meter, and to interpret what that means in terms of the exposure I intend for that photograph.
Do not be a slave to the meter. But do not try to dig a hole without a shovel, either. Shovels are good tools; use them. Shovels without human brains to guide them are useless as well, so learn what exposure means.
It is my belief that proper exposure (meaning the exposure you intend, to give the effect you wish) is the least understood aspect of mastering photography.
We learn to focus. We learn to set shutter speed and f-stop to match a mechanical reading given by a light meter or a rule of thumb, and it will be 'correct' in the sense that the exposure will be more-or-less acceptable in most cases. Some of us go beyond that to learn composition, and some fewer learn the proper use of focus, shutter speed, and depth-of-field to obtain the effects they are after. A few of us learn the proper use of light modifiers such as filters and artificial light. We learn which films to use and when, what effects they give, and even darkroom technology or more lately, computer technology. Those who pursue large-format photography also try to learn the ways in which a photograph can be altered and controlled through the use of camera movements.
But few of us take the time to learn what exposure means and how it can be controlled under our will to give an effect we desire. We are either slaves to the light meter, or we are slavish disciples of Ansel Adams' Zone System; one is brain-dead and the other is soulless. Both consider proper exposure to be an objective standard that can be reached for any given scene, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Saying "I wish to learn photography without a light meter" is like saying you wish to learn orienteering without a compass. You may survive the wilderness, but it will be by luck as much as by skill, and for what purpose if you had a compass in your rucksack all the time?
alan davus
06-14-2007, 03:39
Why? It's like driving a car and saying I won't use the guage that tells me how much petrol is left. I'll just learn to approximate how far I've travelled, at what speed and 85% of the time I won't run out of juice.
BJ Bignell
06-14-2007, 03:50
Bill: An interesting and complete response. I agree that careful attention to exposure is important for a photograph of excellent quality, but I'm sure that you can agree that there are times when an "adequate" exposure is appropriate for a certain situation. It's nice to see you back in the community.
Ruben: I have a simple idea, which I haven't tried but seems like it might work. Use a meterless camera (or take out the batteries) and carry a handheld meter in your camera bag. When you arrive at your shooting location, make an educated exposure judgement based on past experience/sunny 16/etc. Then, take out the meter and verify it. Learn from the difference between your exposure and the recommended exposure. Eventually, you'll get good enough that the process of taking out the meter will become tiresome, and you will just start shooting. As Bill suggested, the exposures may not be ideal, but in most situations you should find them correct enough that the scene is both recognisable and printable.
This might help you. I forget where I copied it from.
SUNNY 16- On a bright sunny day, set your aperture on 16 and your shutter speed as close as possible to your films ISO rating. This will produce properly exposed pictures with all films and all film speed ratings.
F Stop Light Shadow
Conditions Detail
F16 Sunny Distinct
F11 Slight Overcast Soft around edges
F8 Overcast Barely visible
F5.6 Heavy Overcast No Shadows
ClaremontPhoto
06-14-2007, 04:25
Ruben knows sunny 16. He said so already in the original post.
He wants to know how we apply it, and how we came to learn it.
The thing with Sunny 16, IME, is that when you first start using it, you keep wanting to check it against a "real" meter reading, because you think it can't possibly be that straightforward. I found that as soon as I stopped doing that, and just went with it, with a bit of judgment to tweak in trickier conditions, my unmetered exposures nearly always came out well enough, with b&w film at least. After all, Sunny 16 is a popular rule because, in practice, many people have found it usually works.
I still use a meter most of the time, but I don't re-meter for every shot, unless the light is changing a lot or I'm shooting something that I think warrants special attention, but I use Sunny 16 as the starting point for most of my judgments about likely exposure.
Ian
Bill, intriguing anology, that compass thing..
In the same way lightmeters have evolved from a simple needle to multi-segment evaluative devices, compasses have morphed into the sat-navs you find on the dash in your car. But none of that matters if you don't first learn where you wanna go..
bmattock
06-14-2007, 05:27
Bill: An interesting and complete response. I agree that careful attention to exposure is important for a photograph of excellent quality, but I'm sure that you can agree that there are times when an "adequate" exposure is appropriate for a certain situation. It's nice to see you back in the community.
When exposure is not critical, or when one does not wish to take creative control, using auto-exposure or relying upon Sunny 16, etc, may well be good enough. Same can be said for auto-focus, and for the same reason - it is usually 'good enough' for many situations. I would not expect everyone to want to take complete control over their exposure for every photograph they take - I don't.
However, even though I agree that one does not need to rely on a map for every drive in the country, neither should one eschew maps as a reference and choose instead to use dead reckoning as a method likely to give good or consistant results. "That a ways" as a set of directions is great in movies, but it can make one late for appointments.
Therefore, I rely on meters, either through auto-exposure or through manual control, for my photography whenever I can, which is nearly always. When I cannot, I don't fret it. But I would not intentionally turn off my meter and attempt to guess correct exposure as a photographic method.
If one absolutely had to guess exposure and wanted to become good at guestimating, I'd refer to the method used before electric/electronic methods were available - the extinction meter.
http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/index-frameset.html?lightmeters-classic.html~mainFrame
http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm
dazedgonebye
06-14-2007, 05:32
If it's a really nice light meter, you could just send it to me. :D
Meterless old cameras drove me to use Sunny 16. I soon found that Sunny 22 is more like it (move to Arizona and see if I'm not right on that one).
The lesson hasn't eliminated my dependence on meters, but it has loosened me up quite a bit. I don't worry about it like I used to.
bmattock
06-14-2007, 05:35
Bill, intriguing anology, that compass thing..
In the same way lightmeters have evolved from a simple needle to multi-segment evaluative devices, compasses have morphed into the sat-navs you find on the dash in your car. But none of that matters if you don't first learn where you wanna go..
Taking creative control over any aspect of your photography assumes two things. First, that you have some idea what it is you are attempting to achieve. And two, that you have some notion how this can be done.
A compass is a very useful tool, but it is pretty valueless if a person does not know how to employ it. That "it points north" is not that useful, although it is better than nothing.
Many of us have learned to take creative control over some aspects of our photography - rangefinder photographers in general are better informed and have made some intentional choices that require them to know more about their camera and about photography than simply pointing and shooting.
So, many of us are quite aware of why and when you might want to use selective focus techniques, for example. The average happy-snapper would never consider such things, nor do they really mind that their portrait backgrounds are in sharp focus and are thus distracting. Fine for them.
We take control of focus, we take control of composition, we intentionally choose the tools we are going to use based upon the type of photography we wish to engage in. Exposure is simply another aspect of photography that we can take control of if we wish, and as we wish. For some reason, very few of us venture into this realm of creative control - which surprises me somewhat, because the results can be dramatic and can allow one to really break from the pack in many ways. I suspect it may be due to the evil legacy of the Zone system tyranny.
If it's a really nice light meter, you could just send it to me. :D
Meterless old cameras drove me to use Sunny 16. I soon found that Sunny 22 is more like it (move to Arizona and see if I'm not right on that one).
The lesson hasn't eliminated my dependence on meters, but it has loosened me up quite a bit. I don't worry about it like I used to.
Shady 5.6 is more like shady F4 in the British winter. If you have a good lightmeter use it. I'm familiar with sunny16 etc. but use it as a guide only plus it only works if iso and shutter speed exactly tally i.e. if you use 100 film the correct setting for sunny weather is 1/125 and F11 2/3 - knowing this will save a lot of confusion.
Roger Vadim
06-14-2007, 06:08
honestly, I don't really understand all the Leica affinicados who carry around an extremely sophisticated camera and are so keen on CLA them every half year or so and then don't take a light meter...
I am glad my well working Kiev 4s meter is working (well, in its own way...) and I'd love to have a little digisix for the Zorki and Fed. I even thaught of customising the Zorki 4 with a digital (spot) light meter... would be fun. but maybe all that is because i am so bad in math and just love to trust machines...
best, Michael
Back in the old days...when Kodak film ruled the western world and few of us had ever heard of Ilford and Fuji was the nickname for a mountain in Japan...judging exposure was a piece of cake. You used Kodak film...a given...and in each box of film was a data sheet. On one side of the data sheet were suggestions on processing the film in various EKCO chemicals.
On the other side of the data sheet was the good stuff: pictograms showing suggested exposure settings for shade, cloudy skies, sunny skies and beach/snow conditions. There was even a description of how shadows looked under the described lighting...hazy, distinct, etc.
If you followed Kodak's suggestions you shot a well-exposed roll of film. After a dozen times, you'd committed the settings to memory and you could go out with your Leica/Voightlander/Agfa/Zeiss Ikon/Contax and shoot away, confident that you were bringing home usable negatives.
That's how I learned "Sunny 16" and, I expect, the way most of us over 50 on the forum did.
dc3
I've never delved into the history of light meters. But I'm not sure they were especially accurate until the late '50s, early '60s, especially in low light. Most of the classic images from the RF era were taken without a light meter. Even early Kodachrome users, shooting ISO 10 in the 1950s, were largely working without light meters.
I remember reading an interview long ago with Cartier-Bresson in which the interviewer asked him to estimate exposures in several scenes in the room. Cartier-Bresson gave correct responses, which the interviewer verified with an incident meter.
If you learn to work without a meter, then that's one less piece of equipment getting in the way between you and the image you're trying to create.
mervynyan
06-14-2007, 07:20
the thing is, there is no reason not to use a meter. it doesn't prove a thing if you don't use it. if you go out and shoot slides, can anyone really get it right the first try?
in the old days the meter was simple, now with all the advanced tech, almost any meter can do 1/10 stop. why not get a cheap one, do few readings, that you have confident at first try, stop guessing.
Ruben knows sunny 16. He said so already in the original post.
He wants to know how we apply it, and how we came to learn it.
The way I see it, if you understand the principle, you can use it. I have a VCII that I adore, but I often forget to pack it.
Because I panic when confronted with logic and "if/then"s, I feed my Autocord - and my Great Wall - with Reala 100 (I love colour), set the shutterspeed to 1/125, and progress from there. It's an instinctive thing ("Oh! Little Cloud! f11!") but it works. Ten images out of twelve are perfectly-exposed.
And the other two were taken indoors. I should know better.
LazyHammock
06-14-2007, 07:34
I'm trying to teach myself to be less reliant on a meter for the simpler lighting scenarios. I'm using an M3 and it is nice not to have the clutter of LEDs in the viewfinder. I carry a Sekonic L-208 and periodically check light in full sun, full shade, partial shade. I'm finding this approach makes me think more about the lighting. In more complex lighting situations I will make my best guess then check with the meter. I don't see myself going completely meter-free but it is nice to be back to basics. I should add that I use b+w print film so the latitude masks most of my errors!
Cheers,
Nick
Wrap well and post to address I'll PM.
Noel
Some other milestones I've memorized for 400 speed film besides sunny 16 and shady 5.6:
institutional/office flourescent lighting: 1/60, f4
subject lit by windowlight during the day: 1/60, f4
home interior at night, lit by room lamps: 1/30, f2
shadowfox
06-14-2007, 08:47
Ruben knows sunny 16. He said so already in the original post.
That's the problem, Ruben *knows* sunny 16, but apparently he hasn't use it yet, have you, Ruben?
I *learned* and *read* and *knew* about the Sunny-16 rule until my face is blue, but I was none the wiser :bang:
Until that fateful day that I forgot to load a battery on my OM-1 and I was forced to actually *use* it. And I've never been so glad I try it. Now I'm hooked :)
Sunny-16 is a guide, everything else beyond it is relative offset that your brain and experience teaches you. It's fun, just do it several times, only then, reading tips from people who has done it a lot will make sense.
How's this for getting to the point? :D
I agree with your points but please don't call Ansel Adams and the zone system soulless. Have you read his books? I found it to be anything but soulless and, in fact, it was a method to do visualizations with exactly the kind of creative work you're talking about.
I agree that the art of photography is knowing when to over-expose and underexpose according to one's "vision" for the scene. To do this properly you need to know what the average metering of a scene is according to a meter or the sunny 16 rules.
Thanks for all the information, especially Frank's. I've found it quite useful!
This should probably be a separate post, but I'll reply as briefly as I can.
First, there is a common misconception that light meters tell us 'correct exposure'.
They do nothing of the sort.
First, because there is no such thing as an objective 'correct exposure' and second, because all they do is measure the light that strikes their sensor and report that value.
The fancier meters built into many cameras nowadays take light measurements from one or more points in a scene and apply canned logic to determine what is most likely to be a 'correct exposure' in many common cases.
This may or may not be what the photographer intends for any given photograph. And 'correct exposure' is the exposure that a photographer intends, nothing more and nothing less. We may critique a photograph and comment that it is 'over exposed' or 'under exposed' and we are referring to a commonly-accepted standard for exposure - in most cases, we're right. But that does not mean the photographer did not intend exactly the result achieved, in which case the exposure is correct.
So the meter without the human brain, coupled with an understanding of what exposure actually is, is useless.
However, the human brain, coupled with the human eye, is easily misled and lied to by the environment. It is part of our design to average, compensate, and make allowances. We can't determine proper exposure with our eyes alone. Those who believe they can are relying on a life's experiences with having guessed correctly more often than not, coupled with film's usual latitude that allows for some errors.
A properly-functioning light meter can inform me of what the correct exposure for middle-tone grey would be for the amount of light currently falling on the light sensor of the meter. It is up to me to make sure the light I want to measure is the light falling on that meter, and to interpret what that means in terms of the exposure I intend for that photograph.
Do not be a slave to the meter. But do not try to dig a hole without a shovel, either. Shovels are good tools; use them. Shovels without human brains to guide them are useless as well, so learn what exposure means.
It is my belief that proper exposure (meaning the exposure you intend, to give the effect you wish) is the least understood aspect of mastering photography.
We learn to focus. We learn to set shutter speed and f-stop to match a mechanical reading given by a light meter or a rule of thumb, and it will be 'correct' in the sense that the exposure will be more-or-less acceptable in most cases. Some of us go beyond that to learn composition, and some fewer learn the proper use of focus, shutter speed, and depth-of-field to obtain the effects they are after. A few of us learn the proper use of light modifiers such as filters and artificial light. We learn which films to use and when, what effects they give, and even darkroom technology or more lately, computer technology. Those who pursue large-format photography also try to learn the ways in which a photograph can be altered and controlled through the use of camera movements.
But few of us take the time to learn what exposure means and how it can be controlled under our will to give an effect we desire. We are either slaves to the light meter, or we are slavish disciples of Ansel Adams' Zone System; one is brain-dead and the other is soulless. Both consider proper exposure to be an objective standard that can be reached for any given scene, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Saying "I wish to learn photography without a light meter" is like saying you wish to learn orienteering without a compass. You may survive the wilderness, but it will be by luck as much as by skill, and for what purpose if you had a compass in your rucksack all the time?
Hi folks,
Just now I come home from my job, where I had the opportunity to random glance about this thread, which seems to have got a great input of ideas and thinking.
So I cannot make any commentary since i would like rather to study each post with comfort.
I want just to say that may be I have been ambiguous in expressing myself. I don't want to stop using light meters. What I want is not loosing a picture for the lack of time to take it out, read etc. This is a big difference. I want to e x t e n d my knowledge about exposure, not narrow it.
In the streets (or better said - out of home) I have found two types of situations in which a reasonable sense of light level was decisive for having the pic or not. One as said, is due to movement or better said a very short lasting photographic situation. The other has been at instances of very close distance, with somewhat still people, in situations I wanted to 'shoot from the hip', conspicuously. I think it was Barret (Amateriat) who once wrote about a situation in which he was forced to use his "best educated (exposure) guess", a sentence keeping me thinking about.
Many thanks for all the wonderfull contributions, providing a lot to think about !
And yes, where are the Contax/Leica/FSU aficionados without meter in their cameras ?
Ruben
PS
Hi Sirius, our pal bmattock is a man of strong opinions, and you sound to be too, just in the opposite direction at this specific case. I too am a man of strong opinions, although I cannot vouch for the level of elaboration, and people like us, or like me, sometimes arouse some 'exclamation marks'. But you know what ? we have a blessed task in the food chain. Since we tend to be very vulnerable to common sense, once put under the lupe of systematic analysis, we are easy breakfast for our thinking adversaries to prove their opposite argument. :) So enjoy all aspects of RFF !
And I am quite happy that among so many screws, auctions, etc, finnally a RFF member raises his voice in defense of the honour and legacy of one of our masters.
bmattock
06-14-2007, 10:42
I agree with your points but please don't call Ansel Adams and the zone system soulless. Have you read his books? I found it to be anything but soulless and, in fact, it was a method to do visualizations with exactly the kind of creative work you're talking about.
Yes, I have read his books. I disagree with his philosophy of exposure. I am also underwhelmed that it has been taken far past what he ever intended and has become, in essence, a religion or more properly, a cult.
I agree that the art of photography is knowing when to over-expose and underexpose according to one's "vision" for the scene. To do this properly you need to know what the average metering of a scene is according to a meter or the sunny 16 rules.
You have accurately stated the heart of all misunderstanding about exposure. There is no overexposure, there is no underexposure. There is only exposure. When we say a photograph is under or over exposed, we mean by comparison to a standard that many agree upon - but it may not be a standard the artist intended.
Imagine musical notation system - western scales are but one concept of how musical notes may be represented. Other systems are equally as valid, and a 'chord' that is not pleasing to a wester ear may be quite lovely to someone else. Which is a 'proper' chord?
There can be no "average metering of a scene." What can that possibly mean? There are light values in any scene, which may represent a great difference between extreme light and extreme dark or a very small difference between the two. The 'average' would mean what? In some scenes, it would mean that both light and dark are equally blown out, based on the latitude of the recording media. In others, it would represent a flat, low-contrast scene of little visual appeal. No meter than I am aware of can read all the light values in a scene and average them, only a finite number of points. A human with a precise 1 degree spot-meter might do so, but I fail to see the advantage of averaging the values recorded. Even the Zone System does not attempt to do that.
My biggest disagreement with the Zone System is that it attempts to measure the length of a board by starting in the middle, comparing that to how long you wish your board to be, and then adjusting what you call the middle accordingly. You measure a board from one of the ends. If you know either the darkest area of your scene in which you intend to retain detail or the lightest, you measure your exposure from there, counting backwards or forwards to maintain compliance with the latitude of your recording media.
Hallo,
I'll come out of the corner. Been collecting strenght to make my first post for the last 2 weeks.
Since the first thread that draged me into this forum a couple of months ago was "Exposure chart for your pocket" (Sticky thread in the RF Gen Disscussion forum) I think this is actually the apropriate place for the No 1 post.
Anyway...
I read the Fred Parker page and downloaded all of the sliders from the links in the thread. Then designed my own all possible combiations of sliders. Month later I am using none and even no auto with my compact digitals. Why?
The only thing that matters is the lightsource(s) lighting the scene. If the entire scene is in uniform light you are allowed to make mistakes up to 2 or more stops. It becomes complicated in situations of high contrast and even there the precision of the lightmeter is not very important. The meters fail in these situations too since they have no idea of the intention. Guessing the EV comp. in these situation is a wild guess sqared. Precision in such conditions can only be acheved by bracketing (possibly HDR), testing, luck and not with even with the best possible lightmeter, unless it's a digital camera that has millions of lightmeters in it and displays the result.
As the film speed unit ISO... sugests what you are dealing with is a standard. Meaning it's very rational and it is. Every stop in EV value is double the lower value. So is Shutterspeed, AV, and Filmspeed.
Powers of 2
Filmspeed
ISO... divide by 100 and
..
50/100 = 0.5 = 2^-1
100/100 = 1 = 2^0
200/100 = 2 = 2^1
400/100 = 4 = 2^2
..Shutterspeed. Slower and faster speeds are averaged but in the system still.
..
15s ~ 16=2^4
8s = 2^3
4s = 2^2
2s = 2^1
1s = 2^0
1/2 = 2^-1
1/4 = 2^-2
1/8 = 2^-3
.. faster values are averaged as the lower
1/15~1/16 = 2^-4
1/30~1/32 = 2^-5
1/60~1/64 = 2^-6
1/125~1/128 = 2^-7
..
Aperture is a value that describes the aperture in diameter so the actual progresion is the powers of sqareroot of 2 so it's a bit more confusig but if sqared the powers of 2 are visible. I am having a hard time with these I admit, but once learned I am shure it's very easy.
1/1 ^2 = 1/1 = 2^0
1/1.4 ^2 ~ 1/2 = 2^-1
1/2 ^2 = 1/4 = 2^-2
1/2.8 ^2 ~ 1/8 = 2^-3
1/4 ^2 = 1/16 = 2^-4
..
Note the usual Shutter speeds and apertures are negative.
What is clearly visible is that all become rational numbers fairly easily. Whats even nicer is that finding correct exposure for given EV is only a matter of adding them all up and get 0.
The sunny 16 rule is not a very good basepoint in my mind. It's only an anchor for one lightsource.
EV0 + ISO100 + 1s + f/1 = 0
0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 0
It's the basepoint of the standard.
The sunny 16 is EV15.
EV15 + ISO100 + 1/125s + f/16 = 0
15 + 0 + (-7) + (-8) = 0
A bit of Highschool math that shouldn't scare you away. After understanding the stops the exposure calulation itsef is basic. Try.
Mostly the same story as the Ultimate Lightmeter but what I rationalized out of it.
I have a background of hobby programmer so the first 10 powers of 2 are in my head anyway but it's not that much to memorize.
You can take a look on the Fred Parker page to see the list of EV values -6 to 23. I have memorized 5, 10 and 15. Thats all I need. The rest are shadows of those cases and can be estimated stops down. The very low light is a matter of metering and/or testing/bracketing.
Dynamic range
Film or digital captures a range of 4-11 stops (different sources and subjective, not wort arguing over). This allows for a pretty big range of mistakes in uniform lighting, never mind the 1/10 precision. In contrasty lighting it's not a matter of precision metering eighter but intention. If your scene contrast is too far appart you need to decide which is more important and to what extremes your film or DC can capture that you would still be satisfied. If the entire image is exposed in the middle and consists of the eighter edges of the dynamic range would it be satisfying. In very close calls the only way to know is to test. The lightmeter in camera only assumes you want average 50% grey and tries it's best to achive that (the more complex can concentrate on parts of the image). You lose both or get the one that has bigger coverage which is not always the intention.
Tackling this with EV comp is worse guessing than using M mode with Sunny 16 in my mind. The lightmeter has no clue of what you have in the scene. Most of the modern consumer cameras have more Scene programs than there are EV values. Next you'll see the separate modes for portrait in white or black shirt :D. Those programs are preset stencils to produce generic images. Not that bad but they only EV comp modes for the family album scenes.
An example test I made. Sitting in a park near a small river I tyed to shoot the ducks on the rocks in the middle of the stream. The stream was very dark although in full sun as the ducks where also in full sun. Using a wide angle the ducks where very small in the frame and the in P mode the camera assumed I need the river to be 50% gray never mind the ducks. The suggested EV pointing at the scene was about 5 or more stops over the Sunny 16 (the dc has EV comp +/-2). So I pointed at the other direction and got the Sunny 16. Used that in M mode. And the ducks where still overexposed. The reflected light from the water acually made the ducks brighter. I was using a digital camera so I saw the results on spot. But consider the thought that would be needed to put into shooting 1 shot on film to get the right exposure. Lightmeter would help if you can go and measure the light at the object and still the aproximation to have the ducks on the edge of the dynamic range is anyway a wild guess so that the precision of the meter is a minor issue. The only usefull meter would have been a SLR with tele lens that I could have pointed exactly at the duck. The result is visible in the result only.
The lightmeter is a useful tool but if known how to use it properly its not neccesary in many cases anyway. It's one precise number in a myriad of wild guesses that can but not necessary help.
My view of it. I mostly become interested in very difficult contrast scenes where no meter usually helps. But figuring all this out for me has helped quite a lot.
I can now go and post all my questions about the FSUs I have collected in the last month.
Highly contagious GAS is here, the newbees should be warned!
*Runs away.
nightfly
06-14-2007, 11:02
Honestly just do it. Give yourself the freedom to just go out and shoot a roll or 10 not using a meter. Maybe note your settings so you can learn from your mistakes. Print out a small Sunny 16 chart and tape it to your camera.
Stick with one film for awhile and just get to know it and how it relates to light. Developing everything yourself helps as does shooting black and white film with lots of latitude.
I started off using a Holga that was about 1/125 and f8 with no way to adjust it (the cloudy/sunny adjustment on a Holga does nothing because both holes are bigger than the actual aperture). I found what light it worked in and pushed or pulled films in other lights. That helped me understand light a lot better. f8 and 1/125 is pretty good for a lot things with 100 or 400 speed film.
Then I got a Rolleicord with no meter and taped a sunny 16 chart on the back. Being able to adjust the aperture and film speed felt like a luxury.
Now I shoot with a M4-P and never worry about it. Except for photos inside jazz bars which I haven't gotten wired yet, everything is mostly on. I've shot slide film outside and the technique works pretty well for that too but I don't shoot much of it but I know I can do it in a pinch.
Honestly it's not that complicated and once you start doing it you get a feel for the light and it becomes second nature. I find myself walking down the street and adjusting the shutter speed and aperture on my camera as the light changes without even really thinking about it and zone focusing as I see interesting things coming up.
Welcome, iseasi. That's quite a first post. :)
In difficult situations it’s useful to imagine an 18% gray background against which I’m photographing a Nordic blond and a dusky black African model. Not a lot of use but it’s a nice thought, and it highlights the importance of dynamic range regardless of “correct” exposure.
The Zone system, just my opinion, is perfect for using at a Star Trek convention; life’s too short as it is
:)
Ruben
The alternate plan is you can take your meter apart and rebuild it...
Noel
Could you tell your personal story about it, how did you come to know your technique, and propose me a method about how to learn it.
it's all on the inside of a box of velvia 100.
Ruben
The alternate plan is you can take your meter apart and rebuild it...
Noel
Which of them ? In fact I have among them an old and cute Sixon I never managed to disassemble. Would you like to give it a try ? I assume it is glued, and much easier to re-glue than a Kiev beamsplitter.
The only way to learn Sunny f/16 is to use it and make errors, then take lots of notes, and have a good memory.
Other than that, you can get a headstart by reading Mike Johnston's excellent article about it:
http://theonlinephotographer.com/the_online_photographer/train_your_brainto_guess_.html
bmattock
06-14-2007, 11:36
it's all on the inside of a box of velvia 100.
and written on the subway walls. And tenement halls.
Ruben
Some of the Gossens have a plate on the underside with tables and serial number data and this is stuck on with glue and conceals the screws for access to inside. You have to ease the plate off with a really fine screw driver so it lifts without bending...
First try Googling and asking for help, dont destroy...
But it was meant as a joke you will recall your kiev meter?
Noel ( the troll...)
bmattock
06-14-2007, 11:48
The only way to learn Sunny f/16 is to use it and make errors, then take lots of notes, and have a good memory.
One cannot memorize light levels. The human brain does not work that way.
People think they can - the human brain *does* work *that* way.
planetjoe
06-14-2007, 12:09
Interesting.
The idea here, then, is something like, "Okay, I don't know how bright it really is, but I know a bright day when I see one."
There's a curious argument that can be made here, then - for example, I think I know what an f/16 day looks like in my backyard, because I'm familiar with the way the shadows fall, etc. Perhaps, then, in an unfamiliar setting, my "neural lightmeter" might be off, even under the same lighting conditions - simply because the visual cues aren't what I'm used to?
Or for that matter, that 's why myself (and lots of other folks, I'm sure) have trouble with low light. (Reciprocity failures and long toes aside, of course.)
Cheers,
--joe.
One cannot memorize light levels. The human brain does not work that way.
People think they can - the human brain *does* work *that* way.
dazedgonebye
06-14-2007, 12:15
I just spent my lunch shooting with a spot meter for the very first time.
Seems we can all head in different directions.
jaypolaski
06-14-2007, 12:25
Most of my shooting is done using sunny 16, but if I have any questions, I keep a meter in my pocket. There really isn't much in the way of tricks. My basic exposures go something like this:
1/reciprocal of film ISO @ f16 - bright sun
1/reciprocal of film ISO @ f11 - hazy sun
1/reciprocal of film ISO @ f 8 - open shade
1/reciprocal of film ISO @ f5.6 - cloudy day
interiors @ ISO 400 are usually shot @ 1/30 @ f2.8
knowing that you adjust your exposure based on what details you want to pull out of your shots. Look at the shadows and compare to the shadow table above. Just remember that trying to pull the shadows out in a high contrast scene will result in blown out highlights.
Good luck!
>>The idea here, then, is something like, "Okay, I don't know how bright it really is, but I know a bright day when I see one."<<
For people outside of Arctic regions, the light of a sunny day is constant. The sun is 93 million miles from earth and, thankfully for our species, has a relatively fixed output of energy. It is f/16 for highlights. Shadows illuminated by open sky are three stops less ... that is a function of the atmosphere and can vary with altitude and air density, but in the temperate climate zones, it is nearly always f/5.6.
For other settings, it isn't about memorizing an infinite number of variables. It is really about realizing there are 15 possible exposure steps between 1/8 @ f/1.4 edge-of-exposure-with-400-film and "Sunny 22" in a sunlit beach/snow scene. With a few weeks of experience, an attentive photographer can make an intelligent estimate about which of those 15 zones is most relevant to a given situation.
Joe and Vince are correct in saying that we can recognize the lighting situation, and Bill is right in saying our eye/mind can't "meter" light levels directly.
dazedgonebye
06-14-2007, 13:16
>>The idea here, then, is something like, "Okay, I don't know how bright it really is, but I know a bright day when I see one."<<
For people outside of Arctic regions, the light of a sunny day is constant. The sun is 93 million miles from earth and, thankfully for our species, has a relatively fixed output of energy. It is f/16 for highlights. Shadows illuminated by open sky are three stops less ... that is a function of the atmosphere and can vary with altitude and air density, but in the temperate climate zones, it is nearly always f/5.6.
For other settings, it isn't about memorizing an infinite number of variables. It is really about realizing there are 15 possible exposure steps between 1/8 @ f/1.4 edge-of-exposure-with-400-film and "Sunny 22" in a sunlit beach/snow scene. With a few weeks of experience, an attentive photographer can make an intelligent estimate about which of those 15 zones is most relevant to a given situation.
Careful! If you get in to sun spots, we'll stray toward that global warming topic again! :eek: :eek:
>>Joe and Vince are correct in saying that we can recognize the lighting situation, and Bill is right in saying our eye/mind can't "meter" light levels directly.<<
What's interesting is, I have to remove my sunglasses to do this accurately. If you've followed my life saga, you know I ran my handheld meter through the laundry some months ago and am too stubborn to replace it, even though I shoot two or three rolls of film a week.
When I try to estimate exposures with my sunglasses on, I have to use a very theoretical, abstract mental calculation. If I remove my sunglasses, I can more accurately see the actual lighting and recognize the patterns, so I can figure out an exposure much more quickly.
Ruben
http://gbchcf.free.fr/lunasix3.htm
Gossen example...
Noel
bmattock
06-14-2007, 15:45
Joe and Vince are correct in saying that we can recognize the lighting situation, and Bill is right in saying our eye/mind can't "meter" light levels directly.
Thanks, Frank, yes, that's what I mean.
The eye & mind cannot measure lumens. Neither is the amount of light available on a sunny day constant all over the earth minus the poles.
What is possible is what is constantly demonstrated by those who say "Well, I am able to correctly set exposure by eye," and then they proceed to do just that.
However, what they have done is rely upon approximations and the latitude of their recording media to guess without serious error. Their exposure is no more under their control than a single use camera's.
If one wants to let the 'close enough' maxim take charge, then one can certainly guesstimate exposure, set hyperfocal distance focusing, and point-n-pull. That's certainly appropriate for some photographic situations, too.
But I submit that if one is willing to simply get the exposure close enough and not take creative control of it, then use the meter built into most of the cameras these days and set the thing on AE. It certainly won't slow you down, and it will probably guess better than you can most of the time.
If one wants to take creative control of exposure, then a different methodology is called for.
In neither case is guesstimating exposure really an ideal solution. It will work, but it seems to be useful only in displaying a perverse pride in one's ability to get a dart on the dartboard at all, let alone near the 10 ring. We buy the best lenses, the best cameras we can afford, we agonize over film choices and how best to process and scan, and then we 'eh, who cares' the exposure.
Seems a trifle odd to me.
GoodPhotos
06-14-2007, 17:02
It helps greatly to learn a particular film and stick with it for a while.
At the moment I'm working my way through 20 rolls of NPH in my Rollei and 20 rolls of Supra 800 in my IIIf. I rate both at 400 most often (the Supra has been frozen, but is a bit dated and can use the extra stop anyhow). I'm usually shooting between EV13 and EV15 outside this time of year and EV6 in most of the indoors areas that I haunt. (I happen to like the look of my Summarit wide open at 1/25 so it works out well inside.)
I too play the game of trying to guess the exposure first and then check that against an incident reading from my little Digisix. With chrome, I'd probably want to rely on the meter a bit more.
When I'm using the 'best lenses, the best cameras I can afford' I use the built in 3D colour matrix metering and iTTL BL fill flash to build the exposure I want. When I'm using a 1952 Leica or a 1954 Rollei (on which the shutters are probably not all that spot on anyhow) and I'm using colour negative film with a HUGE and forgiving latitude, an educated guess gets me the images that I like just fine.
......
In neither case is guesstimating exposure really an ideal solution. It will work, but it seems to be useful only in displaying a perverse pride in one's ability to get a dart on the dartboard at all, let alone near the 10 ring. We buy the best lenses, the best cameras we can afford, we agonize over film choices and how best to process and scan, and then we 'eh, who cares' the exposure.
Seems a trifle odd to me.
I don't know why, but had I fit to this dark scenario i would feel a deep need to re-claim in loud voice my belonging to the human race.
In fact, I do not buy the best lenses nor the best cameras I can afford, nor agonize over film choice or how best process and scan, and, curiously, I do care about the exposure, as otherwise I wouldn't have an image. Either way, these are only some of the components, of a bigger whole which is making a picture.
In this "whole" each one of us cooks his own cake, according to many factors, ciircumstances, considerations, and personal skills. I would like for my cake to include intuition, illusion, instincts, sentiments, individalism, madness, and originality. For me, Photography is creation, not mathematics, nor fatal determinism.
Cheers,
Ruben
bmattock
06-14-2007, 18:10
Sorry, Ruben. Of course you're right. I meant only that 'we' photographers tend to agonize over tiny details that may not even matter, such as this version of a Summicron versus that one (I have neither of course), and then we ignore something simple like taking creative control of our exposure. It is another way we can express ourselves creatively, but so many ignore it. That's all I meant.
Morca007
06-14-2007, 19:04
To come at this sideways, I'll talk about what I do to create my exposures.
I generally take an averaged metering of the lighting conditions where I am shooting to begin. What this translates to is if I am out streetshooting downtown at two o'clock, I will:
1. Meter a few times using my camera's built in off of people, the ground, and the sky, to get an idea of which way is up.
2. After this, I can easily adjust my speed and aperture to meet whatever needs I have. If I want to get a darker image, more motion blur, shallow depth of field, what have you, I have a baseline to go off of.
And if I encounter a new lighting situation?
Simple; Repeat step one.
jose medina
06-15-2007, 05:08
how did you come to know your technique, and propose me a method about how to learn it.
Ruben[/quote]
Hi Ruben,
i have seen your question. I think ther is a good answer here: http://www.fredparker.com/ultexp1.htm
tell me what you think of it.
Regards
As to the question of why we would choose to try to set exposures with out a light meter: RF users are generally an odd lot. Not only do we use an outdated medium (film) but we typically use cameras lacking commonplace automatic features such as autofocus, autoexposure, etc. Most of us enjoy taking complete control of decision-making and thereby, feel greater ownership of our images. Many of us print our own prints. Wanting to wean ourselves of light meters is just an extension of this.
I meant only that 'we' photographers tend to agonize over tiny details that may not even matter, such as this version of a Summicron versus that one (I have neither of course), and then we ignore something simple like taking creative control of our exposure.
To be honest I agree that the +/- 1 stop inaccuracy that this method incurs probably eats up all the differences in rendition between a Dual Collapsible Summicron 0.5 and a Summicron 5 post-SPH or whatever, you've got a point there. Personally I see the advantage mostly that in trying to teach myself to do without a lightmeter, I have sort of emancipated myself from it a little bit - I used to check metering on every single shot even when in the same lighting conditions, and getting to understand exposure a bit better in practice helped me to get an estimate when light situations change, when I would have to meter and when I don't.
In addition, here I don't use a lightmeter simply because I don't have any. I've got an SLR with me which has a lightmeter built in, and a couple of newly-bought FSU cameras without one. When using the latter I need to determine exposure somehow. It's nice to see that this is actually possible with acceptable results. The essential thing is that I can take pictures without having to go and buy a Sverdlovsk-4 or something; if I can do without it, that'd be just another unnecessary piece of gear.
bmattock
06-15-2007, 05:41
As to the question of why we would choose to try to set exposures with out a light meter: RF users are generally an odd lot. Not only do we use an outdated medium (film) but we typically use cameras lacking commonplace automatic features such as autofocus, autoesposure, etc. Most of us enjoy taking complete control of decision-making and thereby, feel greater ownership of our images. Many of us print our own prints. Wanting to wean ourselves of light meters is just an extension of this.
I guess that's my point, Frank. Guessing exposure is not taking greater control, it's guessing, which is less accurate. From my point of view, there are two valid choices that make sense. One, use AE or just meter the scene and set the exposure, when you don't wish to have absolute control over the exposure. Two, learn to use the meter correctly and take complete creative control over exposure, adding it to your bag of tricks, along with selective focus, lens choice, framing, composition, and so on.
Rubbing sticks together to make fire when you have a perfectly good lighter in your pocket. What's the point of that? The image won't be any better for it, in fact, it may well be worse.
As to the question of why we would choose to try to set exposures with out a light meter: RF users are generally an odd lot ...we typically use cameras lacking commonplace automatic features such as autofocus, autoesposure, etc. Most of us enjoy taking complete control of decision-making and thereby, feel greater ownership of our images.
I think Frank's comments are close to the way I work. I enjoy the challenge of using small, basic cameras without any unnecessary features. I also disagree that one needs a light meter to pursue creative control of exposure. If you are using judgement, guesstimates and exposure tables, you can still exercise creative judgment.
In my view, light meters, especially those built into cameras, are some of the most poorly understood, poorly used tools in the whole photographic process.
Neither is the amount of light available on a sunny day constant all over the earth minus the poles.
But I doubt it varies by more than a stop, which is well within the range of negative films. Remember the old rule of thumb for darkroom/film work ... expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights. That axiom implies that the best exposure for black and white is to over-expose Sunny-16 by three stops which, in turn, shows: Film has lots of latitude; There is no one correct exposure; How you develop and print is as important as how you expose.
bmattock
06-15-2007, 06:05
A fire started by rubbing sticks together is no more pure, no hotter, no more holy, than a fire started by a Bic lighter. If it makes you feel better to guess your exposure, have at it. But let's not pretend it makes your photography better in any way - at best, it doesn't make it any worse, and at worst, it is horrible.
I don't pound nails into a plank with a rock if I have a hammer available. Nice to know I can do it if I ever have to, perhaps. But that would be the extent of my interest in it.
bmattock
06-15-2007, 06:08
But I doubt it varies by more than a stop, which is well within the range of negative films.
Bosh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight#Daylight_intensity_in_different_condition s
32000 lux Sunlight on an average day (min.)
100000 lux Sunlight on an average day (max.)
I don't like the suggestion of switching the camera to AE, Bill. This view does not fit with my desire for taking control of creative choices. One needs to know how a light meter can be fooled, and how to interpret the information it gives. I want to be less reliant on technology making choices for me or telling me what to do. Using memorized settings allows me to do this and is easily accurate within the tolerances of the medium.
This is just a different way of working, a preference. Different strokes. I don't think it can be argued to be right or wrong.
I don' think it makes one's photography any better, pure, or holy. :)
With all due respect to Wikipedia, they don't say whether or not the 32,000 lux is in the Arctic, so there isn't enough information for meaningful debate.
Also, if you just set the camera to record 60,000 lux, you will be no more than one stop under- or over-exposed. So Sunny-16 rules the day!
The difference between 32,000 and 100,000 is about 1.5 stops.
People who handle precision cameras tend to think the world they're photographing is just as precise. But nature isn't always precise. Often, it prefers big, bold brush strokes.
bmattock
06-15-2007, 06:21
I don't like the suggestion of switching the camera to AE, Bill. This view does not fit with my desire for taking control of creative choices.
I agree, but guessing exposure without a meter is not taking creative control, it is trying to hit a pinata with a stick while blindfolded. If you get it, that's mostly down to luck and the latitude of the film. Why would you want that? I'm still not seeing how that's taking creative control of anything. Buying a lottery ticket is not taking creative control of your checkbook, dig?
So my point is if you want creative control, use a meter properly. If you don't, either use a meter and just do what it says or use AE. I don't get how reading tea leaves is taking creative control.
mike goldberg
06-15-2007, 06:34
For a lot of years I shot Nikon SLRs as a PJ, and took my M2+Summaron 35/2.8 along. "Sunny 16" and its variations, worked very well. Whenever I could, I shot at higher speeds and wider apertures. After doing this several thousand times, one gets pretty good at it, yet, I occasionally tended to overexposure [with D76, oy vay!]
I understand that matrix or multi-segmented metering in a dSLR, has some 30,000 subject/background/lighting situations on a chip, and makes the decision for you in an instant. I'm one of those that likes the new technology, and I don't want to abandon R/F and film. Yes, I'm pretty good with sunny 16, and when I do go out with an R/F, I carry a meter... which stays mostly in my bag.
Cheers, mike
It helps greatly to learn a particular film and stick with it for a while...........
...........I too play the game of trying to guess the exposure first and then check that against an incident reading from my little Digisix.
Hi GoodPhotos,
I must confess that I have been using the abovementioned guidelines for some two months already, and I have learned two things beyond the Sunny 16 rule. Both apply to relative low levels of light, and serve me as "points of support" like the Sunny rule.
The first thing i have learned is to appreciate the point of "Not enough light" for my newly standard ISO 200. The second point of support at low levels I learned about myself. At these situations I tend to over-estimate the actual level of light, as if there were more light that there is in fact, by some 2 to four stops.
Cheers,
Ruben
shadowfox
06-15-2007, 07:07
A fire started by rubbing sticks together is no more pure, no hotter, no more holy, than a fire started by a Bic lighter. If it makes you feel better to guess your exposure, have at it. But let's not pretend it makes your photography better in any way - at best, it doesn't make it any worse, and at worst, it is horrible.
I don't pound nails into a plank with a rock if I have a hammer available. Nice to know I can do it if I ever have to, perhaps. But that would be the extent of my interest in it.
Personally, I don't equate using the sunny-16 like starting fire using sticks instead of a Zippo, it's more like playing Sudoku on an air-travel instead of sleeping, or like reading a science-fiction book instead of watching the DVD version, you know what I mean.
In other words, it's an enjoyable exercise for the brain.
Now, surprisingly, I've had only a couple of real blotches from the rolls where I used the s16 rule, and I've even learned how not to do it again... I don't attribute this to using the rule per se, but using the rule instead of relying ont the AE or meter, I became more aware of where I'm shooting and what I'm trying to get out of a scene.
Granted, I would not use the rule *everywhere*, I'd still rely on my meter on studio portraits, still-life shots, and bracket like heck if I'll ever be in Tibet somewhere overlooking an ancient monastery that hangs on a cliff :eek:
Stephanie Brim
06-15-2007, 08:42
Ruben pointed me to this thread because I rarely, if ever, go out with a light meter. I didn't have the money for one when I first got into rangefinders and the ones that I could afford or got my hands on didn't have one. I had to rely on my knowledge of light and I lost some frames along the way. Now, though, I barely (if ever) really lose something beyond bringing back in either the digital darkroom or a real one (depending on where I send my negatives).
There is one time where I won't trust my brain to shoot things and that's with slide film. There is not enough room for error with slide film to even think of doing this. So, my public service announcement of the day: don't try this with slide film. You will be disappointed almost every time, even if you can do it with regular negative film.
I think the only reason I can do it as well as I can now is practice. I understand various light situations with at least two out of the four films that I'm shooting regularly (the others are ones I'm working on learning) because I've shot them time and time again in the same conditions. It's now almost instinctual. I can even do it inside now. If I have a nagging doubt in my own abilities, I open up or close down one or two stops on the lens depending on what my nagging doubt is telling me. Sometimes I do both. My gut feeling is usually correct, however. It's a constant learning experience that has taught me much about light and photography.
I think that the film you use is an important factor. If you constantly change the film you're using you're going to have a hard time doing this. If you use one or two exclusively (one 400 and one 100, for example) it is going to become much easier.
If you want to learn how to do this, I suggest you buy one film and use it exclusively for a few months. 4 or so at the least, but 6 seems to be around where I finally start to feel really comfortable that I'm exposing things correctly. Use one developer. Standardize your development routine. Write down in a notebook or on a small piece of paper what the shots on the film were shot at. Go by PRINTS, not scans, digital or otherwise, when being critical of your abilities. Everyone sees your stuff differently due to the fact that we don't all use the same monitor setup, and yours may not be the best either if you don't have a newer color-correctable one (like me).
It's going to take a lot of time, patience, and hard work. It's very possible, and quite nice to not have to have a meter every time I go somewhere with a camera. It doesn't make your photography better, but it does help you to better understand the light around you.
Using a meter or not, AE or not, should not be about purity or any other kind of romantic notion of harder=better. You use AE when it's useful and reliable; you use a meter when you need accuracy of light reading; and you don't use a meter when you have a good reason for using a meterless camera and you don't feel like carrying extra gear.
To me that's the extent at which various exposure determination strategies are decided. Yes, there is the learning aspect, and that is important, but only for a certain time. Knowing how to use AE properly is as valuable (and somehow equivalent) as using guesstimation or interpreting a light meter's reading.
I estimated exposure in the '70s because I had no meter. Then I got a Nikon FM2, and got hooked on das blinkenlights. On returning to a meterless camera in 2003, I wanted to regain the old skill, so... I bought a meter! Carried it around for weeks, guessing the EV and checking against incident readings. It's mildly entertaining, plus you start to see things in a new light (ha, ha).
With or without a meter, I think in EV @ 100 ASA. If I forget to bring it (or am lazy), I have the following gross guidelines:
EV 15 - daylight
EV 12 - open shade
EV 9 - skylight at dawn
EV 6 - office lighting
EV 3 - living room in a dark corner
EV 0 - I can't see my camera settings
Of course, there are endless modifiers. Outdoors, the sky dome is a major light source, and the degree to which it is obstructed (by trees, walls, etc) must be calculated.
I agree with Stephanie that slides require a meter, or well-known conditions like broad daylight.
PetarDima
06-16-2007, 02:11
Hello Ruben, thank's for starting this topic.
About 3 years ago I started to
:bang: with exposure problem ... film or digital, good exposure is start for good prints or post-processing in photo software. I've started with exposure guide on Konica films ... and if I remember correct, I have problems(from start) with 1/250 sec. speed at 5.6 at shadows ... many photos was underexposed.
Than, with great interest for low - light photography, I was very, very cofused... new beginning, again. In general, I have about 100 rolls of film behind( maybe less ) and I don't have corect exposure on shots :(
I will share with you thoughts of one master of photography - he said:
take 20 rolls of same ISO film & shoot in all light conditions ... take a paper and pencil to have details about every shot and soon you will learn how to take photos with good exposure.
My main problem now is diference between areas with strong light( sunny day on street - f:11 exp: 1/250 for ISO 100 - is it O.K.?)- and deep shadows:
which setting is right: f:5.6, f:4 or stop down at 1/250 ???
Ruben
If you arn't going to post the meter to me for safe keeping, then keep it in your pocket, shoot, then get the meter out and see your mistake...
Of course you dont need to waste a frame.
Using a meter is more difficult than guessing, finding an average tone etc.
Noel
nightfly
06-16-2007, 03:41
I have to disagree with Bill's saying that not using a meter involves some kind of perverse pride or lack of control.
Once you get it, it becomes second nature and you gain control over your exposure and it mirrors what you are seeing or what you are trying to bring out, not some abstract reading of 18% gray.
I would say to the contrary that slavish devotion to a meter takes away your control. I'm sure people who really know how to use a meter can overcome this and bring creativity to it, but I would contend that people who know how to go meterless have this same level of control.
I think in this case the problem is the concept of accuracy. It presupposes that there is a "right" exposure and that you are trying to get to this.
There are probably styles of shooting where it could be a hindrance but for things like street shooting which an RF's other quirks are uniquely suited, metering by eye totally makes sense.
I found for example that when I was shooting with a Mamiya 6 on aperture priority, that my film didn't quite look like what I was used to, because the meter in the camera was making choices differently than I would have resulting in exposures that were often not what I expected. Granted I'm certainly not an expert with metered cameras and the tricks of using one on aperture priority, but in tricky lighting conditions (Patagonia with lots of refelction, glaciers etc) I got some surprises using the P mode which weren't pleasant.
I'm really surprised that people think this is such a big deal one way or another. Just do it and learn. Or don't.
bmattock
06-16-2007, 04:30
I have to disagree with Bill's saying that not using a meter involves some kind of perverse pride or lack of control.
That is precisely what it is.
Once you get it, it becomes second nature and you gain control over your exposure and it mirrors what you are seeing or what you are trying to bring out, not some abstract reading of 18% gray.
No. You become a more experienced guesser, not unlike the guy at the carnival who guesses your weight for a buck.
I would say to the contrary that slavish devotion to a meter takes away your control. I'm sure people who really know how to use a meter can overcome this and bring creativity to it, but I would contend that people who know how to go meterless have this same level of control.
I agree that using a meter without understanding how a meter works does take away control. People who have learned to guess well, have learned to guess well. Since they can only aim for the middle - an 'acceptable' exposure with a margin of error, they have no control over their exposure in reality. It is a hand grenade effect - close works most of the time. If you're trying to get something specific accomplished, it probably is not the right way to go about it.
I think in this case the problem is the concept of accuracy. It presupposes that there is a "right" exposure and that you are trying to get to this.
Not at all. It presupposes that if you take the time to carefully adjust your focus and aperture to give precisely the focus and depth of field you choose, if you carefully frame and compose your scene, you may also wish to carefully adjust your exposure to give the exact exposure you wish to record. In that case, the 'right' exposure is the exposure you choose, instead of the exposure a meter stupidly selects for you, or that you spit-ball guess yourself.
There are probably styles of shooting where it could be a hindrance but for things like street shooting which an RF's other quirks are uniquely suited, metering by eye totally makes sense.
When I shoot 'street' style photography, I tend to either use AE or to meter every so often and set exposure based upon an average that is unlikely to be too far out of the latitude of the film as I pass from light into shadow - a condition often found in city canyons. So I'd agree.
But there is a time and place for everything. If I am, like Ansel, using my camera on a tripod, and I wish to carefully control every aspect of a photograph that I can, exposure is another means of gaining creative control. And fine-tune control cannot be done by eyeball, regardless of your experience. It is a unique human trait that we are not good guessers, but we universally think we are.
Guess if you feel it appropriate, and be grateful when your film's lattitude saves you from embarrassment and ruined photos. But don't let's pretend you're taking creative control over your photography. No more so that the guys who throw cameras in the air and sometimes have interesting results.
I found for example that when I was shooting with a Mamiya 6 on aperture priority, that my film didn't quite look like what I was used to, because the meter in the camera was making choices differently than I would have resulting in exposures that were often not what I expected. Granted I'm certainly not an expert with metered cameras and the tricks of using one on aperture priority, but in tricky lighting conditions (Patagonia with lots of refelction, glaciers etc) I got some surprises using the P mode which weren't pleasant.
That's because meters are stupid. They do one thing, and if they are functioning properly, they do that one thing reasonably well. The instrument between your ears is what must learn to work the one in your camera.
I'm really surprised that people think this is such a big deal one way or another. Just do it and learn. Or don't.
Everyone should do as they wish, that is true. However, if I am the lone voice of reason, crying out to the lemmings that there is a cliff over yonder and perhaps they should rethink their route, so be it. Otherwise, go lemmings, go.
When did I have my asbestos suit dry cleaned?
Noel
You can acheive exposures using a meter, a relative scale (sunny 16), or by experience. None is "better" than another, some may be more efficient or effective than another, but which one would depend on many factors. None of the methods are any more creative than any other - creativity is in a person, not a method. (This is why I use all three methods.)
There was a comment about accuracy. There seems to be a confusion between precision and accuracy. Meters are the most precise method, but not necessarily the most accurate.
Ruben
If you arn't going to post the meter to me for safe keeping, then keep it in your pocket, shoot, then get the meter out and see your mistake...
Of course you dont need to waste a frame.
Using a meter is more difficult than guessing, finding an average tone etc.
Noel
As said above by me and another two members, if you reverse the order you will loose pics but not frames:
a) guess the light level and exposure
b) take out your meter and see your byass
c) if your subject is still there - shoot
d) repeat this proceeding until you learn or until you get tired and then post a question to RFF. :D
Cheers,
Ruben
bmattock
06-16-2007, 04:56
You can acheive exposures using a meter, a relative scale (sunny 16), or by experience. None is "better" than another, some may be more efficient or effective than another, but which one would depend on many factors.
Well, that would be wrong. Guessing is by far the worst method, by any yardstick.
None of the methods are any more creative than any other - creativity is in a person, not a method. (This is why I use all three methods.)
Creativity is one thing. Creative control is another. Creativity is painting your skies purple instead of blue. Creative control is being able to select the precise shade of purple you wish to use.
One can be creative with a Kodak Brownie, and in fact, I enjoy doing just that. My level of creative control is reduced to pointing and pressing the shutter release. I am often happy with results - but they are beyond my creative control.
There was a comment about accuracy. There seems to be a confusion between precision and accuracy. Meters are the most precise method, but not necessarily the most accurate.
That is because few people know how to use a meter. They attempt to use it as the directions and the sages say, they have problems, and they blame the meter or the metering system, if built into a camera.
If you understand a meter, and you understand exposure, you have precise control over the exposure of your photograph if you want it.
You cannot guess exposure and have that level of control. It is not possible. All the people who say they do, are mistaken. What they have is managed to guess their way into exposure that is acceptable to them (thus it is correct), but they do not have creative control over it. I can hit a pinata with a stick. But blindfold me, spin me around, and ask me to knock the ears off, that I cannot do. And neither can anyone else. No one has calibrated eyeballs.
As said above by me and another two members, if you reverse the order you will loose pics but not frames:
a) guess the light level and exposure
b) take out your meter and see your byass
c) if your subject is still there - shoot
d) repeat this proceeding until you learn or until you get tired and then post a question to RFF. :D
Cheers,
Ruben
Ok I accept and guess is bad I normally shoot, look at camera, groan, and either adjust & shoot or meter & shoot. Though metering tends to give away you might intend to take photos.
Noel
I don't really understand what you are arguing about, bmattock. We're talking about judging an 18% grey value without a meter. That's it. What you do to set your exposure after you have your benchmark is a different question.
I don't understand at all why you talk keep defining what is "creative" or not. As well, I don't understand why you even mention aperture priority.
I just read Ansel Adams book The Negative and is not all about slow contemplation. Rather, it is about training yourself to previsualize how the camera sees in order to use it as a tool to express how you FEEL about your subject. There's a whole chapter on hand-held photography where he uses Cartier-Bresson as an exemplar. Adams has a beautiful writing voice and many well considered ideas.
Well, that would be wrong. Guessing is by far the worst method, by any yardstick.
Creativity is one thing. Creative control is another. Creativity is painting your skies purple instead of blue. Creative control is being able to select the precise shade of purple you wish to use.
One can be creative with a Kodak Brownie, and in fact, I enjoy doing just that. My level of creative control is reduced to pointing and pressing the shutter release. I am often happy with results - but they are beyond my creative control.
That is because few people know how to use a meter. They attempt to use it as the directions and the sages say, they have problems, and they blame the meter or the metering system, if built into a camera.
If you understand a meter, and you understand exposure, you have precise control over the exposure of your photograph if you want it.
You cannot guess exposure and have that level of control. It is not possible. All the people who say they do, are mistaken. What they have is managed to guess their way into exposure that is acceptable to them (thus it is correct), but they do not have creative control over it. I can hit a pinata with a stick. But blindfold me, spin me around, and ask me to knock the ears off, that I cannot do. And neither can anyone else. No one has calibrated eyeballs.
Sorry, Bill, your "system" also requires "guessing" to use the meter "properly." And expereince does work. If I turn a hundred watt light bulb on in a room and make a correct exposure, then I can be sure that the exposure will be the same the next time I go there again. If I switch the bulb to 200 watt, I can adjust the exposure to compensate without the need for metering.
Your "guessing" argument is too simplistic as the estimate is based on experience not just random stabbing in the dark. The other problem is people do estimate exposure and are sucessful. Also people do use their meters "properly" and do not make good exposures. So your assertion that metering is the only method that works is not supported by reality.
bmattock
06-16-2007, 05:49
I don't really understand what you are arguing about, bmattock. We're talking about judging an 18% grey value without a meter. That's it. What you do to set your exposure after you have your benchmark is a different question.
I don't understand at all why you talk keep defining what is "creative" or not. As well, I don't understand why you even mention aperture priority.
I just read Ansel Adams book The Negative and is not all about slow contemplation. Rather, it is about training yourself to previsualize how the camera sees in order to use it as a tool to express how you FEEL about your subject. There's a whole chapter on hand-held photography where he uses Cartier-Bresson as an exemplar. Adams has a beautiful writing voice and many well considered ideas.
Ansel Adams is wrong, and the Zone System is a travesty.
Ansel Adams is wrong, and the Zone System is a travesty.
Funny thing about the Zone Sytem is it uses a relative scale that photographer uses to "guess" variation in illumination to determine scene contrast - a meter is not required for that.
Ok I accept and guess is bad I normally shoot, look at camera, groan, and either adjust & shoot or meter & shoot. Though metering tends to give away you might intend to take photos.
Noel
Hi Noel,
i am not saying you have to guess if you don't want to learn how to do without the meter. And more important i am not saying you have to learn it, if it isn't called for by your type of shooting.
In my type of shooting it is required to have a round idea of where you are in terms of light level, as usually with the meter I get the incident reading for the area, deserving the punishment of bill to its full extent.
Incident metering is quite crude metering, and so far it sounds me possible to do away with the meter for it, or using the meter just for comfirmation, or and tricky situations of mixing of light and shadow.
Now, it is not a bad approach to get used to loose pics when you cannot use your pocket meter, in the same way you loose pics for a myriad of reasons. But it sounds me a better idea to learn.
Cheers,
Ruben
bmattock
06-16-2007, 06:06
Sorry, Bill, your "system" also requires "guessing" to use the meter "properly."
No, it doesn't, and you don't know what my system is.
And expereince does work. If I turn a hundred watt light bulb on in a room and make a correct exposure, then I can be sure that the exposure will be the same the next time I go there again. If I switch the bulb to 200 watt, I can adjust the exposure to compensate without the need for metering.
Only if you know the bulb is now 200 watts. But you won't, because it will seem the same relative brightness to you if you walk out of the room and walk back in a week later, or if the value of the bulb is gradually changed while you're in the room - that's how our minds work - we compensate.
Ask yourself this - why do we need white balance on digital cameras and color-correcting filters or special film for various kinds of 'white' light?
It is because the sensor (digital or film) is not fooled about what color the light it. Our eyes, on the other hand, are. We see light we expect to be white as if it were white. The only time we notice that the white light of an incandescent bulb is not white at all is when compare it to something that is shedding white light.
We say "Oh, the digital sensor in my camera was fooled about the white balance in the room." No, it wasn't. The camera did not agree with you about what 'white' is, because white to it is an objective standard, and to your eyes, white is whatever your mind expects it to be.
Eyes are easily fooled. It is not your fault, it is how we are made.
Your "guessing" argument is too simplistic as the estimate is based on experience not just random stabbing in the dark. The other problem is people do estimate exposure and are sucessful.
They often achieve an exposure that they find acceptable. This is fine if that is what they want. However, if one tries to describe that as taking creative control, it is incorrect. It is getting better at pitching horseshoes, is all.
Also people do use their meters "properly" and do not make good exposures. So your assertion that metering is the only method that works is not supported by reality.
Yes, it is. I can guarantee you that if I have a 1 degree spotmeter that is working properly, and you have your eyeballs, I can select the exposure I want to the edges of the ability of my film to reproduce - you cannot.
You can achieve (possibly) an acceptable expsure, in that the lights and darks may well be recorded faithfully in an average way. Or you may occasionally blow out highlights or lose detail in the darks - a scene's dynamic range often exceeds the latitude of the media we use to record it with.
And that is where I will prevail. Given that something will not be recorded, some detail will be lost, with a proper meter and my knowledge of how to use it, I can choose just what will be lost and what will be kept. You can only aim for the middle and hope, or bracket.
Anyone who guesses their exposure feels they can point at a photograph in which all the elements are exposed without detail being lost and say that this is proof they can do it. But give them a scene with EV values from 3 to 16, and let's see how they do. No matter what, some detail will be lost. How will the guesser decide what to lose and what to keep?
To measure anything, you first need a standard to compare it to. It does no good to measure a board of unknown length with another board of unknown length. One must first set a standard and then compare everything to that. Meters give known values that can be used as standards if they are working correctly and understood properly. Eyeballs do not.
bmattock
06-16-2007, 06:07
Funny thing about the Zone Sytem is it uses a relative scale that photographer uses to "guess" variation in illumination to determine scene contrast - a meter is not required for that.
That's why it is wrong. Look up 'travesty'.
If you point your Weston at the zone (area) and meter and then set the zone on the meter scale then that zone (area) will be at that zone density on the negative.
You have to pick (guess) an area, that will be critical on the print.
Noel
bmattock, can you give me a link to your photo gallery?
Murray Kelly
06-16-2007, 07:04
After my re-interest in photography after 30-40 years I discovered the incident light meter. It makes so much sense that I am amazed it wasn't common knowledge all those years ago. Incident readings were, after all, used by the cine industry from the mid-30s.
If a subject is light reflecting a reflective reading will read to give an under-exposed image. A shady scene v.v. Incident readings aren't influenced by what the eye sees, but only how much light is falling on the scene. The film records accordingly.
It is all so simple I don't know how I ever took reasonably exposed pictures at all!
One soon becomes able to assess the light and the sunny 16/ shady 5.6 rule is pretty close to the mark. With a two bath developer, you're never far off correct exposure! :-)
You then learn to leave the meter at home.
Not being a professional I can live with slight variations from exact.
Murray
PetarDima
06-16-2007, 07:52
Rather, it is about training yourself to previsualize how the camera sees in order to use it as a tool to express how you FEEL about your subject. There's a whole chapter on hand-held photography where he uses Cartier-Bresson as an exemplar.
Underline this 100 times! :)
David Murphy
06-16-2007, 08:13
Back in the 60's my Dad taught me to use the little instruction sheet that came packed with 35mm film in those days. If you can still get one, read it -- there's knowledge there. I later worked with cinematographers who scorned the use of exposure automation.
I must confess though that I use the TTL meter on the Bessa R in extreme situations such as night street work with reversal film.
Matthew55000
06-16-2007, 08:35
I agree, but guessing exposure without a meter is not taking creative control, it is trying to hit a pinata with a stick while blindfolded. If you get it, that's mostly down to luck and the latitude of the film. Why would you want that? I'm still not seeing how that's taking creative control of anything. Buying a lottery ticket is not taking creative control of your checkbook, dig?
I'm surprised to see how many people are disagreeing with the above.
So many people are using older cameras and no meter and for some reason equates that to 'having more creative control' in their photography which is rather self delusional as all one does is putting oneself in a position full of guesswork and a slower way of working.
If Kappa was alive he'd use a dSLR.
I'm surprised to see how many people are disagreeing with the above.
So many people are using older cameras and no meter and for some reason equates that to 'having more creative control' in their photography which is rather self delusional as all one does is putting oneself in a position full of guesswork and a slower way of working.
If Kappa was alive he'd use a dSLR.
Who is Kappa?
Who is Kappa?
He was the man who invented pie beating.
Cheers, Ian :)
ZeissFan
06-16-2007, 09:02
Recently, on another forum, someone wrote that he is more accurate than a light meter. That is absurd.
An accurate light meter is a good thing to have. Being able to interpret the reading according to the scene in front of you is even better. Mostly, that will come through experience.
I would simply say to keep trying. Flip between incident and reflective metering -- and spot meter, if you have it. Get a feel for how shadows and areas of extreme brightness affect the final photo.
But a good light meter is definitely a useful tool to have.
Robert Capa most certainly would have used a DSLR, as he was a news photographer, and that's the tool that news photographers use today. The camera he would choose for his personal work is anyone's guess.
No, it doesn't, and you don't know what my system is.
Only if you know the bulb is now 200 watts. But you won't, because it will seem the same relative brightness to you if you walk out of the room and walk back in a week later, or if the value of the bulb is gradually changed while you're in the room - that's how our minds work - we compensate.
Ask yourself this - why do we need white balance on digital cameras and color-correcting filters or special film for various kinds of 'white' light?
It is because the sensor (digital or film) is not fooled about what color the light it. Our eyes, on the other hand, are. We see light we expect to be white as if it were white. The only time we notice that the white light of an incandescent bulb is not white at all is when compare it to something that is shedding white light.
We say "Oh, the digital sensor in my camera was fooled about the white balance in the room." No, it wasn't. The camera did not agree with you about what 'white' is, because white to it is an objective standard, and to your eyes, white is whatever your mind expects it to be.
Eyes are easily fooled. It is not your fault, it is how we are made.
They often achieve an exposure that they find acceptable. This is fine if that is what they want. However, if one tries to describe that as taking creative control, it is incorrect. It is getting better at pitching horseshoes, is all.
Yes, it is. I can guarantee you that if I have a 1 degree spotmeter that is working properly, and you have your eyeballs, I can select the exposure I want to the edges of the ability of my film to reproduce - you cannot.
You can achieve (possibly) an acceptable expsure, in that the lights and darks may well be recorded faithfully in an average way. Or you may occasionally blow out highlights or lose detail in the darks - a scene's dynamic range often exceeds the latitude of the media we use to record it with.
And that is where I will prevail. Given that something will not be recorded, some detail will be lost, with a proper meter and my knowledge of how to use it, I can choose just what will be lost and what will be kept. You can only aim for the middle and hope, or bracket.
Anyone who guesses their exposure feels they can point at a photograph in which all the elements are exposed without detail being lost and say that this is proof they can do it. But give them a scene with EV values from 3 to 16, and let's see how they do. No matter what, some detail will be lost. How will the guesser decide what to lose and what to keep?
To measure anything, you first need a standard to compare it to. It does no good to measure a board of unknown length with another board of unknown length. One must first set a standard and then compare everything to that. Meters give known values that can be used as standards if they are working correctly and understood properly. Eyeballs do not.
I think you are missing the point. First, meters are not infailable. Even with your spot meter the meter can come back with the wrong exposure for limitations to the meter itself as well as the operator. After all the operator has to judge the scene - if eyeballs are as bad as you say, then the operator is an unreliable source.
The other mistake in your argument is there is only one "correct" exposure in any given situation AND the the exposure must be optimized to record as much as the scene luminance as possible. That is a false assumption. Especially if you are going to also argue the control of exposure is a creative control. In fact, many photographers would bracket a high-contrast scene because they know the metered exposure could very well be "wrong."
Now if you want to place limitation on your photographic method, that is fine. But to present them as THE only way to do things would require some proof. I have not read in any reliable source that a meter is the ONLY way to determine accurate exposures - both in measuring them and in the ability to accuratly determine them. While meters are useful tools, if someone wants to develop a different system of determining exposure, there is no technical reason they can not acheive that. Arguing meters may be easier would not be an arguement for not trying to acheive a different method, even one based on the human visual system.
And I am sorry, I thought you were being sarcastic in reference with the Zone System. Funny thing is, I don't think Ansel Adams had a great deal of technical problems. His system certainly worked for him.
Meters are not infallible. In camera, what about shooting into a direct light or the classic snow shot or a scene with a lot of black silk or backlighting or a scene where the sky is in the picture? An incident meter doesn't tell you the truth always because sometimes you are so far from your subject you can't get the meter into that light. I have a book on exposure (because I've been rather slow with understanding it) and oddly enough, the last page of the book is the sunny 16 rule. It says for those hard to meter situations where you just can't trust your meter, fall back on the sunny 16.
Interesting thread. Who would think (film) exposure would be such a hot topic? Are we really talking about guessing because we prefer it to metering (no!) or about how to have the lightest kit for classic meterless camera (yes!). Besides, the sunny 16 rules are not guessing---they are based on experience!
I'm not really sure how a meter would have handled these scenes. Both shot with what some here call guesswork and what others call experience.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46358&stc=1&d=1182018369
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46359&stc=1&d=1182018386
...........
If Kappa was alive he'd use a dSLR.
Incidentally, my mind frequently led me to ask myself "how did Kappa (Capa) manage to technically work. Fortunately I have found in this thread the answer.
If you have a dSLR, or a humble GSN, by all means just push the button ! But if you have today the camera Capa had, then my question is very relevant.
I think folks that many of us are loosing proportions a bit, and therefore missing the opportunity to learn new things of actual importance. Thus for example you could be less enraged by bmattock, my good friend, if you put aside the bravado phrasing, and are able to take the good side of his argumentation, which i could entitle The Need Of A Creative Symbiosis Between The Photographer And His Light Meter. Can anyone deny it when put this way ?
Needless to say that my good friend bmattock will better convince broader layers of members, instead of enraging them, by taking a more moderate manner of expressing himself, flowing from some kind of openess towards different approaches, including his own. I am sure my good friend bmattock is very much aware that in his next 40 years he will learn more and more, like any one of us or perhaps more than most of us, and at some point may say to himself: Concerning X issue, I was wrong then. I have learnt from him a lot, I still have to, and I feel sorry folks when you do not differentiate within his exceptional knowledge, between the wagon and the horse, rejecting the horse while looking at the wagon.
In my humble opinion, Bill, being right and not wrong, is not the end but the begining of somenthing much more broad and important: the ability to transmit your knowledge to the widest possible audience, thus giving water to the tree (Photography) under whose shadow you grow. This stage is not achieved by Ecumenical Concilium or Marxist interpretation type argumentation, but by pedagogical skills.
The light meter by itself is a wonderfull instrument, can any one deny it ? (I hardly can believe myself this thread leads me to write this)
The human brain by itself is the instrument of all instruments. Obviously there are situations in which either the meter or our brains, can deceive us. The best interplay between the two is a winning formula. Can any one deny it ?
It is just that from our experience in photography we all know there are situations in which we have no time to use our brains and have to blindly rely on our meters, and at other instances we have no light meter available, or no time for it, and have to rely solely on our brains, instincts and experience, if we are the lucky ones with brains instincts and experience for light metering. I would like very much to belong to these lucky boys.
My last word is about the great masters of photography. Personally I would not disregard any of them without an elaborated argumentation. But I would not reject any elaborated argumentation against any of them, just because any of them is held as one of the masters. I myself had the happy opportunity to hear a demolishing critic of HCB, which since it is not mine I will not rephrase. We humans seem to have deeply engrained the need of superfathers. And we, the common people, are very much responsible in holding the greats as great.
Therefore, why not relaxing a bit and having a virtual beer all together, and continuing the discussion in more relaxed, and therefore creative, ways
Cheers,
Ruben
bmattock
06-16-2007, 15:34
bmattock, can you give me a link to your photo gallery?
Which one?
Feel free to have a look at this one if you like:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/
bmattock
06-16-2007, 15:43
I think you are missing the point.
No, I'm not.
First, meters are not infailable. Even with your spot meter the meter can come back with the wrong exposure for limitations to the meter itself as well as the operator. After all the operator has to judge the scene - if eyeballs are as bad as you say, then the operator is an unreliable source.
First, I have consistantly said 'meter working properly' as a stipulation. If a meter is not working properly, it is of little use. Second, meters are a lot more reliable than the human eye at evaluating how much light is hitting the sensor.
The other mistake in your argument is there is only one "correct" exposure in any given situation AND the the exposure must be optimized to record as much as the scene luminance as possible. That is a false assumption.
It would be a false assumption, if I had made it. I didn't. I have consistently said that *if* you want to take creative control of your exposure, you must use a correctly-functioning light meter and use it correctly. If you do *not* wish to take creative control of your exposure, then AE is likely to be just as accurate - probably more so - than guessing exposure by eye.
I have never said that there is only one correct exposure. IN FACT, I have said that correct exposure is the one you, the photographer, intend.
Especially if you are going to also argue the control of exposure is a creative control. In fact, many photographers would bracket a high-contrast scene because they know the metered exposure could very well be "wrong."
Because they do not know how to use the meter correctly, you mean. The meter is right. They just don't know how to use it.
Now if you want to place limitation on your photographic method, that is fine. But to present them as THE only way to do things would require some proof.
Again, I have not done so. I suggest that if you want to take creative control of exposure, guessing is not that way. If you do not want to take creative control of your exposure, then AE is more accurate than guessing. So guessing is about the stupidest way to set exposure that there is, given other choices. If you want to do that stupid thing, fine with me. But let's not pretend it is taking creative control - it's not. It is guessing.
I have not read in any reliable source that a meter is the ONLY way to determine accurate exposures - both in measuring them and in the ability to accuratly determine them.
I do not know any other way to measure light than an instrument to do so - commonly known as a meter.
While meters are useful tools, if someone wants to develop a different system of determining exposure, there is no technical reason they can not acheive that.
Fair enough. I'll re-evaluate my system when that method appears.
Arguing meters may be easier would not be an arguement for not trying to acheive a different method, even one based on the human visual system.
Yes it would. The human eye is notoriously and provably inaccurate, and unable to accurately judge light value.
And I am sorry, I thought you were being sarcastic in reference with the Zone System. Funny thing is, I don't think Ansel Adams had a great deal of technical problems. His system certainly worked for him.
Yes, it did. It also imposed a tyranny that has vexed many a photographer into giving the thing up altogether. It worked for him because he had an innate understanding of the film and developer he used consistently, and he developed by inspection. Most of us do neither. Zone system will not work for us.
bmattock
06-16-2007, 15:46
Meters are not infallible. In camera, what about shooting into a direct light or the classic snow shot or a scene with a lot of black silk or backlighting or a scene where the sky is in the picture? An incident meter doesn't tell you the truth always because sometimes you are so far from your subject you can't get the meter into that light. I have a book on exposure (because I've been rather slow with understanding it) and oddly enough, the last page of the book is the sunny 16 rule. It says for those hard to meter situations where you just can't trust your meter, fall back on the sunny 16.
That's because you don't know how to use a 1 degree spotmeter properly. And most people don't, I'm not picking on you. Any meter which attempts to average a scene is capable of being fooled by contrasty scenes, all the things you suggested. The human must apply the meter directly to that which he intends to measure, or the exercise is useless.
Interesting thread. Who would think (film) exposure would be such a hot topic? Are we really talking about guessing because we prefer it to metering (no!) or about how to have the lightest kit for classic meterless camera (yes!). Besides, the sunny 16 rules are not guessing---they are based on experience!
Same thing would apply to digital exposure. The disadvantage of digital is less lattitude for guessing exposure or containing highly dynamic scenes. The advantage of digital is having reference to a histogram on many cameras, assuming they are accurate - some are, some aren't.
bmattock
06-16-2007, 15:52
I'm not really sure how a meter would have handled these scenes. Both shot with what some here call guesswork and what others call experience.
I am not suggesting they are bad exposures. I am suggesting they are the result of guesswork - call it experience if you like. If you did not wish to take creative control of the exposures in both cases, then you did just fine - I suggest AE would have done better in most cases.
If you had wanted, for example, to bring the blown-out highlights back down a notch and sacrifice some detail in the shadows, you'd have no way to do so, since you didn't know when you took the photos whether you were over, under, or right on the exposure you intended. You just took a guess and hoped to land in the middle of the latitude of the film. Congratulations, the photos are very nice.
Again, if you want to guess, guess. Just don't pretend it's scientific or taking creative control of your exposure. It isn't.
My Kodak Brownie has a meniscus lens - everything past five feet is always technically 'in focus'. However, I cannot perform any type of selective focus tricks with it. I cannot adjust my f-stop - what I get is what I get. If that's what I intend - then great. But if I want creative control over focus, or aperture, this camera won't work for me.
My Kodak Brownie is 'creative'. It is not under my 'creative control'. There is a huge and unsubtle difference.
If you had wanted, for example, to bring the blown-out highlights back down a notch and sacrifice some detail in the shadows, you'd have no way to do so, since you didn't know when you took the photos whether you were over, under, or right on the exposure you intended.
You're making a lot of assumptions. Those are the exposures I intended. The highlights in the top photo are not blown. There is high-key detail in each of the boats' windows, as well as shadow detail in the corners that I didn't want to sacrifice because the subjects' faces, as well as the environment of the boat, were too important an aspect of the photo.
Ditto Lincoln. The highlights are not blown, and there is shadow detail.
I'll add that these are both scanned by my one-hour photo shop, which burns CDs, so I didn't have control over the scanning.
My creative control in the top image was to expose for the faces to be a bit darker than the 18-percent grey range. I anticipated that highlights outside the sunlit, backlit windows would be five stops over-exposed instead of the usual three-stops over when using straight outdoor backlight in sunny-16. Any more than five stops, and the highlight detail would be fully blown, so I kept it at 5 stops -- to preserve high-key highlight detail -- and opted to sacrfice a bit of shadow detail because that wasn't as critical to my creative intent for the image. Then, in printing -- using PhotoShop, though I used to use this method back in my wet-darkroom days -- I dodged the faces about one-stop to compensate for the fact that I had purposefully under-exposed them in order to maintain high-key highlight detail.
Of course a light meter -- and knowing how to correctly read it -- is important to photogpraphy. But really the most important part of photography is learning how to correctly read light ... not reading a meter, but reading light itself.
In my opinion, learning Sunny-16 exposure tables, plus the many, many variations and exceptions, is the same as learning and memorizing multiplication tables instead of relying on an electronic calculator. Once you've learned them and know them forwards and backwards, they make a lot of sense, they become second-nature, and you learn to trust yourself. That never happens if you insist on relying on your light meter or electronic calculator.
I do use only 400-speed film. I like and rely on its latitude, and I "think" and "see" in 400. I also had the good fortune of getting paid to take black-and-white pictures for the first 18 years of my professional life, so that I was able to shoot and process perhaps 10,000 rolls of 400-speed black and white film, which is really a good way to learn any craft.
I would recommend setting aside the spot meter and learning to use a match-needle incident meter, or some other analog incident meter. An incident meter is the first and most important step in learning to go meterless. Spend a lot of time -- I mean, a LOT of time -- metering the light of your environment. Walk around a room and see how the needle moves. Outdoors, walk in an out of sunlight and shadow, under trees and beside buildings and inside dark places.
The Zone system is based on the reflective luminence of objects. Incident metering is based on the luminence of the light source itself -- dark objects are rendered dark, light objects are rendered light. But once you master incident metering, you realize that the Zone system and Sunny-16 are both really about figuring out where in the scene to place your neutral-gray value if you're shooting negative film with approximately nine full stops of latitude - -ie., you can still get detail four to five stops up and four to five stops down from the neutral-grey midpoint.
Much also depends on how you're displaying the image. Black and White negative film has an exposure latitude of as many as 15 stops. The Zone system uses 9-10 stops of latitude. Most photographic printing papers work best in the six-or-seven stop range. Digital photography and PhotoShop seem to work best in the six-or-so stop range ... photopaper, slide film and digital photography all "blow" the highlights much sooner than negative film. In that respect, a lot of creativity of any photograph depends on what strategy you use to "compress" or modify the tonal scale of the original negative or digital capture in order to display it.
When I did wet darkroom work, I preferred the "harder" paper grades that have only five or six stops of latitude. With PhotoShop, I prefer to use a wider exposure-latitude palett -- less contrast -- because I have more control over local highlight and shadow areas. I'll typically work on an image that is quite dark with low contrast, adjust the value-relationships throughout the image using burning, dodging and curves, then boost the contrast as high as it will go without losing highlights.
In practice, and with a good exposure to start with (no guessing allowed here) all of this really takes a couple of minutes.
By the way, bmattock's avatar looks like it should have been about f/2 at 60. but someone under-exposed it by a stop, shooting at f/2.8. Probably the in-camera meter got fooled by the interesting streak of blown highlight in the image.
Here's how I'd have handled it.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46372&stc=1&d=1182046333
bmattock
06-16-2007, 18:26
Well, Vince, I think we've taken this about as far as we can. I disagree with you, and there it is.
Therefore, why not relaxing a bit and having a virtual beer all together, and continuing the discussion in more relaxed, and therefore creative, ways
I'm with Ruben. Though I'm actually having a South African shiraz at the moment.
ClaremontPhoto
06-16-2007, 20:26
Virtual 'Cheers' Ruben.
That's because you don't know how to use a 1 degree spotmeter properly.
An 1 degree spotmeter is great for accurately determining the contrast range of any given scene, and I agree that everyone learning photography should have tried that at least once, but for the style of photography that our rangefinder cameras tend to get used for it is rather useless. If you are opposed to guesswork as a guideline to exposure, which you seem to be, then technically you can't even transfer the kind of contrast data you get out of accurately measuring a scene with a spotmeter from one frame to the next. Using a spotmeter for determining exposure throughout the scene for every shot and then a rangefinder to take the picture seems wasteful to me - if you have that sort of time for every shot, get a proper large format camera and you will have more image quality (with respect to grays and details) as well as more creative control (with respect to perspective distortion, selective focus etc.)
Philipp
I think a lot of confusion here is from collating light metering and setting the exposure. These are two separate actions, you can use sunny 16 and set exposure, an incident reading and set exposure, or a spot and set exposure etc. Still the first part (measuring the light) doesn't give you *the* exposure, it only tells you the amount of light, EV, or scene contrast. Setting the exposure *is* a creative control, and is rather loosely related to precision of light metering.
Of course I wouldn't argue Bill's point that a good meter is the king when you want to know how many lumens, candles or EV are there, but it tells about exposure just as much as about composition.
i think bmattock and vincec have gone too far with arguing about exposures. only thing that is important is composition - that you cant change after taking photo. over and underexposure can be repaired in lab.
Wrong exposure (if by that we mean deviation from what photographer intended) can't be fixed in a lab. You can't create shadow detail, clean up highlights or get rid of grain without losing information. And you can alter composition post-factum with cropping, just as an imperfect approach.
Ideally you should get both in the way you want them at shooting time :)
richard_l
06-18-2007, 02:18
i think bmattock and vincec have gone too far with arguing about exposures. only thing that is important is composition - that you cant change after taking photo. over and underexposure can be repaired in lab.The original topic was about exposure, not composition. Also, not all over and underexposure can be repaired in the lab. Improper exposure can eradicate information, and that cannot be repaired.
Richard
Not using a meter is like focusing by guessing the distance: in many situations, guessing works as there's leeway to accommodate poor guesses. But in other cases (close subject, long lens), your guess would probably be inaccurate. And I'm sure there are a few folk who are very good at estimating distances, even in difficult circumstances. But why bother since your camera has a much more accurate way of setting the focus?
(That said, it's handy to be able to estimate distances, just as it's useful to be able to estimate a ball-park exposure.)
I'm with bmattock: a meter is quicker and more accurate than the eye. As Bill points out, what we want is an absolute light reading, not a relative one - and the eye is notoriously bad at the former.
With a bit of practice, most of us can guess an exposure that will suffice - and a few of us may even be extremely good at it. None of us will ever be able to match the consistency of a meter.
As Bill also points out, blind faith in a meter simply pointed at a scene is asking for trouble, or, more often, a dull snapshot: what you meter is also important, as is knowing how you meter works (my Epson R-D1 is bottom-left average weighted (!)). Take this scene (granted it's an awkward exposure):
Rain Burst (http://www.bhcc-online.org/gallery/v/RichC/tempus+fugit/07-02-25_17-03-58h.jpg.html)
A straight meter reading would have exposed the top right correctly - which would've been a disaster for the rest of the scene! So, I metered the top left, away from the sun, and added 2 stops for the shadows, with the intent that I'd bring the shadows out by 1 stop more when developing my Raw file (+3 stops in the camera would've blown out the top right). The final image pretty much matches what I saw out of my window.
If your camera has a meter, I fail to see why not using it brings more control. If your camera doesn't have a meter, I can see that always using an external meter can be a drag - and if the exposure
The purpose of this thread was to ask members views on how they take photographs without a light meter, because many people do this. Ruben asked for approaches and personal experiences.
In that respect, it's simply not on point to repeatedly insist there is absolutely no way to take consistently acceptable photographs without a light meter. That's the subject of some other thread.
i agree that composition isnt theme of this thread - but theme also wasnt using meter - and many people talk about that. so i just wanted to point out that there are others things also. i use sunny 16 and that works ok for me in all situations. mistakes made when using sunny 16 are not that big that cant be repaired. and ruben you can search net for EV values - there are sites with lists of situations for every EV number. you can find some on fred parkers site - i think they are good even in low light.
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