when they were using leica for war photography...

[juno_lau]

how did they meter?

did they have a handheld one?
meter it, adjust aperture, shutter, then shoot?

or if they just guess it?

[SimonSawSunlight]

I don't get the question. I guess everyone did it his own way. why would it matter? it's not slow by nature, really, light doesn't change by 5 stops within a second.

[wilonstott]

Black and white film has a wide latitude. If you screwed up the exposure, it could be fixed in post. Cartier-Bresson (same era) never used a meter (as popular history boasts) and I can tell that some of his exposures were less than ideal--most likely the printer did all he could do to correct it. I'm sure the printers for war photogs often had to work small miracles on improperly exposed negatives.

If you know sunny 16--which I'm sure war photogs did--it wouldn't be that big a deal to at least get the exposure in the ballpark.

[johannielscom]

I have a small aluminium exposure calculator. It basically is a dial in a sleeve with small holes in it. You start out with the film speed, then choose time of year and time of day, then weather conditions and finally scenery to shoot (in).

What you get is an exposure combo that is at least 'in the ballpark'. From there on it's all the printers job.

I use that exposure meter quite often because once I know what the light is like at my patch, I can concentrate on focusing, framing and shooting.

Here's a similar one: