When I started using cameras 27 years ago, I would say I was a "wild guesser". I did not know any better. I did have any notion where to begin, what settings will do what, and no 'feel' nor inkling was ASA/ISO was. My first roll, shot in a camera without a meter (couldn't afford one nor did I know where to get them) had lots of dense frames, nearly clear ones, and some good ones.
There is a learning curve. One gets to feel the works. Perhaps you've seen cooks who don't use thermometers or measuring cups or spoons- pinching salt and dabbing flour, pouring liquids and oils- and yet get their recipes right. How could these cooks or chefs do that? In all the time they spent cooking, they eventually develop a feel which allows them to eyeball the needed amounts, without going over or under. That is a keen analogy to what happens with guesstimators.
So what you are advocating is spending years of blowing shots that could have been good, in order to develop a capability to take shots without a meter without blowing them most of the time.
When a meter would eliminate the preceding years of frustration and is so easy to use and cheap to purchase, I do not get it.
I don't use meters all the time. Sometimes, I go without meters. I use BW or colour negative, and I can remember only of 1 shot which I regret losing from incorrect exposure. Everything else is, to paraphrase, within the ballpark.
I don't use meters all the time, either. I use them when it makes sense to do so, and I care about the resulting image or wish to control the exposure precisely.
You need to open your mind more. You need to accept that there are more ways, and as valid, or maybe more, than what you know. THen you can understand.
No one tells me what I need to do. I do not tell you what you need to do.
Tools are available, but sometimes they get in the way. The meter is useful, but not indispensable. Using it everytime can cause one to lose shots- I know, it's happened to me. By the time the reading was done, the moment was also gone.
I do not advocate using meters before every shot. They can and do get in the way.
I advocate using meters when it makes sense to do so. Eschewing metering for the purity of memory is not sensible.
People like me silly? But a lot of us guesstimators have a high batting average. My negatives look OK. They scan properly.
My point exactly. Many on RFF strive for much better than 'OK' in every other aspect of their photography. When it comes to exposure, they're fine with just 'OK' and not superior.
I find that ironic, funny, and yes, silly.
Just because you can't doesn't mean no one else can.
Wrong. I cannot flap my arms and fly, and neither can you. No one has calibrated eyeballs, and that's that. Let me know when you can look at a light source and tell me the EV accurately.
That's not turning to blame to something else. It's just opening to the possibilities that there may be other variables contributing to the problem.
A comment like yours is indicative of a totally closed, inflexible mindset.
There is nothing wrong with having a closed mind when one is right. I have a closed mind regarding the possibility that I can flap my arms and fly off the top of a tall building, and that's a good thing.
And if it was indeed the shutter which was responsible for the problem, no amount of skillful metering will help. And the best calibrated meter will not be better than the calibrated eyeball of a guesstimator.
My point was that when you have multiple variables, you cannot solve for
'x' very well. If you know the metering was accurate, then you can quickly diagnose the problem as being due to inaccurate shutter speeds. If you don't know if the metering was accurate, you're stuck with
'well it could be this or it could be that' and not knowing.
