Metering techniques

If I have the M6 and my Gossen I very often do what John just said. My 'don't over-think it' technique is to do exactly as the M6 meter suggests. It amazes me how often my careful thought with incident reading, consideration of the subject, a rare reflected additional reading with the hand-held, and then my brilliant calculation will turn up the same settings as the M6 meter. Reminds me of Harrison Ford's response in Raiders of the Lost Ark when confronted by that impressively clad scimitar-wielding villain. People say the M7 on AE is scarily clever. I'm going to write down Juan's technique though. I like that.
 
I figured this one out a while back while wandering around San Francisco looking for decent street photo opportunities. This was with my M2 and VC II meter. To try to be discreet about metering (and never really being able to master holding my camera with one hand and metering off the back of the other), I would take a reading of the side walk or street. It's like having an enormous grey card blanketing the whole city. Then I would just open or close up a stop or two as necessary. With black and white film, it works great. I'm not sure how well it would work in a really sunny city, but in SF and where I live in Seattle, the light is diffused and even enough that you'll get a correct exposure a majority of the time.
 
Richard G said:
If I have the M6 and my Gossen I very often do what John just said. My 'don't over-think it' technique is to do exactly as the M6 meter suggests. It amazes me how often my careful thought with incident reading, consideration of the subject, a rare reflected additional reading with the hand-held, and then my brilliant calculation will turn up the same settings as the M6 meter. Reminds me of Harrison Ford's response in Raiders of the Lost Ark when confronted by that impressively clad scimitar-wielding villain. People say the M7 on AE is scarily clever. I'm going to write down Juan's technique though. I like that.
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Sometimes I use my friends Pentax Spotmeter. I go through the whole Zone System exercise (shadows, gray card, highlights, back of my hand). And I come up with same exposure as my BessaR on board.
 
In "How to Photograph An Atomic Bomb" (about the Hollywood-based DoD unit that photographed all the atomic tests in the 1950s and 1960s), there's a handy "sunny 16" chart reprinted that recommends stopping down 5 stops from a bright daylight reading to photograph a nuclear blast. Just a rule of thumb, results may vary.
 
I meter on the back of my hand. Then I have a rough grey card measurement. Works perfectly. I also generally think of exposing after the shadows. Cannot get details from under exposed shadows, but can normally extract details from blown highlights, at least with film.
 
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Chuck Albertson said:
In "How to Photograph An Atomic Bomb" (about the Hollywood-based DoD unit that photographed all the atomic tests in the 1950s and 1960s), there's a handy "sunny 16" chart reprinted that recommends stopping down 5 stops from a bright daylight reading to photograph a nuclear blast. Just a rule of thumb, results may vary.
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😱😱😱 In the 50's, we went through the "Duck and Cover" routine drills to keep from having any "exposure" at all (except for your backsides, of course)! The thought of taking a photograph during a nuclear explosion goes against all of that training.😛

It is interesting about the 5 stops difference though...
 
I used the palm-of-the-hand/open-up-one-stop technique or an incident reading. Sometimes a spot-meter. Sometimes the SWAG technique.

Nowadays, I just use the camera's TTL meter and shoot RAW.
 
I mentioned the palm-of-the-hand idea much earlier, but lots of people have suggested using the back of the hand as a reference. Note that for most people, of any skin colour (unscientific sample based on differently coloured girlfriends, though not simultaneously), the back of the hand changes depending on the season and exposure to the sun. The palm of the hand does not !
 
If real money is riding on then acceptability of my exposures, I'll use a light meter(Incident or spot), of course. But, back when I shot film for fun, it was usually Kodachrome 25. I got to know the sensitivity of that film well enough that I rarely brought a light meter outdoors, or for daylight lit indoor shots. Since I already know how bright the clear-day sun is( 8000 footcandles, at 12 noon, on July first, in Washington D.C.--make adjustments for your own latitude and weather conditions), the rest is simple. Same idea as the 'sunny 16' rule.
After all, how many years does one have to be alive and observing the world, before one kinda knows how bright a given scene likely is?
 
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