Metering Issues...

[nzeeman]

Also, I have (tried) to use a Kiev in street photography before, and have found it painfully slow, mostly due to my inexperience. The viewfinder is small and the patch blurres out sometimes. Winding the camera lets me train my arm and hip muscles. And the biggest irk is loading film. If I don't have tape or scissors, I won't be able to install it in. That being said, it's an excellent camera, giving me great photos despite being built earlier then my country!

you can make it faster if you dont use that little focusing wheel - try to put something under that little locking pin and your lens will be unlocked all the time - then you can focus with lens like any other camera - maybe that will make you faster.

and if winding is problem - maybe you can try zorki 5, 6 or 4k - they have faster winding. (and if your budget is bigger bessa r is always the option - and it has pretty accurate meter as i heard 🙂 )

 

[ruben]

Hello all,

...........So have I answered my own question? Stick with TTE (Through The Eyes) metering first and then supplement with a Sekonic when I see fit?

Also, I have (tried) to use a Kiev in street photography before, and have found it painfully slow, mostly due to my inexperience. The viewfinder is small and the patch blurres out sometimes. Winding the camera lets me train my arm and hip muscles. And the biggest irk is loading film. If I don't have tape or scissors, I won't be able to install it in. That being said, it's an excellent camera, giving me great photos despite being built earlier then my country!

Regards,
Samuel

Hi Samuel again,

Yes Sekonic L308 all the way ! ! !

Now as for the Kiev at street photography: Not only you are right, but I can ad more problems. And all of them is what I want to solve at the Kiev Project. Part of the problems are due to disfunction of the kievs as they come to us nowadays. Therefore we are going to make them mechanically excellent cameras, whose winding will be quicly performed, effortless, at eyelevel with thumb and index.

The issue of blurring is in my opinion related to some device inside, which Xmas calls it the eyepiece, that we are going to align and have real sharpness at the yellow patch.

For loading film however, may be you are using the wrong spool. The right one to use is one with two slots.

But we are going to walk much farther than that. We will have smooth focusing with all lenses. The J-12 will become the second most easy lens to mount after the standard. We are going to make our own pouches making lens exchange faster than with any other system. Etc, etc, etc. Making our Kievs smooth, fast to manipulate and accurate cameras is the gravity center of the Kiev Project.

To achieve all these we will have to work hard. And if you are ready to work hard, you will have all these.

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[Xmas]

HCB and who is to question the master, set his focus at 4m (12feet) at the beginning of the day... 1/250 sec and F/11 or whatever.

Wind and push, wind and push, ...

If you have a Kiev take up spool the loading should be, stick baseplate in mouth, drop in cassette, pull leader out of cassette, push in tongue of leader to spool, wind on to remove slack, fit baseplate, check rewind knob is moving as you shoot the first two or three blanks set counter to 1.

Wind and push, ...

Useful to check that the focus, and exposure has not altered.

Noel
P.S. to be fair I use an exp meter at beginning of day, you then need to meter for shade, sun , cloud and store in memory... but that is for chrome film
The Kiev reloadable cassettes normally come with a spool that is ideal as a take up spool, thay can be bought separately as well, or you can saw a kodak cassette inner (plastic spool).

 

[jbf]

Hah... My past two rolls of film for my B&W 35mm class have ended up with getting the shots with quite off exposures. :\


Most I can still make prints out of but god its a huge chore. :\


I guess I'll be biting the bullet and buying a meter. Im still not sure which would be best.

Basically I want a meter that will work as well as a TTL meter in a Nikon D70 or something i guess? I dont know. Im not really good with meters but I just need something thats good with reflective and incident but doesnt cost a crazy amount.


Would a Weston Master V or Weston Euromaster meter do the job do you think? or do I really need to shell out for the sekonic L308?

 

[ruben]

..........
Would a Weston Master V or Weston Euromaster meter do the job do you think? or do I really need to shell out for the sekonic L308?

I own both three meters, all in good working conditions. The Weston is more for the thinking compensator exposer, metering for reflective mode, where it reaches the peak of its effectiveness for its compensation facilities.

The Sekonic reaches its peak of efficience at speedy non-thinking incident metering readings. All accurate, all high class.

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[Xmas]

The Weston was designed in the 40's, it can be used as a simple reflective average or sophisticated incident meter, it wont work in low light.
If you want it will support the Weston/Adams zone system, designed for 10X8 cameras but still useful for 35mm.
The other is the latest wisso gadget for tecco freaks but may not offer the same visualisation of the Weston zone calculator.
Ruben may not be troubled by the differences.
Noel

 

[ruben]

..........
Ruben may not be troubled by the differences.
Noel

Noel ?.....

 

[Xmas]

Ruben

Alas you do not grasp that I and others may need the calculator to visualise the zones...

Please confirm...

Noel

 

[nzeeman]

Hi Samuel again,

Yes Sekonic L308 all the way ! ! !

Now as for the Kiev at street photography: Not only you are right, but I can ad more problems. And all of them is what I want to solve at the Kiev Project. Part of the problems are due to disfunction of the kievs as they come to us nowadays. Therefore we are going to make them mechanically excellent cameras, whose winding will be quicly performed, effortless, at eyelevel with thumb and index.

The issue of blurring is in my opinion related to some device inside, which Xmas calls it the eyepiece, that we are going to align and have real sharpness at the yellow patch.

For loading film however, may be you are using the wrong spool. The right one to use is one with two slots.

But we are going to walk much farther than that. We will have smooth focusing with all lenses. The J-12 will become the second most easy lens to mount after the standard. We are going to make our own pouches making lens exchange faster than with any other system. Etc, etc, etc. Making our Kievs smooth, fast to manipulate and accurate cameras is the gravity center of the Kiev Project.

To achieve all these we will have to work hard. And if you are ready to work hard, you will have all these.

Cheers,
Ruben

i have one more dream step for kiev project - we must think of a way to make viewfinder with 35 mm field of view - that would be great improvement.
i have one idea - i found one totaly broken yashica 35 electro - and when you take out its front glas from viewfinder and put it in front of kiev viewfinder you get 35mm field of view - but rf patch is too big then - we need another broken yashica - and we have 35mm. 😀

 

[Xmas]

I think RussP...beck has instructions for finders or someone else has.

Noel

 

[ruben]

Ruben

Alas you do not grasp that I and others may need the calculator to visualise the zones...

Please confirm...

Noel

I have no idea what are you talking about.

cheers,
Ruben

 

[Xmas]

Ruben

If you take a general reflective reading you assume the sceans is 18% average, if you take a shadow reading and select the zone (on the calculator) your exposure is correct for the zone. Lots of people need the circular calculator on the Weston meter, to do this.

Weston was one af Ansel Adams playmates the calculator was designed my Weston for 10x8 photography, they wanted the exposure to be perfect first time.

Noel

 

[ruben]

Ruben

If you take a general reflective reading you assume the sceans is 18% average, if you take a shadow reading and select the zone (on the calculator) your exposure is correct for the zone. Lots of people need the circular calculator on the Weston meter, to do this.

Weston was one af Ansel Adams playmates the calculator was designed my Weston for 10x8 photography, they wanted the exposure to be perfect first time.

Noel

You mean to say: If you take a general incident reading you assume....

I do understand you now. As I said, I have 2 Weston meters and for the last one, a new EuroMaster I paid a small fortune, knowing what I am going to get.
The Weston meters have the best dials ever designed, far better than the poor Gossens messy ones, and are more than a pleasure to use, for me too.
Outstanding meters, the classic meters as the Leica can be held as the classic rf.

The Westons shine for the photographer taking his time for a fine exposure.

But some photographers, me included, view the street genre as including the fastest possible manipulation of brains and camera. And I am not even arquing this is The Truth of street photography, kindly take note. For speed, some hard compromises must be undertaken

It is in this very narrow situation, in which the very stupid and accurate incident reading of the Sekonic L308 shows its very stupid and narrow superiority over a Weston, provided the photographer counsciously accepts this stupid and narrow compromise. It provides not only an accurate incident reading, but the fastest one, with the biggest numbers for its compact size. For street photography, I do use it, counciously of its stupid average reading.

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[alternatve]

Alas, the Kiev user doesn't have the 10 point auto focus mode nor the 5 segment matrix metering inbuilt.

But still, we survive.

I don't quite get you Noel. Then again, I get lost at the metering terms used. I usually point my camera (or a meter) at the object I want to focus upon, read the metering, twist knobs, focus and shoot. Or are there different ways of metering as well? Do advise...

Samuel

 

[Xmas]

You mean to say: If you take a general incident reading y

Ruben
No I typed reflective and I meant reflective, i.e. remove invercone, stand in front of lens and point meter at sceanery.
Ignore invercone for moment.
If you have an OM4 (as I seem to recall you might) and you push the shadow button and you take several spot meters of the dark areas you want as shadows the camera gives more exposure automatically, to allow for the shadows being darker than average (18% or whatever).
With the Weston you point the meter at the shadow, you may have to walk over local to the shadow, and you read the light value from the galvanometer needle and set the 'U' of the calculator to that value.
The Weston allows you to see what the OM4 does for you. The Weston allows you to pick a zone a dark grey or a near white, instead of the shadow or highlight of the OM-4, if you have read the books about the zone system.
In effect the Westom allows a variable multi level matrix system but you need to read Adams and Westons books, and instead of a micro computer you have a circular slide rule, and your brain.
It is too difficult to describe, especially since I reverse engineer all of this from the calculator dial not having read the books.
But Ruben alas is all too correct in his abstract use of the Sek... meter, I dont even bother doing this the cardboard package that the cassette came is ok for B&W and chrome.
Noel

 

[ruben]

....... Then again, I get lost at the metering terms used. I usually point my camera (or a meter) at the object I want to focus upon, read the metering, twist knobs, focus and shoot. Or are there different ways of metering as well? Do advise...

Samuel

In the most primitive terms (kindly don't take offense Samuel, but I have to take care for my wings) there are two types of metering.

One is the one you use, when you point the camera, or the meter, to the subject. This is called the reflective metering because you are metering the light as reflected from what your camera or meter sees.

The other one meters the light falling upon the subject, giving you an average reading in which a grey of 18% level of black, being hold by your subject, will be accurately reproduced in your negative as such. This method is called the incident metering, and for dioing it you have at most meters a white dome, or curtain. (*)

No camera is provided with the means for incident readings. Therefore the camera industry had to make its best for improving more and more the reflecting reading, and reached indeed high levels of accuracy, within the limitations of the reflective method.

From here onwards starts World War Three, of the like of strap or wrist, about what is better. Or which method is to be used at which situation. Or how to interpret what the meter is telling you.

I will stop here and run away, as I already am hearing some guys filling their bazookas with amunition.

At this point you could pick a book about photography, being bewared by me that whatever you read, it will be a byassed interpretation only, presented as the ultimate truth. But with several books, you may discern by yourself.

Cheers,
Ruben

(*) Later addendum:
So far so good, but what will happen with the different mettering methods if our subject is wearing a white shirt under direct sunlight ?

In a very schematic way, with the incident reading most of the chances are that the shirt will be mostly "washed out" in a flat, undetailed white. Some detail may appear.

With a simple AE camera (and the Yashica Eloctros are not included), most of the chances are that the whole scene will appear under exposed. With a sophysticated AE camera there are good chances that we will have some detail about the white shirt.

But with the reflective Weston Master, providing us the best means for compensation of the average reading, we will be able to produce the most detail of the white shirt under sun light, with the less degradation of other parts of the subject. Of course for using the compensation marks of the Weston Master meter we need both knowledge and experience. But exposure is under OUR control.

 

[Xmas]

Ruben

I liked your explaination, no uzi clip behind my back. I'd still encourage Samuel to read the books of the early B&W masters.

Noel

 

[alternatve]

Ruben

I liked your explaination, no uzi clip behind my back. I'd still encourage Samuel to read the books of the early B&W masters.

Noel

I never knew it was as complicated as that... I have much more to learn then. Do you recommend me to read up on any photographer's technics other then Ansel Adams?

 

[Xmas]

Weston and Adams are the best to read for exposure and a visit to the library may be easier then wasting (using ) film. After you read the masters, then you may be able to waste less film.

Other photo books may be helpful, it is best to learn from others mistakes, than make your own. Alas I make a lot of my own.

Noel