Awesome photography day

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Sometimes, very rarely, all the stuff you try to do in a day works. Today I got my VC Meter II in the mail, and my MIS black and white inkset for my printer (Epson 1400). The VC fit flawlessly on my M2...I brought it with me to work, did the stuff I had to do, went to the college bookstore and found the cheap Epson matte paper I was going to order online, PLUS they now have Hewes reels! I got one of those, too. Walked around the gorges that cut through campus for an hour or so, shot a roll with the meter...brought it all home, developed with the Hewes reel, which is AWESOME...gotta go back and get a second one...the roll was pretty much 100% perfect exposures, hung it to dry...installed the inks...after an hour of frustration realized I had to remove the air vent plugs, duh...cleaned the heads a couple of times and out comes ABSOLUTELY PERFECT PRINTS, with deep neutral blacks and fabulous resolution. I'm so stoked I could wet myself.

Also, among the shots I took around campus were a few behind this one kinda shop/repair/welding/woodworking building, where there are usually weird inexplicable objects lying around...abandoned science experiments, art projects, what have you. And today I was richly rewarded with THREE weird items, which I present to you here as evidence of my delightful afternoon.

 

[charjohncarter]

Great, I haven't had a day like that since 1974. But I just got back from an outing to finish two rolls; used my VC2, 1958 Diacord, and 1969 Spotmatic. I will develop Sunday and will see if I had 1/2 the day you did. Nice shots, it is nice to get good exposure.

 

[jmcd]

I'm glad to hear you had a great day, and that the new inks worked out so well. The third photo (terrarium?) is awesome.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I'm glad to hear you had a great day, and that the new inks worked out so well. The third photo (terrarium?) is awesome.

Thank you, and may you have such a day tomorrow! For my part, alas, I can already feel the mojo ebbing...

That item has been perched on that stump for about two years. The thing inside is made of string or wire or something...very peculiar. I hope it's a piece of art, but I have no idea what it's doing back there.

 

[astroman]

So your pleased with the new VCII meter?

 

[Thardy]

(film) Photography is like golf to me. Those one or two good shots per roll (round) keeps me coming back for more.

 

[WDPictures]

Can you explain your good karma? A good deed, just good luck, hard work??? I like the VC meter... Inconspicuous, not so "camera dork", I kind of use it as a small handheld for confirmation.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

So your pleased with the new VCII meter?

Absolutely. It's right on the money! I'm doing basically what WDpictures is doing, using it to keep my guesses from spiraling out of control. And it's unobtrusive, looks very much like it belongs on the M2. I got the black one.

I dunno about the good karma. I am a pretty frantic person, I do about a million things a day, so it's inevitable that about half of them are going to fail. But yesterday, just coincidentally, was smooth sailing. I'm still in a good mood about it.

My roll of film wasn't brilliant--it wasn't THAT good a day--but there were no blown highlights, thanks to the VCII.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

I think a lot of people think it heroic to struggle with exposure that's all over the place when consistently using a meter mostly resolves that problem. Sure makes it easier in the darkroom when exposure is consistent across the entire roll of film.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Well, I find that metering usually gets in the way of workflow. Shooting is less fun when you have to meter, at least for me. So I tend to either shoot AE or, on a meterless camera, guess. But this little meter is handy enough so that it is very quick and easy to double-check guesses. I suppose what I used to object to was pulling my meter out of my pocket all the time.

 

[naruto]

So, is it worth pairing this meter with a MF camera? I have wanted such a small meter to attach on to the hot-shoe of my Mamiya C33 and the Fuji gw690. The GE meter I have has given me great service, but it is a chore to get it out meter and remember to secure it to the bag.

btw, are these scans from the negatives or the prints? could you put up some scanned prints?

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Well, I find that metering usually gets in the way of workflow. Shooting is less fun when you have to meter, at least for me. So I tend to either shoot AE or, on a meterless camera, guess. But this little meter is handy enough so that it is very quick and easy to double-check guesses. I suppose what I used to object to was pulling my meter out of my pocket all the time.

- same here!, it's just something else to think about before grabbing a shot! - a few months ago I got a Konica FT1 with shutter priority AE, (amazingly accurate), and I'm much more relaxed just walking around with 1/250 or 1/500 set, and just focusing the shot!, it's not much bigger than my M2, and fast becoming a favourite. Over the years I have learned to guesstimate pretty acurately - but, like you said - it makes things a lot better when it's spot-on.
Cheers, Dave.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

So, is it worth pairing this meter with a MF camera? I have wanted such a small meter to attach on to the hot-shoe of my Mamiya C33 and the Fuji gw690. The GE meter I have has given me great service, but it is a chore to get it out meter and remember to secure it to the bag.

btw, are these scans from the negatives or the prints? could you put up some scanned prints?

Those are scanned negs...but i don't have a decent flatbed scanner and can't scan prints with any degree of fidelity.

I don't see why the VCII shouldn't work very well with your Mamiya and Texas Leica!