Light meter - yes or no?

Light meter - yes or no?

  • Always use light meter

    Votes: 284 32.1%

  • Never use light meter

    Votes: 43 4.9%

  • Generally don't bother

    Votes: 118 13.3%

  • Generally use one if I can

    Votes: 439 49.7%
  • Total voters
    884
i got an old Leningrad-4 meter to match my FSU cameras, and I've had good luck using it. But with my smaller rangefinders (my Kiev 4 AM and my Fed 2) one of the things I love about them is I can snap a quick photo, which works best without having to check with a meter. Using sunny-16 and making common-sense adustments I can get some photos that if I had taken time to use a meter I would have lost.

Being able to guess can pay off. I was in San Diego one time with my Fed-2 and didn't realize I was going to get to go down into a Soviet submarine. Kodak Gold 100 was hardly a good film to have loaded in this situation but I was able to get some OK photos, and it felt good using an FSU camera on an FSU sub!
 
I often try and guess at exposure before taking a meter reading. That always reinforces the knowledge that I'm hopeless at guessing it! I could probably make a near-enough guess to get something on film but I tend to think I may as well get the best I can rather than what I can make do with. Why lose the highlights I wanted, or the shadows etc? If I think I'll want to "snap" quickly, I'll probably take a reading, set accordingly and focus to hyperfocal distance in advance...
 
I have a old Weston V and a Minolta Auto IV incident meter. I use the meter for a couple of rangefinders that have broken meters. My problem has been the reflective meter and the incident meter are about a stop different when aimed in the directions of trees or bushes or grass in open sunshine. Is this normal?

Thanks
 
When I have one, I use one. When I choose a caamera, often look if there is a lightmeter, so in my mind it makes shooting easier.
Best regards
sem
 
It's been my experience that, if you use an incident light meter, after several hundred rolls of film, you can build a good body of knowledge to know how light behaves in most given situaitons without metering. I carry a meter sometimes, and use it to confirm especially difficult or unusual situations.

There's a big difference between estimating and guessing.

My point is that we often get "close" with focusing -- how often have you set a lens on hyperfocal settings and eyeballed the distance, guessing it to be about 2 meters or 6.5 feet based on your long experience? I do that all the time, especially with a 28mm lens ... it has very wide focus latitude, so I just have to get roughly in the range. It's not all that different in estimating exposure with fast color negative film.

Another example: We shoot rangefinder cameras. We have made the conscious decision, for many various reasons, not to use "through the lens" viewing. However, most of us are in the position of estimating depth of field, which is one of the critical aspects of photography. The whole rangefinder experience is really about estimating focus based on visual triangulation. Many of us like to use fast lenses, which in turn have limited depth of field. As we compose our photographs, I suppose many of us are just hoping for the best when if comes to "bokeh" and out-of-focus effects in our images. But I'm not alone in seeking to previsualize the final image. I'm mentally balancing light and dark, various colors, and which elements are in and out of focus and by how much. I have a good sense of how the different lenses and focal lengths handle their out-of-focus characteristics. So when I'm focusing on someone's eyes, I'm also estimating, based on my aperture setting, how the background and foreground will turn out. I'm estimating depth of field based on experience, just as I'm estimating exposure. Yes, there are depth of field markings on the lenses. Many of these markings, on my lenses, date to the 1950s, when film very simply had less resolution than today. The markings also don't give you any hint of how the out-of-focus areas will appear on the negative ... that's where your judgment comes into play. Rangefinder cameras taught me to previsualize an "arc of sharpness" for a given f-stop ... with a width of less than 1/2 an inch for a long, fast lens. Yes, a good SLR has a "depth of field preview" button or lever. But after long experience, you get to where you know what it will show even on an RF camera.

It's similar with setting shutter speeds. When we learned photography, we learned some rules of thumb about setting the shutter speed to approximately the lens focal length. But as skills and experience add up, we get more comfortable with the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and depth of focus and exposure. Without the need for scientific instruments, you get a good idea of how much action the different shutter speeds will freeze. 1/1000 not quite the fastest sports plays, whereas 1/125 will halt most people walking in mid-stride.

Accurately estimating exposure is just another part of mastering the craft. Sure, these days nobody needs to really. But I still find myself cursing automatic cameras and quickly throwing them into manual override because their sophisticated electronics are unable to compensate for commonsense exposures like skating rinks and bands of sunlight through a slated shade.
 
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It's good to know some things are reliable in these changeable times.

I keep taking photographs without an exposure meter, and bmattock keeps insisting that it's just horribly wrong.
 
Meterless shooting is fun. That's why I do it. Seldom an exposure issue.

I went through a "bracketing" phase (using a meter) for a while, and couldn't really see a difference in the photos, frame-by-frame. Complete waste of film.

Beside the moral issue of not metering, most outdoor shots fall into a few exposure categories anyway. Sunny, in the shade, overcast.
 
bmattock said:
I just have to ask about this. My Sekonic meter (I had to dig out the manual) and the other modern meters I could find on the web just looking around quickly, seem to have a low-end range of -2, -1, or 1 EV. That's pretty dark, darker even than the light of the full moon. So what are you shooting, the mating rituals of lycanthropes?

EV -2 on ISO 100 film would be something like a 30 second exposure at f/1.4, which I certainly wouldn't be doing hand-held, and would be quickly getting into the reciprocity breakdown area of most film anyway.

So what is it you shoot that can't be metered?

My Sekonic has a backlight too, you know. No idea why I'd be using it most of the time, but it's there. So I can even meter when it is too dark for ME to see anything without help.
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Bars and clubs when out with friends or when a friend's band is playing. Your meter might be fine in that light, but mine aren't.

I can't tell you definitively what the light level is, but one place I frequent turns out best at around 1/60 at f/1.5 pushing Tri-X to 6400. It's dark. Most other places aren't so dark unless there is a band on stage, but the situation comes up enough that I don't really find a meter all that useful. I simply look at the negatives and adjust exposure next time. And I need to buy some faster film 🙂
 
I think most amateurs are too shy to take out their meter on the street and take a reading. I say that because I was like at as well.
 
I was out shooting my Retina IIa and using my Sekonic Twinmate II meter today... and ended up trying to resolve the differences between incident and reflective readings... and ended up just throwing my hands in the air and muttering, "screw it! Sunny-16!"

🙂

From experience I know they will come out... too much latitude in BW400CN to screw up too badly.

bmattock said:
The Minolta Auto IV is like my Sekonic L-358 - capable of both reflected and incident light readings, depending on the attachment you have on it. Do you have the white dome on it? That's the incident reading bit. You don't point that at subjects, you stand where the subjects are and point it at your light source.

On the other hand, if you're using it as a reflected light meter with the proper attachment on it, then by rights, both should meter the same.

However, my own experience tells me that differences are common. One reason may be the incidence angle - how broad an area they are measuring, and another might be any internal averaging being done (more likely by the Minolta).

I tend to use the 1 degree spot attachment for my L-358 when I want to be precise. Otherwise, it can be hard to know for sure what the proper exposure is.
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bmattock said:
Yeah, mine is fine with that.





Exposure: 0.022 sec (1/45)
Aperture: f/1.7
ISO Speed: 3200

I will say that if you do 'most of your photography' in those bars and clubs, and you know what the lighting situation is, I'm sure you can get away without a meter once you've determined what the correct exposure is. I played around with my meter, set manual, and then just left it.



Yeah, that's dark. I've got a set I shot at that light level, bluegrass show at 1/15 and 1/30 @ f/1.4 pushing Tri-X to 3200, but that was all in for my film. The meter was fine, though. Seriously, it was accurate out past where I could actually take a photo anymore.



Seems to me a good quality meter with a backlight would save you having to waste a roll of film to get the exposure right, but whatever works for you.

I just had a little trouble with the assertion that "most meters won't work in the darkness I live in." Yeah, most will. Modern ones, anyway. If your light is consistant and you go to the same club night after night, then yeah, you don't need a meter anymore.

Weird, living in the dark like that, but hey, whatever floats yer boat!
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This time of year, the sun doesn't rise until I get to work, and it's down before I get home. I either live in the dark or I don't live at all 🙂

FWIW, I don't understand what is so hard about figuring exposure without a meter. It's not that big a deal. Expecially not when you process your own films and can see your errors.
 
Well thing is for every pasta al dente you (figurative) have dozens or hundreds of steak, fries or omelette. You also sure would be able to contrive something less sophisticated or at least edible for a meal if you caught in a household without a timepiece.

I'm not sure folks here advocated that meter should never be used at all. Just that it in many cases it can be substituted by experience.
 
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