Metered or unmetered?

[The lives of others]

Hello everyone, new member here, already overwhelmed by the wealth of (quality) content in the forums. I feel like a kid in a candy store; and (unfortunately) I'm not a kid anymore. At least not according to my birth certificate. 🙂

I've been fascinated with photography since my high-school years, but for reasons not relevant here I only started to get seriously into photography in my early 40s, with a canon powershot G series point&shoot, a 5D Mark II and much later on a digital Leica M.

Fast forward to the present, and to get to the point, it's time to depart on something I've delayed for far too long: film photography. Preferably with a rangefinder camera shooting color negative film mostly.
I'm still trying to find my way around all the info and technicalities, and one of the things I need to decide on is whether I need a metered camera or not.
So, what I'm asking is this: If you were in my shoes, right at the start of your film photography journey, what would you advise knowing what you know now?
Look for a camera with a light meter?
Or don't bother with that and just use sunny 16 (or an external light meter or even a light-metering app)?

Thoughts?

 

[neal3k]

The variety of answers you may get here may not help as it is likely everyone who answers will have found what works best for them. From Sunny 16 to multiple spot meter readings, all can work. It depends on what you want to shoot and how spontaneous you want to be I shoot mostly old buildings, vehicles and scenes outdoors in daylight. Using modern films that have good exposure latitude and not worrying about slightly varying the exposure in edit, I shoot Sunny 16. I also zone focus. Then I can shoot like a point and shoot, only without batteries. I have a phone exposure meter app for tricky situations like indoors.

 

[p.giannakis]

If you were in my shoes, right at the start of your film photography journey, what would you advise knowing what you know now?

Being a gear head and having enjoyed a number of good cameras, not all cameras are good for everything.

Is there a genre of photography that you enjoy? A keen mountaineer might prefer a small SLR with a telephoto or even a folding medium format. An AF SLR from the mid-90s might be better if you shoot macro.

Personally I prefer metered cameras and I never managed to get used to the view though a rangefinder as everything appears to be in focus when you look through it.

 

[JeffS7444]

I generally like it when it works properly, but it's a common point of failure in cameras which may be decades old. Parts + service can be iffy, assuming you can find them at all.

 

[The lives of others]

Sorry, forgot to mention that primarily I shoot people on the streets. Well, not literally 🙂. Fleeting moments, gestures and human interaction is what I'm mostly after and enjoy.

 

[caila77]

I usually preffer metered cameras, sometimes I estimate the exposure using sunny 16 rule. Light meter is not always the right choice, it depends to the subject, especially Photographying people

 

[splitimageview]

People on the street: depends on the scene and situation, if you’re moving from well-illuminated to shady/dark, you may want a metered camera. If you set up a scene and just wait for the decisive moment you may be able to set exposure and leave it there for an hour or two, as light generally doesn’t change drastically in a short time.

I prefer metered as film and dev are not cheap nowadays, I’d rather not miss exposure.

 

[Pioneer]

I am not sure there is a right answer. Right now I am carrying a metered Pentax SLR or rangefinder most of the time and I enjoy it. But I am doing a lot of indoor/outdoor mixed exposure shooting. I am shooting my cats indoors one moment and then taking some shots of the fall colors while walking to the mailbox the next.

But I live in an area which is usually sunny all the time and I do a lot of hiking. At those times I typically carry an unmetered Contax II or 6x6 medium format camera and shoot Sunny 16, so I still carry a handheld meter for that occasional tricky exposure.

But I do think that if I were doing a lot of street shooting with people involved I would want a good metered camera with a spot meter feature so I could know I was getting a good exposure of the subject of the photo,

But everyone handles things differently so over time you will probably learn what you prefer. I do like unmetered as I feel I am quicker when I am shooting that way. If I am not totally confident of the exposure I will bracket which is usually quicker than stopping to take the time to meter but you can still miss the moment that way if things are happening fast. I will say that if you work unmetered you will probably make a lot of mistakes in the beginning but, like most things, as time goes on you will learn your equipment and get better and make fewer mistakes. If you do want to work unmetered I would strongly recommend that you always work with film of the same ISO, such as ISO 400 or 800. Working with the same lens and camera helps as well.

 

[pvdhaar]

A built-in light meter is both a blessing and a curse. It's of course great that if you measure the scene correctly, you get a correct exposure. But there's also the pitfall of 'riding the exposure'; constantly adjusting exposure to follow the reflective measurement even if the light itself doesn't change.

At first, shooting without a built-in light meter may feel a bit like learning to ride a bike without side wheels, but after a while when confidence grows, you get a feel for how to judge the light. It just takes time. Besides, whole generations of photographers had nothing more than the little diagrams on the inside of the film box to go by, and they filled albums full of well exposed shots..

 

[santino]

You can always remove the batteries and go unmetered 😉

 

[Alpsman]

I can't tell you what's right or wrong for you.
I can only tell you how I do it.
Given: I have metered and unmetered cameras, and I have small tiny light meters.
Also given: Color negative film is very flexible, and the printer / finisher still gets a lot out of the negative.

So, when I'm walking down the street with an unmetered camera, I measure the light in the shadows once and the light in the sun once. There's usually a difference of two to three stops.
I then usually set the aperture to the middle value and correct by +1 or -1 depending on whether the subject is in the shadow or in the sun.

The sun always shines the same brightness. If clouds appear, open the aperture by +1 or increase the exposure time.
If my subject is in very dark shadow, open the aperture by +1 or increase the exposure time.
In most cases, this works quite well.

And regarding focusing: To get a person completely in the frame with a 50mm lens, you need about 4 meters distance. So, set your lens to about 4 meters, find a shutter speed/aperture value that's still shake-free and provides some depth of field.

Or you can set the lens to infinity, then you have a very short adjustment range to get to 4 to 5 meters.
Equipped like this, all you have to do is find a suitable subject, pick up the camera, determine the composition, and click.

The 50mm has an angle of view of about 45 degrees. Imagine this angle starting from your eye, then you can frame the object of your desire before you even put the camera to your eye.

Over time, you'll get a feel for the light intensity and the necessary distance for the right composition. You'll be faster than those who first have to measure the exposure in the viewfinder, determine the focal length, and focus, or adjust the autofocus field.
Your image may not be razor-sharp or exposed accurately. But you captured that fleeting moment. The so-called decisive moment.

Don't be afraid of botched images! Mistakes are a necessary part of the learning process.

And along the way, you'll gain a slight sense of superiority over those who depend on modern technology 😎

Happy picture taking 🙂

 

[CMur12]

I use handheld meters, also.

My 35mm film SLRs all have TTL center-weighted averaging metering, which I use when I shoot with these cameras.

My medium-format TLRs, on the other hand, don't have meters, so I use handheld meters with them. (The exception is my Minolta Autocord CdS-III, which has an onboard semi-spot CdS meter - not TTL - which is very accurate.)

I think if I were going to get a Leica or a Voigtlaender, I would go for the meterless versions for their simple elegance, and I would use handheld meters when needed.

- Murray

PS. Welcome to the forum!

 

[peterm1]

I do not know about others here but I always got a lot of joy and a sense of freedom from shooting without a built in meter in some of my old film cameras - notably a pre Spotmatic Asahi Pentax s1 and Sv and also a little later, a Leica M3. But then again, I always shot color negative or black and white (notably Ilford XP2) all of which have substantial latitude for exposure errors. Plus, I tended to shoot mainly in daylight - and the brightness values there are pretty predictable. I did also have a hand-held meter and early on in my film shooting "career" I would use it when mostly whenever I first stepped outside on shooting expeditions but then put it away for the rest of the day's shooting, remembering to make an adjustment to the camera's exposure setting as I stepped into sunlight or back into shadow. It gave me a great sense of satisfaction to be able to get good exposures in this way - without having to use the meter constantly. Eventually I would just give up the meter and use the sunny sixteen rule instead, reserving the meter for those occasions when I knew I would be going to places with less predictable light than is provided by natural daylight.

 

[Axel]

I had a lot of fun also shooting slide film completely without a meter some years ago.
My entry way to understand metering parameters was with preset apaertures and automatic or match-needle
time setting.
Manual parameter setting sometimes gives other results because you only change settings if
really necessery. Automatics tend to optimize every picture what not always is the best
for a photo.

But today I really enjoy the preview of modern electronic viewfinders and don't want to miss anymore.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I have done film in bw, ECN2, C41 and forgot how it is called for slides. E-6?
Slides was most kind of stupid, without projector. Scans doesn't show what slides are.

I have done slides with FED-2 in eighties, earlier nineties and with M4-2, also with 6x9 Moskva not too long ago. Metering by S16. It worked.

By now, to me BW is still better with film. Color - digital is fine.

 

[Godfrey]

> Hello everyone, new member here, already overwhelmed by the
> wealth of (quality) content in the forums. I feel like a kid in a
> candy store; and (unfortunately) I'm not a kid anymore. At least
> not according to my birth certificate. 🙂

Give it up ... stay a kid. Much better that way

> I've been fascinated with photography since my high-school years,
> but for reasons not relevant here I only started to get seriously
> into photography in my early 40s, with a canon powershot G series
> point&shoot, a 5D Mark II and much later on a digital Leica M.

So you have plenty of time in doing photography, using different cameras from consumer grade to pro grade.

> Fast forward to the present, and to get to the point, it's time
> to depart on something I've delayed for far too long: film
> photography.

Stop thinking about "film photography" as being anything different from photography that you're already used to. Aside from different limitations of the recording medium (equivalent to using different cameras with different sensors, in large part) and the fact that you only get one ISO setting per film load, it's not a lot different. Those differences should be learnable in an afternoon, to first order, and then refined for the rest of your life.

> Preferably with a rangefinder camera shooting color
> negative film mostly. I'm still trying to find my way around all
> the info and technicalities, and one of the things I need to
> decide on is whether I need a metered camera or not. So, what I'm
> asking is this: If you were in my shoes, right at the start of
> your film photography journey, what would you advise knowing what
> you know now? Look for a camera with a light meter? Or don't
> bother with that and just use sunny 16 (or an external light
> meter or even a light-metering app)?
>
> Thoughts?

You're already familiar with a bunch of different kinds of cameras with different levels of automation and built-in metering. If there's anything different to be had with using film vs using a digital sensor, it's in how you expose the film to match your chosen development process. A built-in meter is convenient, but it also often leads to a certain amount of "not thinking about the specifics of the settings vs the scene dynamics" and just matching the needles or lights due to what the camera tells you. If you want to learn exposure, both for film and for digital capture, the best thing to do is to ignore the conveniences of built-in metering and metering automation, let yourself use a hand held meter and your eyes ... in other words, learn how to see the scenes you want to capture in terms of their light dynamics and understand how to expose them properly.

A light meter should provide guidance, not be the ultimate judge of proper exposure.

You are choosing to do color negative photography. This is without a doubt the easiest, highest latitude medium to learn exposure for, and unless you're planning to do your own C41 development (IMO a big waste of time...) it's questionable whether there's much or any real learning to be had from it: color negative processing is cheap, the machines at the labs are very very consistent, so there's little useful variation to take advantage of with home processing. You could almost ignore setting exposure beyond the very basics entirely ... which is how simple box cameras sold with color negative film get along splendidly and make some very nice photographs.

Choose to shoot B&W negative or color slide ... then your exposure choices matter and you have variation in processing that's worth exploring.

I can't tell you what's best for you.

I have both metered and unmetered cameras (both film and digital) and use them interchangeably. I learned photography on a 1947 Rolleiflex TLR and a 1951 Argus C3, shooting only B&W film. I use my eye, occasionally alone but often in conjunction with the in-camera meter when its there or with a hand held meter, or a scene chart for suggested exposures. With an automated exposure camera, if I turn on automation, I push the exposure around by guessing and using the EV Compensation control to get my best exposure for a scene.

It is all much of a sameness, regardless of digital or film, metered or unmetered, automated or manual. The key is to learn what you need for good exposure, and to think when making an exposure to use that knowledge.

G
"No matter where you go, there you are."

 

[luuca]

I came to the conclusion I prefer unmetered cameras with film (mostly BW).

The meter is distracting (for me); most of the time I struggle to get the proper couple time/aperture and I miss the shot. I know I could simply not pay attention to the meter, but it's hard when you have that red light telling you're doing wrong...
I prefer the imperfection of my instinct.

It's very rare for me to completely miss a shot because of a wrong exposure.
I tend to set a fixed shutter time that suits to my needs and then adjust aperture accordingly with the scene light.

 

[kxl]

Portra 400 and a couple of the Kodak Vision3 variants have very wide latitude that can handle at least 2 stops of over or under exposure. In most cases, that’d be good enough for unmetered bodies.

 

[Godfrey]

Portra 400 and a couple of the Kodak Vision3 variants have very wide latitude that can handle at least 2 stops of over or under exposure. In most cases, that’d be good enough for unmetered bodies.

It's good enough that you can usually set f/8 and 1/250 second and just not bother worrying about being more precise. ... With any camera. 😉

G

 

[Rayt]

If you use a meterless camera long and often enough, and I mean often, you will learn to read the light. I used a Nikon F 40 years ago with an external meter and after a few months of shooting daily I could guess the exposure erring on half a stop. When I “upgraded” to fancy matrix metering I forgot how to do it, the same way I have forgotten how to spell when the computer did it for me. I shot mostly TMX at the time. C41 films are even more forgiving. My primary camera these 10 years is a Rolleiflex 3.5F with a small Sekonic 308 incident meter in my back pocket.