No light meter.....liberating???

barry

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I just received the prints from my first roll with the new (to me) M2. Since I have been using an M6 for the last few years, I had a bit of trepidation regarding the lack of a built in meter. I usually set the exposure where I think it should be and use the internal meter to "fine tune".
Well, it seems that the lack of "fine tuning" ability has actually improved my results. I noticed when I was shooting that I was less distracted. I was better able to focus on my composition. I shoot print film so there is a bit of wiggle room. But my exposures were pretty spot on. I feel a certain sense of liberation. Somehow a little more grounded in the art of imprinting the image.
I might just take the battery out of my M6.
Anyone else experienced this???

barry
 
Yes, that is it, that is how I feel when I stroll around without a metered camera.
 
Never experienced that, but then I don't have any experience judging exposures with the eye. I sometimes guess at it, but am usually off by a fair bit. My dad can guess impossible meterings - on the money - and he doesn't even own a camera, doesn't even take pictures.
 
Hummmm......having no meter at hand is still a challenge for me!!!!!
I´ll try it only when I get the right level of confidence in my judgement (it is when my guesstimation is confirmed by a handheld meter), but anyway I think it´s the best way to go.

I guess this (no meter) allows oneself to "liberate" and "do", disregarding the extra information that would distract or delay us from the subject and composition.

Regards
Ernesto
 
In many situations, you only need to guess, or meter, once, then adjust mentally for more shaded or backlit scenes. But when the meter is built in, there's a tendency to meter every shot, which takes away from the flow. My guesstimates are sometimes off, so I take that first reading with a hand meter.

Gene
 
I have found I am excellent on guessimating exposure however I do not want to be bothered with having to think through that aspect and would rather be concentrating on finding subjects, composing my shots and think about DOF and compensating for backlit subjects and whatnot. I therefore like in-camera metering. That said I highly dislike aperture-priority cameras, at least for my more serious B&W street work, as I find I get lazy and just shoot away rather than consider compensating for perhaps better exposure under tricky lighting scenes and working creatively with DOF, etc. First I bought a VC R3A and disliked the AE, then got an M3 and found I wanted at least "match-needle" metering, now I have the MP and am in heaven. (Yes, I know the R3A can be used in manual mode but it's not quite the same....)
 
I almost never have a meter anymore-at least with the Leica-and though I shoot mostly TriX I do a bit of slide film too-almost never a useless shot. With color print film, a meter is almost just a distraction.
 
If you use a camera's internal reflected light meter incorrectly and "chase the needle" then yes, using no light meter at all can be liberating. Using the camera's meter differently, or using a handheld incident meter, is truly liberating. IMO
 
I was forced to take pictures during a trip last weekend with no meter; after the first day the glass came loose on a newly refurbished Weston III and it was the only meter I had with me. "Sunny 16" and a lot of good luck prevailed. Given the choice I'd still prefer to have one if only as a security blanket.
 
The good old "Sunny 16" actually works quite well! I remember when I got my Hasselblad I was so exited I rushed out without bringing my lightmeter, and the camera was loaded with slide film, doh... But using Sunny 16, 9 out of 12 frames came out good!
So using a forgiving film like Tri-X is really no problem without a meter.
 
Sunny day no problem, overcast day no problem, in shade no problem, indoors bright flourescents no problem, indoors household lighting no problem, but the stuff in between is sometimes tricky to guess.
 
For me a meter (preferably built-in) is a valuable aide. Not to say I haven't grabbed a shot with a non-metered camera just by applying and adusting the S-16 rule - but I like the "advice" a meter provides.

But it is advice, not a command.

I find that most meters tend to "err" on the side of slight over-exposure, so I usually adjust for a slight under-exposure.

Fortunately, given the latitude of most film - this is a narrow enough range that I can make fairly small adjustments in PS (particularly with B&W).
 
richard_l said:
How does a built-in meter help with "tricky light?"

By the photographer knowing the light is tricky, knowing how the meter might be being "fooled" and adjusting for it. Classic case is a backlit subject that you do not want in silhouette.
 
I spent a few months with meterless Zorkis and Kiev honing my Sunny 16 meter. Now that I have the Bessa R (with a very nice built in meter) I find myself making the settings before looking in the viewfinder ... and I find the meter generally agrees with my settings. The meter is very useful for telling me when I've left a lens cap on though.

Peter
 
when i use a meter less camera i still carry around an incident meter. however, I find myself adjusting the shutter/aperture much less. And when I move from one lighting condition to another, I can easily stop up or down a few.

However, it's not really much more liberating for me. I'd still choose meter over meterless anyday.
 
FrankS said:
Sunny day no problem, overcast day no problem, in shade no problem, indoors bright flourescents no problem, indoors household lighting no problem, but the stuff in between is sometimes tricky to guess.


Agreed. Deep shade outdoors and away from normal lighting indoors are the tricky ones. Outside away from cover and any normally lighted indoor scenes are pretty consistent in light intensity and simple to expose properly without a meter.
 
A daily walk with an M3 and a Sekonic handheld meter has turned me into a fairly efficient exposure guesser. At times, my settings are a stop off, but three out of five times, they're on target. But call this liberating?

Nope for me. Not in the absolute sense. Challenging, yes, but liberating? I don't even know what it frees me from... It's just another symptom of our love of anachronisms! :)
 
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