Those with meterless rangefinders: how do you set your exposure?

Those with meterless rangefinders: how do you set your exposure?

  • I spot meter everything. Usually twice.

    Votes: 34 3.7%

  • I use a handheld incident meter with every shot.

    Votes: 135 14.7%

  • I only meter when I think the light has changed.

    Votes: 390 42.4%

  • I use the sunny 16 rule almost exclusively.

    Votes: 211 22.9%

  • I use an EV chart.

    Votes: 43 4.7%

  • I have been shooting long enough that it is intuitive for me.

    Votes: 107 11.6%
  • Total voters
    920
Gossen Pilots rock! Tiny and cool. I has some Weston meters, I kept busting them. There's a thread on here somewhere where I shared an EV chart I adapted from an online source, i used to laminate those or tape them to the camera body. Worked very well, actually.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear David,

1/ISO @ f/16 e.g. ISO 125, use 1/125 @ f/16, or ISO 400 use 1/400 @ f/16.

It worked a lot better before 1959 when film speeds were redefined and effectively doubled overnight. Hence my preference (widely shared) for sunny 11. Thus with ISO 400, 1/500 or 1/250 @ f/11.

It's a rough old approximation but it is aso an excellent illustration that in most of photography, rough old approximations are all you need, at least with pos/neg. As long as you err on the side of generosity, quality losses for over-exposure are very slight, especially with larger formats than 35mm. Grain is bigger with conventional films (though smaller with colour neg and chromogenic) and sharpness is always lower.

Some people expand 'Sunny 16' to include all kinds of other rules of thumb for exposure, which is pure nonsense. Experience enables you to judge exposure extraordinarily well in many situations, but not all, and you can generalize from these rules of thumb, but it ain't anything to do with Sunny 16 unless it's sunny. See http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/ps basics expoguide.html.

Cheers,

R.
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It is kind of nice seeing a big name author saying the basically same thing I have been telling people for the past 50 years. Sunny 11 puts the safety factor back into the film speed.

But, I have discovered that using Rodinal 1+100 stand developing seems to like using Sunny 16. Go figure.
 
I tend to use a combination of #3, I take an incident meter with me and intend to check it if I notice the light changing. And, #6, I usually wind up not looking at the meter, just going by what I feel is right. That usually winds up being within one stop of the incident metered reading.

What I like about this thread is the fact that I am seeing others who do not think you have to fiddle your exposure with every shot. Fiddling is fine for watching cities burn, but not for quick and unobtrusive photography. The fact is that lots of people who think they are great photographers, simply do not have the skills any good photographer has. The primary two being the ability to estimate light levels, and being able to snap focus their camera.

My Photographer's Prayer, "Lord, save me from autoexposure/autofocus cameras. For the first gives you a different density on every negative. And, the second guarantees 20 to 25 percent of your photos not being focused where you want them to be."

It IS nice to find a forum where, "technology is smarter than me" is not the norm.
 
None of the choices really fit the way I meter scenes with my meterless cameras. My Canon IIIa is not my only meterless tool.

I have a Pentax Spotmeter V, an oldie but a goodie, but I seldom use it with my IIIa because most of the time I'm shooting B&W with that camera and I just don't need the exacting readings I get with the spotmeter.

For me it's a toss-up between incident and reflected light metering, and I use either my Gossen Luna Pro F or my Luna Pro SBC for the tasks. I have the 7.5/15 degree attachment for it if I need to get a bit more exacting, but I usually don't.

Anyway, it depends entirely upon the scene as to whether I do incident or reflected metering. If the subject is lit with the same light that I am, then I'll use incident. If the subject isn't, then I go the reflected route. Just that simple. And no, I don't meter every shot. If it looks like the light's changed, then I'll check it again. I'd like to be able to brag and say that I can accurately estimate a scene's EV, but my estimates are often one or two stops off. Not so bad for negatives, I guess, but unacceptable for slides. And since I shoot probably 80% slides with my other meterless cameras, I tend to check exposure often.
 
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divewizard said:
I take mostly landscape shots with my Fuji 6X9s. I use a Pentax spot meter and set the exposure based on both the darkest and brightest parts of the scene.
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Sorry, I don't quite understand. 'Based on' in what sense?

When you're spot metering for B+W, the shadow reading gives you the exposure and the highlight reading suggests the dev time.

Of course with transparency or digital, all you need is the highlight reading -- which is more easily done via an incident reading. Incident readings for negative must necessarily involve luck, fudge (preferably experience-based) or relying on latitude, or any combination thereof.

Cheers,

R.
 
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Roger Hicks said:
Sorry, I don't quite understand. 'Based on' in what sense?

When you're spot metering for B+W, the shadow reading gives you the exposure and the highlight reading suggests the dev time.

Of course with transparency or digital, all you need is the highlight reading -- which is more easily done via an incident reading. Incident readings for negative must necessarily involve luck, fudge (preferably experience-based) or relying on latitude, or any combination thereof.

Cheers,

R.
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Hi Roger,
A question on your statement" the highlight reading suggests the dev time". I don't have an actual spot meter (mine is a LunaPro SBC w/7.5 & 15' acc), so I am wondering if a true spot meter actually has a readout suggesting dev times? Or is this highlight reading for the user to interpret? Hope you can make some sense from my questions.
Thanks,
Gerry
 
This thread is very helpful! I'm planning on purchasing a Leica M2 in the near future, but had a bit of doubt since I've only used Aperture Priority Cameras. After browsing through the posts it doesn't seem to be that big deal when you develop B/W film yourself.
I guess I'll just take the exposure chart with me all the time.. and learn how to develop B/W, I've been itching to do that too anyway!
 
Gerry M said:
Hi Roger,
A question on your statement" the highlight reading suggests the dev time". I don't have an actual spot meter (mine is a LunaPro SBC w/7.5 & 15' acc), so I am wondering if a true spot meter actually has a readout suggesting dev times? Or is this highlight reading for the user to interpret? Hope you can make some sense from my questions.
Thanks,
Gerry
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Dear Gerry,

Interpret only, I'm afraid. Though the 15/50 rule of thumb is amazingly useful. If the brightness range is over 7 stops, cut dev time 15%. If the brightness range is under 4 stops, increase dev time by 50%. For 5-7 stops, stick with normal dev time.

All of these figures can be modified to suit your own experience. You might find 'under 5 stops' or 'over 8 stops'. or that -10% or -20% works better than -15% (or +25% or +75% better than +50%, of course). But 15/50 is a good start.

Cheers,

R.
 
SixFlags said:
This thread is very helpful! I'm planning on purchasing a Leica M2 in the near future, but had a bit of doubt since I've only used Aperture Priority Cameras. After browsing through the posts it doesn't seem to be that big deal when you develop B/W film yourself.
I guess I'll just take the exposure chart with me all the time.. and learn how to develop B/W, I've been itching to do that too anyway!
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It really is easy, and as long as you err on the side of overexposure whenever you're in doubt, you should get excellent results. Worry about things like 'expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights' later, if at all.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Gerry,

Interpret only, I'm afraid. Though the 15/50 rule of thumb is amazingly useful. If the brightness range is over 7 stops, cut dev time 15%. If the brightness range is under 4 stops, increase dev time by 50%. For 5-7 stops, stick with normal dev time.

All of these figures can be modified to suit your own experience. You might find 'under 5 stops' or 'over 8 stops'. or that -10% or -20% works better than -15% (or +25% or +75% better than +50%, of course). But 15/50 is a good start.

Cheers,

R.
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Roger,
Thank you for this info. Very helpful.
Regards,
Gerry
 
Roger Hicks said:
It really is easy, and as long as you err on the side of overexposure whenever you're in doubt, you should get excellent results. Worry about things like 'expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights' later, if at all.

Cheers,

R.
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Thanks for your advice Roger!
Its really good to know that when shooting B/W, it's the same as with C41 film then.
 
Mostly sunny 16 when outside, but I bought a old GE meter for indoors.

Is it me, or do others feel the "ultimate exposure computer" is overly complicated? Seems to me that finding EV first, then linking it to ISO and finally finding the shutter speed/aperture combination adds an extra step.

Doesn't Sunny 16 do the same thing without coming up with a numeric value for the ambient light? And if you have a chart with one ISO (lets say one with a middle value like 400), all you have to do with other ISO values is alter the shutter speed/aperture combination by the appropriate number of stops. With practice you should be able to do this fairly quickly. Unless you are math-challenged. 😀 Doing this way you can carry one small chart that fits in shirt pocket.
 
I use an iphone app, make an educated guess sometimes, and very rarely i might take an incident reading or two
 
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