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
blindlemon said:
I use a Sekonic Twinmate L-208 which is small and unobtrusive. For street photography I'll take a reflected reading off the back of my hand and find that this works very well, ( you have to be average white Caucasian for this to work) along with sunny 16 rule.
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If you are going to take a reflected reading off your hand, why don't you incident meter instead?
 
On sunny days, sunny 16 is underexposing (to my taste)... And about overcast, there's luminous overcast, normal overcast, gray overcast, dark rainy overcast, late stormy heavy overcast and so on... They're all different and vary several stops: even those normal looking overcast days...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Juan Valdenebro said:
On sunny days, sunny 16 is underexposing (to my taste)...
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Dear Juan,

you're right of course:
AFAIK, the "sunny 16" rule applies to the sunlight situation of e.g. Los Angeles/California. THAT'S A LOT NEARER TO THE SUN THAN EUROPE🙂

I'd say, our sunlight in Europe demands aperture 11 (Spain/Portugal) / 8 (central Europe) or even 5,6 (Baltic countries, Scandinavia).


To our fellow members from UK:
It would be very interesting to hear/read a british opinion!
 
Dear radi(c)al cam,

I think I heard someone here on RFF say the same more or less... The fact that a lot of people say they can expose one or two stops above and below needed exposure, shows how few people care about tonal range or deep blacks for real printing... Add to that the usual "I scan and correct with photoshop", and what do we get? Low quality digital prints of "an image", and of course, a hated forum member... 🙂

Modern times!

Cheers,

Juan
 
radi(c)al_cam said:
I'd say, our sunlight in Europe demands aperture 11 (Spain/Portugal) / 8 (central Europe) or even 5,6 (Baltic countries, Scandinavia).

To our fellow members from UK:
It would be very interesting to hear/read a british opinion!
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British opinion here.

Absolutely agree. I set to Sunny-12 on my 5cm Elmar.

regards,

Bill
 
Sunny-16 is OK for colour, where (in the absence of dodging and burning) exposure is keyed to the highlights, but not so good for mono or hand-printed colour neg, where exposure is keyed to the shadows. Things are worse in Southern California or Greece or Malta, because the shadows are darker (not filled by hazy skylight) Another vote for Sunny-11.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
(...) Things are worse in Southern California or Greece or Malta, because the shadows are darker (not filled by hazy skylight) Another vote for Sunny-11. (...)
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Dear Roger,

shame on me, I forgot about Greece (haven't been there since 5 years) and Malta.
Perhaps, Sicily too:

The harsh contrasts there are demanding to cope with.
 
A sekonic meter and Leica 1A. I am annoyed that it doesn't quite match the f stop for the camera though-250 as opposed 200 and 125 as apposed 100. That said it is easy enough to do a quick recalculation. I have heard of 'sunny 16' but would someone explain?
Thanks
David
 
I modify Sunny 16 depending on time of year. Summer, mid-day at the lake here is definitely sunny 16 (shutter set to film speed, aperture set to f/16), but mid-winter noon is the same as late afternoon summer as far as light goes.

I look at where the sun is to determine the "base" exposure, then consider the lighting of the subject. It actually works pretty good, IMHO. I don't like on-camera averaging meters so much because I have to do the same kinds of adjustments to expose for the subject instead of the whole scene. If a camera is going to have a meter, I'd rather it be a spot meter.

Even if you use a meter for every shot, you still need to compensate for snow, backlighting, etc., so it's not like meters make everything foolproof. Averaging meters are great for scenes, not for isolating subjects.
 
David 11084 said:
A sekonic meter and Leica 1A. I am annoyed that it doesn't quite match the f stop for the camera though-250 as opposed 200 and 125 as apposed 100. That said it is easy enough to do a quick recalculation. I have heard of 'sunny 16' but would someone explain?
Thanks
David
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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.
 
The Sunny-16 concept works remarkably well as a basic starting point, though here at 47° N latitude, considering it Sunny-13 seems more realistic. And then I also routinely "rate" C41 film ISO 2/3-stop slower than box speed, meter or not.

Experience can show how much to open for a hazy day (maybe some volcanic ash aloft!), within various levels of shade from clouds, trees, or buildings, and degrees of overcast. I think the further away from sunny conditions, the more iffy the estimates.

Indoors, office interiors are lit pretty consistently, so there I can be confident of unmetered exposure estimates too. Not in restaurants (which vary wildly) or homes!

I do like incident meters, having the advantage of reading the light level without being affected by the reflectivity of the subject. Similar in effect and a good check on Sunny-16. Leads generally to consistent exposures usually with fine tonality.
 
I use a sekonic L308s. Even though my cameras all have built in meters I find my exposures are more accurate especially with digital when using the L308s to take general incident reading. I usually only use the built in meter in a pinch or when conditions are changing fast like going from one room to another.
 
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