without a built in light meter

kshapero

kshapero

South Florida Man
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Mar 27, 2006
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Would you, do you, have you used the likes of a Leica M3 or a Nikon F without a light meter? Could you, have you, would you ever get past even using an external light meter? Or even use some kind of smartphone app for metering? In other words, using only sunny 16 or just your own accumulated experience. Have you, do you, would you?

There is something about using no meter, that is so risky and yet almost mystical in real practice.:D
 
One gets an eye for the light, but it can get deceptive real easy. With cameras that don't feature a built-in meter, I have typically had an incident meter with me that I check from time to time... shadows, bright sunlight, mixed... I can keep these in mind as I move around and shoot without constant reference to the meter. But I like to have that meter available to avoid wasting my efforts and film on exposure errors! :)
 
The cameras I most use currently are an M3 and a Lubitel, though I've also recently started putting into use a Pentacon Six, none of which have meters. I find I always take a meter with me but generally just use it as a guide and certainly don't use it rigorously or as regularly as I should. There are times when I envy those using metered cameras but by and large I get along fine. Some of my images come out poorly exposed - for some reason, I've been under-exposing a bit recently - but the negatives are normally still usable. I've used relatively trickier films - slide films and slow b/w neg films such as Rollei RPX 25 - without major incident or problem. I'm not great at judging the light by any stretch of the imagination but I'm happy enough muddling along in this way.
 
None of my film cameras have a meter, and I don't carry one either. You eventually gain enough experience to be as accurate, if not more so, than a meter is, in your judgement of light.


Untitled by Berang Berang, on Flickr


Untitled by Berang Berang, on Flickr
Greenhouse by Berang Berang, on Flickr



When I do have an issue with exposure, it's usually because I've hit the very limit of my equipment (and film choice... I rarely shoot anything faster than 100ASA).


Untitled by Berang Berang, on Flickr


For three years I shot nothing but Agfa Precisa in my 35mm cameras. Even slide film is nothing once you've learned to see what you're working with.


wall by Berang Berang, on Flickr


scooter by Berang Berang, on Flickr


I think with enough experience, and a good sense of what one wants, anybody can do this. In retrospect, I think slide film may be the best for learning because you get to see most directly cause and effect between your exposure choices and your results (whereas with negatives you can make up, to some extent, for errors when printing or scanning).
 
Doug said:
... I check from time to time... shadows, bright sunlight, mixed... I can keep these in mind as I move around and shoot without constant reference to the meter... :)
Click to expand...

So I do.

The more I shoot the better it works. Also with cameras with built-in meters. But just the light meter app on my old
IPhone does the job very good.

Usually there is an amount of light in every situation you can work with. Expose a bit more or less as you mean the result should be.
Works with all sorts of film and digital. Once in flow that is a wonderful way of photographing.
 
kshapero said:
Would you, do you, have you used the likes of a Leica M3 or a Nikon F without a light meter? Could you, have you, would you ever get past even using an external light meter? Or even use some kind of smartphone app for metering? In other words, using only sunny 16 or just your own accumulated experience. Have you, do you, would you?

There is something about using no meter, that is so risky and yet almost mystical in real practice.:D
Click to expand...

I use a few meterless bodies (Leica M2, Pentax SV, Nikon F with a dead Photomic and a Olympus 35RD also with a dead meter).

Usually I use a Sekonic external meter and occasionally an app. If the lighting is something predictable that I'm familiar with (direct sunlight, open shadow) I often don't bother to meter and just guesstimate.
 
The OP writes like Dr. Seuss! Yes I would, could and have used meterless cameras. My first serious camera was an Nikon F. I didn’t know what I was doing at the time and bought a spotmeter. I used my hand in place of a grey card and when it became inconvenient I started guessing exposures based on sunny 16. I was mostly shooting TMX and after a while was able to correctly guess within half a stop. When I bought an N60 AF body I completely relied on the matrix metering. I have gone back to meterless cameras but rely on a Sekonic incident meter. In a pinch I can still give a good guess. Once on a shoot the batteries in my Pentax Spotmeter died and my trusty back up the 308 also had dead batteries. I checked them the night before. I left my iPhone in the hotel so had to wing it. All the shots came out fine. It’s a good skill to have. I was shooting a supposedly haunted hotel believe it or not!
 
Most of my M4-2 pictures are meterless for sometime now. In out doors, day night. With M3 DS ELC it was the same.
Difficult to call it risky and mystical for me after I took 100K digital exposures with knowing what I 'm doing and after I took thousands of exposures on film with reading of handheld meter....
 
South Florida in Day Light should be easy peasy

South Florida in Day Light should be easy peasy

I've been guestimating exposure for many years.

LVexpose.jpg


It's when I'm indoors - or - outside in mid-winter on a dark grey, cloudy day that I want my crutch, I mean light meter.

If you carry a cell phone, there's an app for that.
 
One thing that helps, if you're using a handheld meter: Try to predict what it might be before you take the reading. Is it full sun? One or two stops less than full sun? Three or four? With experience, you can come pretty close and that's a good skill to have for the day you forget to bring the meter.
 
Film is too pricey these days for me to guess.

Yes, no doubt one can skip a meter and get good results over time, but I’d rather not spend lots of money experimenting, or worse, grossly miss exposure on a keeper shot.

I use a hand held incident meter and check it when the light changes noticeably. Negative film latitude covers the rest.
 
I use a modified sunny 16 setting all the time with my digital M262. In sunshine it’s ISO 200 and an exposure of 1/250 sec at f11 or an equivalent, depending on the depth of field I’m trying to achieve.

If there’s an abundance of shadows I know I can allow 1.5 to 2 extra stops of light, still retain the highlights and get the raw file sorted fine in Adobe Camera raw.

Using my M4 or M6 it’s even easier if I’m shooting b&w or color negative film with the tons of leeway those films give. If in doubt just give it another stop (or even two) of exposure.

You’ve really got to be super sloppy to mess it up with ISO 160 to 400 negative films.
 
Doug said:
One gets an eye for the light, but it can get deceptive real easy. With cameras that don't feature a built-in meter, I have typically had an incident meter with me that I check from time to time... shadows, bright sunlight, mixed... I can keep these in mind as I move around and shoot without constant reference to the meter. But I like to have that meter available to avoid wasting my efforts and film on exposure errors! :)
Click to expand...

I am the same. On a typical day I am pretty good accounting for shade/shadows but get less accurate as the sun is setting and will occasionally watch the meter to see how the baseline is changing. On gray/cloudy days I like having the meter to give me the baseline to work from.

I also think shooting meterless is a great way to learn how/when the simpler meters in many cameras will get the exposure wrong.

Shawn
 
css9450 said:
One thing that helps, if you're using a handheld meter: Try to predict what it might be before you take the reading. Is it full sun? One or two stops less than full sun? Three or four? With experience, you can come pretty close and that's a good skill to have for the day you forget to bring the meter.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is a great way to get more comfortable shooting meterless. Figure out the exposure in your head and then check your work with the meter, not the film. That will give you immediate feedback on your estimate (film will take time to see your results) and help fine tune your thinking.

Shawn
 
shawn said:
Yes, this is a great way to get more comfortable shooting meterless. Figure out the exposure in your head and then check your work with the meter, not the film. That will give you immediate feedback on your estimate (film will take time to see your results) and help fine tune your thinking.

Shawn
Click to expand...


The problem with that is, you will only find out what your meter readings mean in relation to what your images look like - by using film and seeing the results. There's no getting around that, and it still means practicing.
 
Most of the cameras I use are without a meter. Unless I forget it I'll always take and external meter along. Annoyingly I bought two new pairs of varifocals that the salesman persuaded me should have a premium coating. The result is that I find a change in light levels to be totally imperceptible, and relying upon my estimates would be hopeless. So I don't.
 
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