On Thu, 12 Feb 1998 20:45:12 EST, Danny Johnson wrote: >Hey Everybody,
>Does anybody else out there have similar experiences or advice to share with >respect to light metering techniques? I'd sure like to hear about them. To which Warren replies... Here are a few observations I've made in almost 40 years of shooting: 1. If you can guess the exposure, your exposures will be better. No kidding. Film manufacturers used to pack a folded-up piece of paper with each roll of film. That paper had an exposure guide on it which really worked. My dad's movie camera from the early '50s and my Rollei from the '60s each had the exposure guide etched in a metal plate on the camera's body. 2. Once you start guessing your exposures, you will find that your indicent meter tells you the same thing. Bright sunshine equals the f/16 rule, thin clouds require you to open 1/2 stop, and an overcast sky calls for 2 to 3 stops more exposure. This isn't much help for the shots with the really dramatic lighting. 3. I bought a Nikon F3 in 1983, set the shutter on automatic, and exposed a roll of train slides. Like the kids who didn't use Crest, the results were rather disappointing. I continued to use the TTL meter, but I set the exposure manually. I moved the center spot around my composition and made sure that the bright areas indicated + (overexposure) and the dark areas indicated - (underexposure). That technique worked fine. When the light was really challenging, as a telephoto shot of a backlit train, I used automatic. It seemed that the worse the light, the better the autoexposure worked. 4. I bought a Nikon F5 in 1997, set the shutter on matrix metering, and exposed a roll of train slides. I haven't turned it off since. I just point, shoot, and have my slides processed. Laying them out on a light box yields 36 consistent and beautiful exposures. 5. Don't worry if your meter setting doesn't match the film maker's number. If you read the fine print, they say that this is just a starting point. Don't bust your butt trying to make Kodachrome work at 64 if you get better results at 40 or 80. All meters are not created equally, and all shutters have some variance. Of course, newer technology has reduced these problems considerably. 6. Take lots of pictures and use whatever technique works best for you. 7. Note that I haven't used the word "bracketing" anywhere in the above discussion. Later, Warren -> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs -> Message © SPORRS® 1998 - All Rights Reserved
