Toss your meters, fools!

Dateline, 7-6-06
RE: Meters are useless
any photographer that shoots more than one roll of film a month (natural
light, not flash), or thirty digital "images" and still requires a meter to
gauge exposure values is not only a hack, but lazy.
i am sick of seeing article upon article...book upon book, based on the
simplest of rules.
for all of the modern conventions attributed to photography, and all of the
gadgets that can make images easier than ever, there is still no match for
knowing one's equipment, being adept at seeing full frame (whatever that
frame size is), knowing the light quality and being able to transcend that
vision to medium.
forget zones, compensation ev's, et al, just look at a perceived image, and
MAKE it. sunny 16 has worked since the dawn of photography. no new-fangled
means of trapping light have ever fooled it. in fact, it can't be fooled. it
is almost as constant as the light we surreptitiously chase!
it has never failed me, and i won't begin to tell you how many images have
been wasted by frittering with meters!
g'night,
dm

Joe mama

Re: Toss your meters, fools!

My Gawd! Another newbie discovers the SUNNY-16 rule!
Joe Mama has absolutely no experience with studio lighting it seems.
Also, for your information, the Sunny-16 rule only works outdoors when
the sun is shining or behind clouds. Good luck using it during the
magic hours.


Anthony

Re: Toss your meters, fools!

No doubt - the precision you need for slide is critical as opposed to
negative or digital
And how do you apply the sunny 16 rule in night photography or in low
light situtations - or in situations that are obviously under/over 18%
medium gray
Go away meanie! We don't don't need your stinking advice here.


Jimbo

Re: Toss your meters, fools!

Funny, I have never seen sunny-16 here in Cleveland, the best it gets is
sunny 11.
That's when it's sunny, which isn't very often. And I rarely take pictures
between
10am and 4pm. And almost never with the sun over my shoulder.
Evening/morning misty/cloudy/thunder deep shade/open
shade/backlight/artificial
light and often a mix of all is more the norm.


Nicholas O. Lindan

Re: Toss your meters, fools!

[removed the crossposting to .digital groups]
You've obviously never shot slide film.
It is a useful exercise to shoot a roll of film by eyeballing the
exposure, then check the density of the negatives. Or guess the
exposure, and then check with the meter and see how close you were.
With color negative film, you should easily be able to get good enough
at estimating the exposure because the film has enough latitude to cover
your mistakes. Color reversal film is not forgiving enough (Ever heard
of bracketing? and that's when you *have* a meter) I dunno about B&W, I
suspect you can get an image if you're just trying to document something
and don't care about the quality.
Best regards,
Bob <-- shoots sans meter sometimes when using an old folding camera


Zxcvbob

Re: Toss your meters, fools!

Did you really mean to send this rec.photo.equipment.large-format?
For large format photography, it all depends on the specific nature of
the scene and what you are trying to accomplish. For a lot of general
purpose photography, the "sunny 16 rule" or something similar will work.
If you use negative film and overexpose a stop or two when you need
shadow detail, film latitude will usually make sure you don't go far
astray. But there are certainly many exceptions, even for standard
lighting conditions. It usually takes me less than 30 seconds to take
readings with my spotmeter to determine the exposure. I record values
also for help when scanning, but that is another matter. Even with that,
I spend at most a minute or two taking readings, deciding exposure, and
recording the values. Large format photography is a deliberative
process, and I can't understand what the big hurry is.
You may have more of a point about digital cameras. I find my D70 often
misjudges the appropriate exposure in automatic mode and requires
fiddling with the histogram. I might be better off just using manual
mode and standard values, particularly since the camera indicates how
much it thinks the exposure is off.
I'm a bit perplexed at the description of meters as being "new-fangled".
I'm 73 years old, and meters have been in common use since I started
serious photography some 50 years ago.
This has no relevance for view camera photography, but even for general
photography, one seldom has to meter for every shot. So there isn't
really much risk in losing shots. Also, modern automatic cameras meter
and determine epsoure for you, so all that metering takes no time at
all. The results are usually quite acceptable for most people, but
those of us who are used to spending time fooling with meters may at
times find the results less than optimum.


Leonard Evens

Re: Toss your meters, fools!

It's true, dicks do come up early in the morning!
--
Paul (she dreams in color, she dreams in red)
------------------------------------------------------
Stop and Look
http://www.geocities.com/dreamst8me/


Paul Heslop

Re: Toss your meters, fools!

On Thu, 6 Jul 2006 23:30:52 -0700, "joe mama" <dmoss74@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Oh I don't know about all that.
Personally I prefer to meter off the palm of my hand then open up 1.5
stops.
That process doesn't work very well below EV10.... so....
I won't be giving up my spot meter any time soon.
RPŠ


That_Rich

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