Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/02/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Its a matter of "knowing" what a cloud will do to the scene isn't it? On 09/02/2006, at 9:03, bruce wrote: > Hi Alistair, > > Some twenty plus years ago, I purchased a Pentax spotmeter, to > supplement the readings from my original Weston. > > Wherever I intend/ed to take photographs, I meter/ed the environment > ........... measured the skin tones (sometimes on myself), plus the > highs and the lows in the environs. I then fix the setting in function > of which area of the image I wish to be best exposed in relation to > the others. > > And thereafter, just watch (naked eye, mine) the changes in the light. > I find it easiest in the tropics ............... and worst in this > land, where the clouds are constantly changing the light--fall > ............. ugh! > > B. > > On 8-feb-2006, at 22:24, Alastair Firkin wrote: > >> G'day, >> I have spent a long time trying to "learn" to estimate exposure, so >> that I could set the M's without bringing them up to my eye. Same >> goes for focus and those neat little tabs on the early Leica lenes (I >> love that). Its not too hard and as you say is aided by film >> latitude. Now I am going the opposite direction, and will soon be >> doing mainly spot metering and quick "zone" estimations. This is not >> good for a street grab, but great for other forms of photography. >> Hasselblad got all excited about it with the release of the 205TCC, >> and it has made sense to me. Now that I've been using it, I love it. >> >> Trick is AFAICS, to grab a reading from the highlights set it to a >> zone your film/sensor can tolerate by prior experience and in >> "general" let the image follow suit. If you need to be really fancy, >> check the lowlight as well and establish a range, adjusting contrast >> to suit, but I suppose that is what the histogram does for you in a >> graphical way. Checking histograms and re-exposing is slow however >> and is not going to suit the needs of the M user. >> >> On 08/02/2006, at 19:19, Scott McLoughlin wrote: >> >>> Probably like many others, I have my D70's little LCD screen more >>> or less permanently set to the "display histogram" mode :-) >>> >>> I can't directly translate in my head a histogram into the visual >>> appearance >>> of a photo, but I imagine I'll get there soon enough. For now, I >>> generally >>> just shoot raw and try to "expose to the right" while avoiding blown >>> highlights. From there, should I have the motivation and energy, >>> alot can >>> be tweaked during RAW conversion. >>> >>> Maybe if I were more careful, I'd use the D70's spot meter on the >>> highlights >>> and adjust exposure from there, but I haven't spent the time to >>> master >>> that technique yet. >>> >>> But you got to hand it to film where some crappy exposures can often >>> be molded into nice photos in the darkroom. On this very list, I >>> believe, I've >>> read that HCB himself - patron saint of we Leica users - guestimated >>> exposure >>> often and relied on a tight relationship with a master printer. >>> >>> Now, that's not me. I use a nice metered M6TTL and have 2 Sekonic >>> meters I'll sometimes use in incident mode "just in case" :-) >>> >>> Scott >> >> >> Alastair >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > Alastair