Study in exposure

This eve, I read AA on exposure w/ view camera. 'Made my head hurt. 'Need a calculator or laptop to figure out how bellows extension is factored. Like a filter factor that changes w/ every shot. What a PITA. 'Hats off to you & all that mess w/ those beasts.

I miss my old circular slide rule used in high school algebra and trig - no batteries. My backpack was stolen at JFK airport years later. I love having the weston meter - no batteries to be dead or worse to have leaked and ruined an expensive light meter. The incident light meter was the most sensible way to meter this scene, since otherwise i would have had to do all that zone hopscotching. I could let the meter tell me what zone V is, and see the results in the negatives - i was here to learn this by example. Try to find middle grey in the photo above - NOT. I made up a cheat sheet for the less obvious smaller bellows factor and wrote it into my mechanical pencil-operated notebook. Certainly had to do the adjustment here. I keep a small tape measure with me for moments like this. One thing i have done right is enter each exposure and some notes on the setting up and scene in little notebook. 4 degrees of freedom in each standard, film and lens, plus FL is just too much to keep track of when starting out. I really had no idea what i was getting myself into! Unless your 6x6 has TTL metering, you will have to do the calculation or cheat sheet when you put those extension tubes on the Hassy.

Yes on the tubes. The seller mercifully let me know the short one took 1/2 stop, med. a full stop & the long, a 1.5 stop adjustment. In most ways, it simply adds the equivalent of a filter factor adjustment, but one that has to be calculated each time. Takes the 'contemplative' task to geologic time units. Makes AA's shot of moon over whatever even more amazing - guestimated moonshine @ 250 cft, disassembled, reasembled a convertible lens, and so forth. Of course it can be learned & fast approximations no doubt exist. 'just an aspect of bellows I'd not encountered before.

I'm not well versed in 4x5, but I really like your photograph. In my eyes it's a remarkable composition with exposure spot-on. I like the pattern and the texture of the stone itself. Well done !

@HiHoSilver: http://www.salzgeber.at/disc/

Perhaps it is boring to some people ... but don't we all have an inner urge to show stuff that moves us in some way or other? Keep going, michaelorr!

Wow, thank you both for the encouragement. Yes indeed, i believe that inner urge is where my desire to take photographs comes from, now you have pointed out this motivation. Cool thought. My wife has always liked this photograph from back when i took it in 2004. I always dismissed it as meant forplaying with exposure to learn. but it is true that i went specifically to that spot to take this picture, and i did take my time on the composition. I pulled it out of the negatives box recently to study it as a photograph. I need to print it now, finally, with this encouragement.

Jerevan, Thank You for your kind help. Resolve to flee LF continues, though I'll admit to looking carefully at a Baby graphic, watching vids on it. I even have tanks for 4x5 & 8x10 sheet film. I need skill infinitely more than gear. In the past, I'd prob have several LFs by now. I'll continue to learn from the hearty souls.

Don't know about all that technical stuff. Just think it's a neat photo! The repeating pattern has a soothing effect on my psyche...