Best metering in a manual-focus camera?

I'd like to add this:
The Nikon F5 has a great matrix metering, very accurate in lots of delicate light conditions. It also measures the density of colors in the scene you capture with its green-red-blue sensor.
BUT, my Leica M6 measures better where my F5 got fooled. Oops! So much about technology!

Olympus OM-4 without a doubt was the most sophisticated meter in an SLR, scarcely even equalled by the BEST of the pro dSLRs today!
OM-4T meter had a new board which eliminated the battery drain issue in the OM-4.

The OM-4 not only had multispot, but it actually measured the light striking the film plane, it had a metering pattern printed on the shutter curtain itself, so it could METER and CHANGE EXPOSURE if the light vared DURING the shutter open time!... as it read the curtain and/or the exposed surface of the film. It also had TTL metering for flash exposure. As was pointed out, the metering off the film plane also permitted your choice of any focusing screen with absolutely no alteration to exposure measurement.

wiltw said:

Olympus OM-4 .. actually measured the light striking the film plane!... as it read the curtain and/or the exposed surface of the film.

Click to expand...

Always wondered about that: Film emulsions vary greatly in colour/tone and therefore reflectance.
A lighter or darker than average emulsion could knock the exposure off by quite a bit.

wiltw said:

Olympus OM-4 without a doubt was the most sophisticated meter in an SLR, scarcely even equalled by the BEST of the pro dSLRs today!
OM-4T meter had a new board which eliminated the battery drain issue in the OM-4.

The OM-4 not only had multispot, but it actually measured the light striking the film plane, it had a metering pattern printed on the shutter curtain itself, so it could METER and CHANGE EXPOSURE if the light vared DURING the shutter open time!... as it read the curtain and/or the exposed surface of the film. It also had TTL metering for flash exposure. As was pointed out, the metering off the film plane also permitted your choice of any focusing screen with absolutely no alteration to exposure measurement.

Click to expand...

Well that's all impressive, it's a wonder that any other photographer achieved correct exposure with any other camera.....................

Having started with the OM series, and then moving to Nikons as a professional news shooter, I was appalled by the 'crude' metering of my F3's and FM-2s. The OM-3 and 4s were SO good at shooting chromes, perfectly. The other news guys were always amazed that I got such consistently great exposure on the chromes, this was when we shot most of the time in B&W and then shot 1 or 2 rolls of E-6 for the cover. The other guys would bracket like crazy, this was when you needed just the correct density on the chrome in order for the whole system of prepress to work well, if you were off a tiny bit it was either washed out or mud in print, but not mine. I'd use the Nikons for B&W and then keep the OM-4t loaded with chrome. That multi-spot averaging was very quick, and you could lock in an exposure and blast away on motor drive. The Rollei 6008i has nearly the same metering style and works extremely well too.

Rol_Lei Nut said:

Always wondered about that: Film emulsions vary greatly in colour/tone and therefore reflectance.
A lighter or darker than average emulsion could knock the exposure off by quite a bit.

Click to expand...

I did explicit testing of emulsion brightness using a handheld spot meter...I compared multiple Kodak transparency films vs. Fuji, and found the ALL to be at the same brightness. I then compared multiple Kodak color net films vs. Fuji, and they were all the same. While transparency emulsions were different than color neg, the camera exposed color transparency perfectly, and the exposure latitude of the color neg too care of that difference!

Many cameras before digital have SUPERIOR exposure of TTL flash, all of which read the film surface; the digital TTLs frankly suck in comparison!

Film's reflective properties do indeed differ, or rather, deviate from the amount the meter is calibrated to.
But not more than about 1/3 stop.

You have to learn to get to know a meter and film anyway, so not a problem at all.


By the way: the "Autodynamic" metering did not start with the OM4. The OM2 did it first.

Q.G. said:

Film's reflective properties do indeed differ, or rather, deviate from the amount the meter is calibrated to.
But not more than about 1/3 stop.

You have to learn to get to know a meter and film anyway, so not a problem at all.

Click to expand...

O.K., I decided to spot-meter the "tails" of the films I have sitting around.

They tended to fall into 2 groups, with a stop difference between them;
The "darker" ones were mostly colour slide and negative, all pretty close to each other, the "lighter" ones being slow B&W negative film.
A few medium & fast B&W negatives occupied an intermediate position.

But still a stop difference!

Cameras with off-the-film metering measure the film reflectance at every shot. The first metering is done before the shutter opens, either with a speckled curtain (OM2 for instance) or via an auxiliary mirror behind the main mirror (Nikon F3). When the shutter opens a second reading is made from the exposed film and the ratio of the shutter closed/reference reading and shutter open/live reading gives the film's reflection density. This density, in combination with the camera's ASA setting, is then used in setting the trigger for integrating light for either TTL flash or automatic time exposures.

Rol_Lei Nut said:

O.K., I decided to spot-meter the "tails" of the films I have sitting around.

They tended to fall into 2 groups, with a stop difference between them;
The "darker" ones were mostly colour slide and negative, all pretty close to each other, the "lighter" ones being slow B&W negative film.
A few medium & fast B&W negatives occupied an intermediate position.

But still a stop difference!

Click to expand...

Yep, and TTL metering was calibrated for correct exposure with color slide emulsion brightness, and the color neg exposure latitude's tolerance of overexposure was forgiving enough to work well in spite of the emulsion brightness difference (darker emulsion causes meter to give more exposure to flash)...and that also helped avoid color negative underexposure muddiness in the colors!

Nicholas Lindan said:

Cameras with off-the-film metering measure the film reflectance at every shot. The first metering is done before the shutter opens, either with a speckled curtain (OM2 for instance) or via an auxiliary mirror behind the main mirror (Nikon F3). When the shutter opens a second reading is made from the exposed film and the ratio of the shutter closed/reference reading and shutter open/live reading gives the film's reflection density. This density, in combination with the camera's ASA setting, is then used in setting the trigger for integrating light for either TTL flash or automatic time exposures.

Click to expand...

Hi, Nicholas! Darkroom Innovation...I remember well from my days with a Beseler VXL!