To meter or not to meter...

Poisson Du Jour · Feb 14, 2013

Chan Tran said:
Exposure latitude is the difference in dynamic range between film and paper.

(!)
What!? Where did you get that tidbit from?
I wouldn't be too concerned about the latitude of paper as opposed to a sharp understanding of the latitude (range of acceptable exposure/dynamic range, above and below a known point of reference) of temperamental films, Velvia 50 and 100F among. Neg films are so relaxed that you can get away with 5, maybe 6 stops of exposure error (I never bother with them, preferring the 'tight and narrow' of beautifully spot metered E6 stock). But go 2.3 stops either way with Velvia and ... you're stuffed.

Take a roll of Velvia for a ride and see exactly what happens with narrow latitude. Might be a waste of money, but it's a brutally simple method of finding a film's "g-spot": a point where exposure is ideal (within a given set of acceptable circumstances), either side of which things go pear-shaped.

markbarendt · Feb 14, 2013

E. von Hoegh said:
It's true for me, too. If I want to use the entire range of whatever film I'm using, there is no latitude for error in exposure or development.
And the fact that 200 observers find a print acceptable really has nothing to do with me getting negatives or transparencies the way I like them, does it?
I can work with a less-than-ideal negative, but I'd rather get as close as possible to ideal. Sometimes you can't, for any number of reasons. But any time I can, I will. It's like shooting at targets, under one set of circumstances a 5" group might be acceptable, but the ideal is a "group" the diameter of a single bullet.

Yes there are a fair number of guys around here, like you and Drew, that fall in a special class of artisans within our craft that may actually intend to print 10,12, or more stops of scene luminance range and use every bit of straight line between toe and shoulder. That is quite a feat, I'm not trying to make little of that work.

Sure you guys don't have any latitude but that isn't the norm in our world. Average scene luminance range is about 7 stops, if the film is capable of 10 there are 3 stops of room, latitude, to play with. 12 gets us 5 to spare, for the average Joe or Mark shooting portraits and family and wedding stuff, that's a lot of latitude.

The reason the 200 observers comment was included, as well as citing the exact reference, was to show that the idea that "more than one exposure setting can produce excellent prints" isn't unproven conjecture on my part. It's peer reviewed science.

markbarendt · Feb 14, 2013

DREW WILEY said:
It's a difference of philosophy, or maybe sloppyosophy.

This isn't about being sloppy, it is about choices, and for me it's about where I use my brain when I'm shooting.

I typically walk into a situation, incident meter, and set my camera to peg my mid tones essentially cross lit. In that situation I can then pay attention to my subjects, usually people or dogs, subjects that I need to connect with, listen to, give commands to, and pose.

If the opportunity pops to get a front or back lit shot I rely on the latitude of a film and know that, given my subject matter and nice negative materials, I have lots of room. I don't have to think about re-metering, just point, focus, shoot. Perfect content trumps perfect exposure in my life.

I fully realize going in that in the darkroom I'll need to adjust exposure to get the print I want, that's ok, I know the limits of my films and I'm willing to do that work.

Pioneer · Feb 14, 2013

Sometimes I Do...Sometimes I Don't!

DREW WILEY said:
It's a difference of philosophy, or maybe sloppyosophy. You have machine-gunners who will take sixty
shots a minute and still never bag anything worth cooking, and you've got snipers who can down a duck
with a single round.

This is certainly an interesting post, as most of these are, but the real answer is not as simple as yes or no, it is based on the situation you are in.

Put the machine gunner on top of a hill several clicks from his target and he is lost where the sniper is right at home.

On the flip side, place that same machine gunner on a street in Baghdad during the Gulf Conflict (War) and he is right at home while the sniper is probably dead within 5 minutes.

I seriously doubt that HCB or Capa spent a lot of their time metering. On the flip side St. Ansel most certainly did (except maybe for "Moonrise Hernandez", and maybe a few more but who's really counting.)

Everyone has their own personal guidelines they are most comfortable with. In my mind developing your eye by guessing exposure settings to match your lighting is a valuable skill to practice.

So..sometimes I do...and sometimes I don't.

cajuncc · Feb 15, 2013

Pioneer said:
Everyone has their own personal guidelines they are most comfortable with. In my mind developing your eye by guessing exposure settings to match your lighting is a valuable skill to practice.

This is precisely what I'm attempting to do here. I've tried practicing on cameras with built-in meters, but it's just too darn easy to check the meter. Not having a meter at all is forcing me to think about the overall light conditions from time to time, but outside that, I just worry about shooting. It's nice.

E. von Hoegh · Feb 15, 2013

markbarendt said:
Yes there are a fair number of guys around here, like you and Drew, that fall in a special class of artisans within our craft that may actually intend to print 10,12, or more stops of scene luminance range and use every bit of straight line between toe and shoulder. That is quite a feat, I'm not trying to make little of that work.

Sure you guys don't have any latitude but that isn't the norm in our world. Average scene luminance range is about 7 stops, if the film is capable of 10 there are 3 stops of room, latitude, to play with. 12 gets us 5 to spare, for the average Joe or Mark shooting portraits and family and wedding stuff, that's a lot of latitude.

The reason the 200 observers comment was included, as well as citing the exact reference, was to show that the idea that "more than one exposure setting can produce excellent prints" isn't unproven conjecture on my part. It's peer reviewed science.

Thanks, Mark.
The way I look at it, if I can't record it on the negative, it can never be on the print. And slide film is a special case, with only 5 to 7 stops of range depending on the film you use.

If I take a camera out for nighttime street photgraphy, you can bet I'll be hoping for some wiggle room - in this case to ensure I get printable negatives at all.

The safe approach for exposure is to leave yourself some room; if you are making a negative of a scene with say 8 stops of brightness range, why not put the exposure in the middle, so you get a stop or so of insurance on each end? Making a succesful print is like going through a series of doors, each one smaller. If the errors are bigger than the doors, you eventually get stopped before you reach your goal.

As for me, my printmaking hasn't quite caught up with my negatives. But when it does, I'll have the negatives.

By the way, I like the sniper analogy. My father was sniper in the 36th infantry division in WWII, I've been a target shooter for about 40 years.

E. von Hoegh · Feb 15, 2013

cajuncc said:
This is precisely what I'm attempting to do here. I've tried practicing on cameras with built-in meters, but it's just too darn easy to check the meter. Not having a meter at all is forcing me to think about the overall light conditions from time to time, but outside that, I just worry about shooting. It's nice.

When you have and use a meter, you still need to think about overall lighting conditions. The most valuable piece of gear you have is right between your ears.

BrianShaw · Feb 15, 2013

E. von Hoegh said:
The most valuable piece of gear you have is right between your ears.

Nose? Tongue?

E. von Hoegh · Feb 15, 2013

BrianShaw said:
Nose? Tongue?

Corpus callosum.

TheFlyingCamera · Feb 15, 2013

To return to a point in the original post, the OP mentioned having a metering app for his iPhone. In my experience, the free light meter app for the iPhone does a bang-up job of metering, provided you know how to use it. It's the rough equivalent of a 5-degree spot meter, and you can use it to very quickly determine the SBR of a scene by moving the metering circle around on the screen. It's not a Minolta, Sekonic or Pentax 1-degree spot meter, but it's something you can (and most likely will) always have with you. I don't know that I'd use it for metering really long exposures at night, but I haven't tried that yet. THOSE are scenes I do reserve for the good hand-held meters that I can calibrate.

markbarendt · Feb 15, 2013

E. von Hoegh said:
The safe approach for exposure is to leave yourself some room; if you are making a negative of a scene with say 8 stops of brightness range, why not put the exposure in the middle, so you get a stop or so of insurance on each end? Making a succesful print is like going through a series of doors, each one smaller. If the errors are bigger than the doors, you eventually get stopped before you reach your goal.

As for me, my printmaking hasn't quite caught up with my negatives. But when it does, I'll have the negatives.
.

That is essentially what I do.

My prints have a ways to go too.

benjiboy · Feb 17, 2013

E. von Hoegh said:
When you have and use a meter, you still need to think about overall lighting conditions. The most valuable piece of gear you have is right between your ears.

Ain't that the truth, a light meter doesn't automatically give the perfect exposure, the readings they give are a point from which to start considering how you want to depict the scene.

To meter or not to meter...

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