Using a fully manual camera. I can’t relax and shoot!

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Tom
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My Pentax ME super is playing up so I’ve taken out my Praktica super TL, which is fun to shoot as it has a really pleasing clunky shutter/mirror and smells like old. Which bring me into my question - I’m having to use a light meter app on my phone (Lux), which I have no doubt is accurate, but I can’t relax and shoot as I’m not confident the exposure will be right. I know color negative has plenty of latitude and I’m using Portra 400 which is supposed to handle highlights well, but I seem to spend half my time looking at my light meter. Do I need to just trust in the film, shoot a reasonable shutter-aperture combo and shoot away??
 
I think you need to buy a good, fully working, Canon A1 and enjoy the full auto, shutter and aperture priority settings, and go back to being able to relax and concentrate on your shooting! ;)
 
Since you have the metering facility you should use it, but maybe in a more relaxed way, non-obsessively.

You might guess at a protocol that works for you, eg set the meter to film box speed and meter off the shadows (given that the meter has quite a wide angle receptor), or some other scheme. But there's lots of leeway unless you become extra-finnicky.

You are at least as clever as an in-camera meter (which are on the stupid side actually).

The next hurdle these days is usually the scanning ....
 
you just need to slow down and have a think when shooting, I am the same with my F2 it does have a light metre but I just use my sekonic. I find slowing down more pleasing, if I want to quick shoot that's my digital
 
I think you need to buy a good, fully working, Canon A1 and enjoy the full auto, shutter and aperture priority settings, and go back to being able to relax and concentrate on your shooting! ;)

My Pentax does a great job of autoexposure - I just need to get it repaired properly! :)
 
you just need to slow down and have a think when shooting, I am the same with my F2 it does have a light metre but I just use my sekonic. I find slowing down more pleasing, if I want to quick shoot that's my digital

It’s hard to slow down when trying to shoot a toddler... Maybe I should put some rocks in her Wellies!
 
My Pentax does a great job of autoexposure - I just need to get it repaired properly! :)
Probably about £70 for a repair and CLA, plus around £15 for signed for postage... you can probably find a fully working A1 body with 6 months warranty for around the £100 mark. Bung your Pentax on ebay for spares/repairs and sell the lens, and you should be able to get a Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 or a 35-70 f/4 with the money you get. Just saying. ;)
 
It’s hard to slow down when trying to shoot a toddler... Maybe I should put some rocks in her Wellies!

Well I bought a AF film camera for moving grandchildren......dunno what the prices are now but about 4 years ago bought a Nikon AF F90x for £12 and about 2 years bought a Canon EOS 300 and later EOS EOS 300v body for a fiver each and bought AF kit zoom lenses for about tenner each..the Canons are great do it all cameras and light as a feather, but erm more like shooting a digi with film.
And always wanted a Nikon AF F4 so got that.....don't ask me why I have four AF cameras :rolleyes:
About exposure:- for an old manual camera...if you are just taking similar shots in the same weather, you only need to take one exposure meter at a certain time e.g. in summer, take a reading at say 10 o'clock and the exposure doesn't change much till about 2 or 3 o'clock maybe longer, even if there is a slight difference the latitude of the film would compensate.
 
Probably about £70 for a repair and CLA, plus around £15 for signed for postage... you can probably find a fully working A1 body with 6 months warranty for around the £100 mark. Bung your Pentax on ebay for spares/repairs and sell the lens, and you should be able to get a Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 or a 35-70 f/4 with the money you get. Just saying. ;)

Now that’s brand loyalty! [emoji4]

Also, if I were to change camera I would get a Nikon as my digital camera is a Nikon and the lenses would be interchangeable. Sorry, but you can’t make me get a canon!
 
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Well I bought a AF film camera for moving grandchildren......dunno what the prices are now but about 4 years ago bought a Nikon AF F90x for £12 and about 2 years bought a Canon EOS 300 and later EOS EOS 300v body for a fiver each and bought AF kit zoom lenses for about tenner each..the Canons are great do it all cameras and light as a feather, but erm more like shooting a digi with film.
And always wanted a Nikon AF F4 so got that.....don't ask me why I have four AF cameras :rolleyes:
About exposure:- for an old manual camera...if you are just taking similar shots in the same weather, you only need to take one exposure meter at a certain time e.g. in summer, take a reading at say 10 o'clock and the exposure doesn't change much till about 2 or 3 o'clock maybe longer, even if there is a slight difference the latitude of the film would compensate.

What about going from shade to sunlight. I guess you can just adjust by a stop if you go into the shade. I think this is the approach o need to take. And expose for the shadows right??
 
What about going from shade to sunlight. I guess you can just adjust by a stop if you go into the shade. I think this is the approach o need to take. And expose for the shadows right??

Well the shots would have to be similar for one exposure reading for hours, but for shady shots.... experience would help and just opening up a couple of stops would usually be ok but depends on how dark the shade so you might have to get the exposure meter out again o_O:(
 
When I am using a fully manual camera, I either use Sunny 16 (which works very well) or I take a few meter readings at different angles to where I am standing and use the average. I will update this after about half an hour. Being one stop out either way just does not matter. Being two tops out is rarely fatal either. There is no need for absolute accuracy unless you are doing something highly critical - when you will be using your brand-new digital camera anyway.
 
I generally use sunny 16 and then attempt to over expose one stop it rarely fails me, I get the opposite affect when using my super fandabbydozzie Sony digital camera there are so many options for settings that I end up taking lots of photos with different settings and looking at the camera menus for a considerable amount more time longer than it takes me with a simple manual film camera.
 
You need to get over the paranoia, and either just get on with the job, or get to grips with off-camera metering, and work out how much of what you can do, is actually useful.

I have no idea about smart phone's, let alone smurphone 'apps'. I did NOT get on with touch screen things, my fingers is too big, and the do it all, in a nutshell, jack-of-all trades master of none, thing about them made me want to chuck the thing at the nearest wall! Like when daughter said 'Here Dad, take a photo of us!" and it took her longer to find the frigging camera mode for me to use, than it would for me to find a proper camera, and a film, in the attic! But still...

There are two main means of metering; 'Incident' metering; measuring the ambient light falling 'on' your subject, and 'reflected' metering, measuring the light reflected 'off' the subject. Most cameras with an inbuilt meter, take reflected meter readings. Hand-Held accessory meters can usually do both.

With a reflected meter reading, the niggle is that it will give you a suggested Exposure Value, EV, based on how much light it sees. So if you are pointing the meter at a white rabbit on a ski-slope, it will give a higher EV than if you are pointing it at a black cat in a coal hole, because its measuring the amount of light being bounced back off the subject. If you take an incident metering, you are measuring the light falling on the subject, so you will get the same EV for the rabbit on the ski slope as the cat in the coal hole, and it may be argues that what you get as a result is more accurate or more natural... so which is more appropriate for what you hope to achieve? Here starts the art.

Now you go from decisions over incident vs reflected, to some sort of compromise or 'average' taking both an incident and reflected reading; looking at your subject, and then trying to work out some sort of average to use in the middle. Here starts the 'Craft'.

BUT the key is to look at the subject, and work out what you hope to achieve and then what sort of metering method would be more appropriate.

Tear-Away tot.... running in and out of shadows.... tricky; you likely want to keep the shutter speed up, or the kid will tend to streak; and you have changing light conditions that would have you chasing around where tot be, to take an incident reading for each shot, which tends to suggest that reflected readings may be the more appropriate... b-u-t depends. I have used f16-sunny and a couple of hand held incident readings to come up with base settings to use when shooting O/H's tear away granddaughter, and then tweeked then a tad, when she's hidden under the climbing frame, or leapt onto the shiny slide. It C-A-N be done, and you don't need to get too bogged down in the technicalities...

But that is, I think the danger here, getting yourself tied in knots, trying to do it all, shot by shot, like the computer in a widgetal camera tries to. More b-u-t, it's a case of understanding metering methods, and more importantly, working out where and when any particular method may be more or less helpful to you. As said, it's 'craft'; technique over technology.
 
I seem to spend half my time looking at my light meter

As do a lot of other folk I've noticed!
My advice, …..
Bin the meter!

Learn how to measure light levels simply through experience of shooting. ( Be assured you will learn quickly!)

Yes I carry a meter, yes I often use it to confirm what I beleive the settings that I've already calculated by assessing the scene will be about right.
Sometimes the meter agrees which is cool.
Other times it doesn't which causes me a dilema as more often than not if I go against my own judgement and accept what the meter says ,the exposure is usually not what i wanted for the scene.

I actually wonder why i bother carrying the meter tbh......
 
My Pentax ME super is playing up so I’ve taken out my Praktica super TL, which is fun to shoot as it has a really pleasing clunky shutter/mirror and smells like old. Which bring me into my question - I’m having to use a light meter app on my phone (Lux), which I have no doubt is accurate, but I can’t relax and shoot as I’m not confident the exposure will be right. I know color negative has plenty of latitude and I’m using Portra 400 which is supposed to handle highlights well, but I seem to spend half my time looking at my light meter. Do I need to just trust in the film, shoot a reasonable shutter-aperture combo and shoot away??

Light IS constantly changing , If you want the most accurate exposure then yes check before you expose the negative
 
Of course the easy way out of taking shots is to use something modern like a Canon T90 that can take 8 exposure readings of a scene\subject, average the exposure out before firing...erm but does take the fun out of using an old manual camera and learning how to take an exposure reading (or preference) for a particular subject.
 
Film has a great tolerance to overexposure. If in doubt add an extra stop to the suggested exposure. Do you get prints at the same time as it’s developed or just digital files?
 
Film has a great tolerance to overexposure. If in doubt add an extra stop to the suggested exposure. Do you get prints at the same time as it’s developed or just digital files?

I get digital files and then print the ones I like.
 
I switched my light meter to giving me 1/3 stops to whole stop, which made it a lot easier. I metered for when the clouds were in, put my phone away and went for it. We’ll see what they look like when they’re developed!
 
My Pentax does a great job of autoexposure
Which reinforces my point about relaxing about metering separately, since an auto camera has fewer brains than you have, and if what it does satisfies you, then why stress about manual metering?
 
I'm not familiar with the light meter app you're using but perhaps see how it compares to the display on this one? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dq.fotometroNa&hl=en_GB

I've used it on a Sony Xperia and Samsung Galaxy S7 and found it's pretty accurate for reflected light readings, plus the relevant f/stop can easily be seen against a range of shutter speeds, which I find useful. I believe it's also available as an I Phone app.
 
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