I just bought M4-P and now use 50F2.8 Elmar 1996 I think maybe I should practice how to evaluate light by my brain and my eyes I know about sunny 16 but in Bangkok Thailand the light isn't the same in USA or the west do you have another method or nice trick to do sir, I know There are many eXpert HERE!!!!

-- Chong Lau (doctorpuchong@hotmail.com), June 05, 2001

Answers

In what way do you find that the light is different in Thailand than in the US...both countries are 93,000,000 miles from the sun, so I'd think the exposure would be the same, even if the light is more beautiful in Bangkok.

I lived in the tropics for 2 years (Puerto Rico) and the Sunny 16 rule worked just as well there as it does here in Denver at 1,600 metres above sea level.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), June 06, 2001.

Dear Mr Chong; since I own a Leica, I´d decided to measure ligth with my eyes and my head, and the start point I took was the sunny 16 rule; from it comes down (or up) ligth degradation, what I do is count f stops up or down, if sun´s up and in your back you´re +/- 0, if the same but against ligth source, you have to decide how deep you want to register shadows, and you can go from 0 to 1 or 2 or more f/stops, if cloudy then you open 1,2 or 3, if into shadows of a building, remember that the inner your subject are into the shadows the darker they get, so 3 to 5, if into a house or buildings depending on ilumination you´re from 8 to 12 f/ stops, if in a dim place you go to 14 or more; it is a situation with a lot of miss shots when you´re starting and even after when you can fell like an expert, what I do once in a wile is practice with an incident ligth meter, just to check how I´m seeing and measureing ligth; after all it is all about practice, hope I didn´t confuse you, best of luck.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), June 06, 2001.

I'm using a M4-P, and despite over 20 years' experience in photography, I find it much easier to use a handheld meter rather than guessing with the 'sunny 16' rule. Maybe I'm anal about metering accuracy, but since I'm usually using slide film, whose exposure latitute is less forgiving than print film, I'd rather not risk the chance of wrongly exposing a shot that I can't re-take. But if you'd rather not depend on technology, the exposure chart printed inside the film box should provide a fairly accurate guide.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), June 06, 2001.

Khun Chong, please note that the light in Bangkok, Thailand should be the same as anywhere else in the world with the exception of occasional smog on a bright sunny day, when sunny 16 rule applies. In that case, just open up a stop. Read and memorize the recommendations given to you by the film manufacturers in their boxes. They will help quite a lot.

I'd also recommend that you buy the Kodak Professional Photoguide. It has a dial for available light exposure that will be helpful for when you take photos indoors and at low-light. Memorize the situations and the recommended exposure on a given film speed. I always seem to get good results with 400ASA negatives, using 1/15th at f/2.8 for low light shots indoors (one or two 60W tungsten lights in a small room). You can get away overexposing half to a full stop with negative films, so it's safer to overexpose. It's the opposite for slide films.

Finally, practice, practice, practice. Sawadee Krup.

-- Ron Gregorio (rongregorio@hotmail.com), June 06, 2001.

If you can afford the M4-P, you can afford a meter :-) If I were you, I'd buy a *small* one (I like the Voigtlander meter because it's small AND it fits on my M4-2 when I want it there) and carry it around in your pocket for a while, pull it out when you have nothing else to do, and take a reading of what's around you.

If you make an attempt to remember the situations you meter, soon you'll have a collection of memories that will let you put together your own mental exposure meter.

It's probably even better that you do this without the camera, since you can concentrate on the exposure rather than just passing the information from a meter through your eyes into the camera without passing it through your brain first, as we all do when we're in a rush to shoot a picture.

This isn't wild advice, by the way--it's what I really did, and it worked great.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), June 06, 2001.

The "Sunny 16" rule really became useful to me after I made a discovery some time back. Don't look at the sun... look at the shadows. Sun light on its own is hard to judge, especially when combined with distractions like sunglasses, or chemically induced pupil size variations. Shadows on the other hand are consistently accurate when judged as a function of the sun's intensity. Soon you can estimate how far to open the aperture for a softer edged shadow, and indistinct shadow, and a totally muted shadow.

BTW... I lived for a year in Thailand and used only a meterless Nikon F with the sunny 16 technique. The results were fine, if not better than other places I lived that had severe differences between seasons, like Alaska.

Many people brag about using a fully manual camera for its ability to work with dead batteries, but many never tried it. It would be well worth the price of some film to take the batteries out of your M6 and shoot some slide film. The lessons learned can save the day in the future.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), June 06, 2001.

"Sunny 16" turns out to be "Sunny 22" in South Florida.

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), June 06, 2001.

Way back in Singapore, when I used IIIf, I used the Kodak data sheet in the box as a guide. Later, bought a white plastic Kodak Exposure calculator.

Now I use a tiny Leudi extinction meter with my meterless cameras.

Leudi was made in Austria. It is still the smallest exposure meter, weights only 1/2 oz, great to go along with my Minox IIIs

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), June 06, 2001.

Also, nobody mentioned the Leica-Meter MR-4. This couples to the shutter speed dial, thus minimizing the time required to take a reading. The meter reads out the lens aperture directly, once you have set your shutter speed. All you have to do is turn the aperture ring and you're in business. It's an accurate meter, and its 27 degree angle of acceptance matches the 90mm field. Thus you can aim the camera, for metering purposes, with the 90mm frame activated with the frame selector lever (even though you may not be actually shooting with a 90). Then you press the MR-4 button to take a selected area reading. Although they are discontinued, they are available used.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), June 06, 2001.

I have met people who claim they have a built in light meter in their head, but I am skeptical. If you have a thing about not needing batteries, I'd suggest picking up a little Gossen selenium cell meter and you'll have a small acurate "solar powered" meter for those times when you come accross a shot you don't want to blow by guessing the wrong exposure.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), June 06, 2001.

Have to agree with Andrew on this one. One thing you'll find is that people who do all their own printing nearly always use meters. I print for a couple of people who have exposure meters in their heads and they are a huge pain in the ..........! As soon as I make the contact sheet and see the vast mixture of too dense / to thin negs I cringe. I've never met anyone who can estimate exposure consistently within a stop the majority of the time, and if you do much printing you know what you're loosing in shadow/highlight detail with improper exposure. I for one feel that after I've spent all this money on the best glass possible, it's a shame to limit it with my not very accurate brain.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), June 06, 2001.

I use an exposure meter to obtain a baseline, then fudge that according to my experience. I've been doing that so long that I usually don't bother to carry the meter any more.

To reinforce learning how to see exposure, I always make my guesstimate *before* I use the meter so that I can see how far off I was. I'm usually within a half stop nowadays (33 years into doing it). I shoot only negative materials so this is perfectly acceptable.

Sunny 16 with negatives works out to really be Sunny 11.

Godfrey

-- Godfrey DiGiorgi (ramarren@bayarea.net), June 06, 2001.

Chong:

I agree with Godfrey. Use your brain and determine where you think it should be, then check it with a meter. I use an MR-4 with the M3's or an old Gossen Luna-six 3. Once I check my settings, I spot check during the day, but I do not meter every shot. Meters are fooled by the composition of the shot, and you must know how to interpret what YOU want out of the shot, not what the meter THINKS you want.

Mark J.

-- Mark A. Johnson (logic@gci.net), June 06, 2001.

I agree for critical shots you really do need a meter, but of course B+W and colour print film are a lot more forgiving than slides so there is a little room for error...er...creative variation. And I agree it's a good idea to hone your skills by "guessing" (pre-judging) the exposure, then checking with a meter to see how close you were.

-- David Killick (Dalex@inet.net.nz), June 07, 2001.

I too recommend getting a Leica Meter MR or MR4. The mercury batteries are hard to come by though

-- Muhammad Chishty (applemac97@aol.com), June 07, 2001.

Here is a really sensible guide to "in the head" exposure. The rest of the advice is really good too-especially the pages on shyness and street photography. (Many thanks to Rob Appleby ...)

http://www.pinkheadedbug.com/techniques/exposure.html

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), June 07, 2001.

Oh,man """""thanksalot .sir !!!! Anyone will come to visit me in Thailand mail to me if you think I can help"""""" thanks """""Kub Khun Mak Mak Lei Krub

-- Chong (doctorpuchong@hotmail.com), June 07, 2001.

>> (Many thanks to Rob Appleby ...) >>

Mani, I think that should be John Brownlow? As for me, I _never_ _ever_ take a picture without metering.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), June 08, 2001.

Rob, sorry I should have made clear, you mentioned Mr. Brownlow somewhere, so it came to my attention. He does have a point or two, though I am a compulsive metering type too.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), June 08, 2001.

Chong Lau: In an old article about Eisenstadt, the writer said he always used a meter, except when shooting Kodachrome. "I have used the same film for so many years," he was quoted as saying.

You've heard this one before. Fellow pulls up alongside a cabbie in Manhattan. "HOW DO YOU GET TO CARNEGIE HALL?" The cabbie yells back, "PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE!

That's how you shoot without a meter.

BUT:

Ansel Adams was driving his van past Hernandez, New Mexico, one late afternoon. He saw the moon rising. He wrote later that he couldn't find his light meter, and the picture was fading fast. He did a mental calculation based on the knowledge that the luminance of the moon was 25 candles per square foot, or something like that. He underexposed the shot so badly it was unprintable for 20 years, until someone showed him how.

Get a Leica-Meter MR4 and be done with it.

Best Wishes,

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), June 08, 2001.

Chong

Seriously consider getting a voigtlander meter. It is much cheaper than the leica meter and works wonderfully.

-- Jonathan McCrindle (jburry@webtv.net), June 11, 2001.