SWAG nailing exposure without a meter

[John Kasaian]

Back, way back when that last Wooly Mammouth did a trunk dive into the LaBrea tar pits, light meters didn't exist. Today we have the "sunny 16" rule of Yore, but I'm wondering whom among us has honed the skill of nailing exposures (more often than not) without using a light meter in conditions less than sunny? This seems like a good thing to be able to do (I recall reading that Edward Weston was very good at it) but who has actually gone out of thier way to 'hone' that skill?I think even Ansel Adams shot one of His earliest successful photos "Golden Gate" without the benefit of a light meter. Is there any written information about the technique or is it pretty much a SWAG (Scientific Wild *ss Guess) guesstimate?

Cheers!

[David Karp]

When I was first learning to photograph, my Dad let me use his beloved Nikon S rangefinder. (what a brave and great Dad!) It did not have a meter, and I was not interested in using his incident meter, so he gave me the sheet that Kodak used to pack in its film boxes. The sheet had a few drawings of different situations: bright sun, open shade, etc. If I remember correctly, each drawing featured a suggested exposure. I used that sheet as my "light meter" and it worked pretty well. Of course, I was using black and white film with good exposure latitude and developing it in Diafine, so how could I go wrong? It worked fine until my Uncle bought me a Konica rangefinder with a light meter in it, and I have been reliant on those things ever since. That's the only written information on the subject that I remember.

[paulr]

when i spend a lot of time shooting, i often get to the point of not relying on the meter. i don't completely trust myself, so i usually meter afterwards, just to make sure.

it's not about developing some magical sensitivity ... it's just remembering similar exposures in similar light at around the same time of day. when i go around taking pictures, i'll do all the usual calculations but in the end most of my exposured over the course of the day are the same.

weston got so used to the light where he lived that he almost never used a meter. it got him into trouble when he went to mexico ... it's a lot brighter down there! he toasted his first few batches of film.

[Shen45]

Sunny 16 Wow -- here in Australia where I live in Summer [and today is sitting on 44c so it is warm] the summy rule is about f22 or more. Also we basically no longer have an ozone layer here so the unseen light needs to be accounted for in the skies.

Recenly I visited a friend for a month at Yosemite and was amazed how gentle the sun was, some days were close to 100f and yet at no time did I get burnt skin. I came home here and the temp was about 70 - 75f max and within 5 minutes my skin was showing signs of sunburn.

I would imagine similar conditions exist in the NM / Mexico areas.

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

I use the ground glass as a meter.

[Walt Calahan]

Practice practice practice

I met a commercial shooter in London years ago who told me that when he and his mates were all photo assistants they use to bet on who knew the exposure without a meter.

With time, it is not a wild ass guess, it's an estimate based on your experience.

Quick, what's the exposure using 100 ISO film of Carnegie Hall on a clear winter day at high noon? Hint, Carnegie Hall faces north.

[Emrehan Zeybekoglu]

When I started taking photographs, it was with my father's old Zeiss Ikon, which in today's terms, is a bare bones camera (6x9). It doesn't have a rangefinder, and I didn't have a light meter either. When that's all you have, you just learn to use certain settings under certain conditions. I mostly used b&w and occasional color negative film, and most of the time the exposures were acceptable. Unless you are after fine art photography, where precision is of utmost importance, it doesn't really matter.

I used a lot of ORWO (read dirt cheap), Spanish made Negra and Forte most of the time.

Today I have all the modern gadgetry (well.. almost - haven't gone digital yet), but I don't use them mindlessly. One good thing about starting photography with just a simple camera and nothing else is that you learn to evaluate and measure light, even though you may be off the mark once in a while.

[Joseph O'Neil]

If you are out there shooting enought - in any format - you do get to the point where you can make a reasonable guess as to exposure. I've seen enough guys do it. Like the above postings say, it's not magic or anything like that, just experience, just how some people who are drasftmen or similar skill can draw a straight line on a sheet of paper without a ruler.

It's something in your head, similar in a way to watching a young child learn to play the piano. At first, they look where the keys are, then later, they just "know' where they are. Or typing without looking at the keyboard - something I am still not entirely skilled at.

I still refer to my spot meter as but I find my guess is pretty good, year round, and even in the darkroom under the enlarger, I have a pretty good guess at proper exposure for paper. About the only times I am lost and have to go back to square one is when I travelled to Colorado this past summer - the exposures up in the mountians is different there, the balance of the light is somehow different. or a few years back when i changed enlargers, I had to go back and relearn all my exposure times for prints.

so just keep at it, go out as much as you can. Even if you do not actually shoot that many sheets of film in a day, the experience you get from being out, metering different situtaitons, it will all sink in, and you'l be able to do it yourself soon or later, just like practice on the piano.

joe

[Joe Forks]

In the mid 80's when I bought my first Mamiya RZ67 I could not afford a light meter, and shot for about two years w/o one. Of course I would bracket religously, but I did pretty well.

Best
Joe

[Nick_3536]

John Sunny 16 goes all the way from F/5.6 to F/22. What Dave describes being on the film box is just Sunny 16. The full rule covers bit a bit more then just sunny.

http://www.davidrichert.com/sunny_16_rule.htm

That's not the full rule.