I'm learning how to expose - Station 2: light meter

Station 1: Sunny 16

Station 1 on my way to learning how to expose is, in retrospect, understanding the Sunny 16 rule. This whole thing about exposure was never thought in stages and stations – I thought Sunny 16 and that's it. How I ended up here anyways:

After I learnt about the Sunny 16 rule, I worked with it for quite a while. But I became a bit lazier (or more willing to experiment, depending on the perspective). I photographed more according to my gut feeling and less with the rule itself, applying it not as clean as before.

However, the results and yield of the last few films with the more-or-less Sunny 16 rule/with my gut feeling were disillusioning and I was dissatisfied. My gut feeling was not yet ready and the wealth of experience was not great enough.

I was stuck and needed to change something. Therefore, ...

Station 2: Light meter

For other photographers, it is probably the most obvious choice, but I resisted for a while until the decision was made: I will use a light meter. Instead of estimating the light myself, I had it measured and got the result spit out. The device was quickly found: I got an app on my mobile phone. (Why? I didn't get along with the internal light meter on my camera).

And then?

How do I use the light meter?

I had heard a lot about how and on what to expose. There were all kinds of ways to do. Do I want to expose on the shadow or rather on the object? On box speed or +/-1? Many questions and the answers did hide from me. There was nothing left to me than: trial and error. Trying out the methods and see how much I like the results.

My first approach was to expose on the object at box speed. Then I got distracted by Madeira: the zone system according to Ansel Adams. I had heard about it often but never understood it. On holiday I had the time and motivation to watch various videos about it and at some point I actually understood it more or less. Subsequently, so I measured up to three spots - one bright, one dark spot and my subject - to decide what to set the settings to, eventually. And I think I did pretty well with this method. The first results can be found in my series about Madeira .

How is it going?

Since then I've been using the light meter app. But here, too, I became sloppy and don't do the measurements as clean as I did in the beginning on Madeira. But it works.

Overall, I'm quite slow when it comes to taking photos: take the measurement(s), decide, adjust, take the photo. And very important, as I take analogue photos: note down the settings used and also what was measured. For analyses if I ever want to do one.

My goal is to become a bit quicker. I don't know how to achieve that. Maybe it's a question of time and numbers of films I've shot, leading to wealth of experience and my gut feeling becoming more trustworthy.

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Camera + lens: Minolta 9000 AF + Minolta AF 50 mm f/1.4
Film: AGFAPHOTO APX100
Development + scan: ON FILM LAB

• Category: Something with Photo
• Tag: 35 mm, Belichtung, Film: Agfaphoto APX 100, Kamera: Minolta 9000 AF, Lab: ON FILM LAB, lernlogbuch, lernlogbuch foto, Objektiv: Minolta AF 50 mm f/1.4, schwarzweiß, Sunny 16