Many years ago I had an epiphany about auto exposure and the quality of the resulting images. I'd been using what were state of the art cameras at the time (film era) such as the Nikon F5 and the Nikon F100 and using them in my favorite auto mode: aperture priority. I knew enough to tweak the exposure compensation if the tones in the frame were really light or dark. But back then, as now, I find that cameras are easily fooled by things like deep shadow or bright light sources. One of my more experienced (and wise) friends suggested an exercise for me. He told me to use a fully manual camera and to follow the Kodak instructions for setting exposures on that camera which were printed either on an inserted instruction sheet in each film box or as printed on the interior of the film boxes themselves.
I found an old printed sheet for Kodachrome 64 (ISO 64) transparency film and I taped it with clear tape to the bottom plate of my old Leica M4. When I went out into bright sun the paper "meter" told me to always use 1/250th of a second f8.0 (or an exposure combination that equalled that EV). The idea being that if the light didn't change it wouldn't matter what tones were in the subject matter because the exposure was determined by the actual light falling on the subject. In bright sun it would always be that value!
There are always caveats. The exposures were most accurate, depending on the time of the year, from about two hours after sunrise to two hours before sunset. There were other settings recommended for cloudy days, heavily overcast days and also open shade. All of them delivered fairly accurate exposures but the one for bright, direct sun with hard shadows? Always....right....on... the money.
I worked this way on one trip I made by myself to shoot in Paris back in 1988. I used the Leica M4 and a 50mm Summicron. I did not bring a light meter, instead I used the Kodak method. In the evening, when I switched to Tri-X film I used the exposure suggestions I found in the Kodak Photo Data Guide (which I still have --- in case I need to calculate reciprocity failure of 4x5 sheet film with long bellows extensions) which informed me that a good base for ambient fluorescent light was 1/60th of a second, f4.0.
You realize of course that you can change the aperture and shutter speed to whatever settings you like as long as when combined they equal the same exposure value = EV. For example, if you'd rather shoot at 1/500th of a second you'd set your f-stop to 1/3rd stop less than f5.6. And Bob's your cousin. Or 1/1000th of a second with an f-stop of f3.5. Etc. etc.
When I realized that I didn't have to spend today waiting for the refrigerator repair person all day (that was yesterday) I happily went to swim practice and then, after a nice breakfast with B. I grabbed a camera that is fast becoming my favorite and headed downtown to burn off some of the stress of my ongoing "appliance trauma." Walking around with a nice camera and an empty mind was a good start toward calming me down and beginning the process of recovery from rampant customer (non) service abuse. Is the refrigerator finally repaired? Who knows? It's cooling now but will it maintain this level of performance after four or five days? History is bleak on this one...
But back to the photography. My biggest beef with modern cameras is their legacy of being confused by what I want exposed correctly. The cameras all want, in their own way, to analyze the scene through the lens, divide it into many squares, apply algorithms to the variance in the squares and then delivery a verdict. It can be a little off, a lot off or just wildly incorrect but it can be fixed by taking time to assess the image in review and then applying an informed amount of compensation, and then shooting again. That seems time consuming and burdensome to me when there are simpler and more elegant methods.
With the Leica Q2 in hand I hurried to my reserved parking space near downtown, parked and then took a moment to set up my camera in a very old school fashion. I guess I should call it the Kodak Paper Meter Method to give some credit to the (once) Giant Yellow Father. This entails doing something you can do with any camera; modern or ancient. As long as you can control the shutter speed and aperture settings separately and manually.
I set the ISO to the base of that camera. It's 50. It's not an interpolated 50 or a mythical 50. It's just 50 ISO. Same as on the Leica SL2. A third of a stop slower than the "real" ISO 64 found on the Nikon D850. The idea is to get the richest and most noise free file I can. Also to be able to use middle and wider apertures without having to resort to an electronic shutter.
I set the ISO to the base of that camera. It's 50. It's not an interpolated 50 or a mythical 50. It's just 50 ISO. Same as on the Leica SL2. A third of a stop slower than the "real" ISO 64 found on the Nikon D850. The idea is to get the richest and most noise free file I can. Also to be able to use middle and wider apertures without having to resort to an electronic shutter.
I then set the WB to the "sun" symbol. Which, on most cameras, should give you a fixed color temperature of 5500 or 5400 Kelvin. According to all my tests and all my readings, as long as the sun is your primary source of direct light (not filtered through clouds) it will always be accurate. As in CRI 100. The sun is, after all, the gold standard.
Then I set the shutter speed to 1/250th of second and the aperture to f7.1. I would have set it to f8.0 if I had been shooting at ISO 64....
The final touch was to move the camera lens from AF to fully manual focusing. On the Q2 you get hard stops at both ends of the scale. You get a very, very nice distance scale and a depth of field scale on the lens as well. When you focus manually you can set the camera up so that a touch on the focusing ring magnifies the center image for super fine focusing and, if you want it, you can also add focus peaking indications to the magnified image. Voila. Now you have a fully manual camera in every respect.
If you are shooting with the f-stop just shy of f8.0 and you are using a 28mm lens on a full frame camera you have a fairly deep depth of field and most of the time you can just "guesstimate" the distance and set it on the lens's focusing ring (unless you are cursed with a fly-by-wire focusing lens....and no manual clutch). If you are diligent and you practice you can shoot with barely a thought lost to focusing. Or to spending the many hours of reading and trial and error you might have to spend to master some of the more "mystical" auto-focus modes in a modern "nanny" cam.
If you've set everything manually you can essentially just point and shoot and be almost entirely certain that the shot will be technically perfect. This method does nothing to ensure that you've pointed your camera in the right direction. If you want a photo of the Beatles you have to be sure and aim the camera at the Beatles!
But there needs be no other thought process to slow you down. It's relatively fool proof. Even an Austin photographer can be remarkably (technically) successful with this methodology. Trying this doesn't require much diligence.....as most of these "straight out of camera Jpegs" can attest. The only alteration is a reduction of size so that I'm not uploading 50 megapixels files to the web. But I find this method heads and shoulders above automation in any brand camera if it's consistency and accuracy of exposures that you really want. Oh, and turn off dynamic range expanding options. If you feel that you really need them it's better for you to just shoot the files in raw and do that sort of expansion in post. At least there you'll have some modicum of control over the results.
I walked. I photographed. I looked at distant objects. I cursed GE under my breath like a madman. And I tried to let the afternoon wash me clean like a fresh shower of sunshine and the detergent of a good walk.
I think that falls under: "mental health" initiative.
some captions below. where I thought they were useful.
Spring time clouds in Austin are puffy, detail filled and have depth. Lovely.
I have shot the alley mural at Esther's Follies many, many times but the
color out of the Q2 today was exemplary. This image is exactly as I saw the
color with my eyes.....after taking off my Polarized sunglasses...
Not a particularly good image but a chance to use the Kodak suggestion for open shade.
I love the sign to the left of the door that commands a strict dress code.
Especially in light of the place looking like a rat trap and also
having a big ad on the wall for cans of White Claw. Pure class.
the vertical sign used to be for a downtown department store called "Yarings."
the last downtown department store in Austin was "Scarborough's" but it
shut down many, many years ago. In the early 1980s.
I've been to Paris about a dozen different times, in all seasons, and I've
never seen Parisian Women wait in line for anything but the rides
at Euro-Disney.
A "Made in Germany" ping pong table. Serious gear for a serious game.
I wouldn't go bowling unless I could get a German bowling ball.
Precision engineering is important for games.
the pyramidal steps of the Federal Courthouse. Surrounded at the bottom
by tent camping homeless all the time but I get run off when I climb the steps and
try to photograph the building. Often by men with firearms, poor educations and bad manners.
If I set up a tent out front I believe I would be free to spend all the time I ever wanted to tunnel into the building. But why? And what Netflix show will use this as a plot line?
Russian agents or Republicans bent on disrupting justice by living as homeless people in tents,
spending night and day to tunnel inside. My bet is on the Russians as the republicans would most likely get lost or sidetracked by the soft drink and candy machines in the basement.
Not political just observed behavior reporting.
In my experience Austin is one of the few downtowns in which food can be delivered from multiple restaurants for in-office lunches and can be reliably left outside the front doors of a bank building awaiting each customer's pick up of same. Well, here and in Tokyo...
That's all I've got today. I'm setting up an SL2 and a 58mm f1.4 for evening photos.
Still using the Kodak Photo Data Guide for a starting point.
25 comments:
I've seen Parisian women waiting in line at McDonald's. The one by the Louvre. It's one of the few places around there where you can get cheap calories.
There are people who have extremely good musical pitch. My nephew is one. But I have never heard of anyone with natural light exposure skill. Someone who could look at a scene and say, "That's EV 12".
Now that you’ve taken up resistance training, you might consider swimming while towing the fridge. Yes, it would make the turns awkward, but you could fantasize about drowning the thing and enjoy an extra burst of adrenaline.
That’s a joy of photography, to go back to basics, give automation the slip for an old school method. Regarding using one of the algorithms to select exposure, I don’t use them. I always go for spot metering, moving the area selected here and there to do a seat of the pants bracketing. For zone focus quick draw, there are the algorithms or exposure bracketing done by the camera body. But going by the Kodak rules of thumb sounds like a challenge worthy of a walk. No chimping allowed.
Robert, two answers. HCB was famous for being able to estimate exposures pretty exactly. I recall reading several mid-1960s magazine articles about this. One person whom he was photographing asked him what the exposure was. HCB responded with a question: "On the left side or your face or the right." The person asked for both and (he was a photo magazine writer) and was amazed when he heard the results and then checked them with a hand held light meter. Both estimates were right on the money.
Two: I'm not at all talking about me estimating the exposure. The whole gist of the post was the info from Kodak and the unchanging nature of full sunlight. But I do know basic exposures for basic photographic situations such as open shade and full sun. How could you not?
MM, funny story about the fridge. I'll try to weave it into a post for tomorrow. Thanks. The refrigerator is too heavy to drag behind in deep water. Sometimes though, when I'm feeling strong, I do try to bench press it. But I can only do a couple dozen reps before I have to put it down. But I've had a lot of practice. I lost the jack for my car so when I have to change tires I have to hold up the quarter of the car with one hand while changing the tire with the other. You need strong fingers to untighten those lug nuts. That's for sure.
Kirk, would you mind to share a scanned version of that Kodak info sheet? Your experience certainly seems worth trying to replicate.
Absolutely right. As well anyone who spends anytime with an incident meter will find shortly that bright sun is EV 18. It is and always will be everyday. So, no meter required. The shady side of the street in NYC will be EV 15 when the sunny side is 18. Even the Zone system teaches you quickly the same. Meter the white and open up 3 stops. Hey that’s the same exposure as the yellow box!! I’m your age Kirk. It was easier back then wasn’t it.
LOL - you’re still bench pressing the fridge? I thought you would have bought a second fridge as a back-up (surely you’ve learned the lesson about redundancy) and would now be using the pair of them to do bicep curls.
In all seriousness, I hope the end is in sight on the Tuck Fridge Sagas.
And thanks for the tips on the Kodak way. Is it a variation on Sunny 16, or does that give different results?
Kirk, a new tool for you to consider.
https://www.theverge.com/23680479/leica-m11-monochrom-50mm-summilux-announcement-price-specs-review-impressions
I do love candy!
Back around 1980, when I was managing a camera store, by far the best-selling camera on the market was the Canon AE-1. People were trading in their old, “obsolete” manual-exposure cameras for this automatic wonder, and as a result we had a surplus of used cameras like the Pentax Spotmatic. In fact, we almost couldn’t give those old screw-mount bodies away, so I gave one to my Dad (who, up to that point, only had an Instamatic 126.)
I showed him how to load the film, set the film speed (denoted in ASA, of course), and use the stop-down meter to get the correct exposure. I also told him that if the meter battery went dead that I’d give him a new one. His first roll of film (and every one after that) had excellent exposures, a sign that he’d taken my careful instructions to heart.
Many months later I asked him how the battery was doing, and he told me he didn’t know. Puzzled, I asked him if the meter was still working; he said he stopped using the meter, because “the viewfinder just gets dark and I can’t see anything.” Now I was really curious, because I’d just delivered his latest roll of film and the slides all had good exposures.
It was his turn to patiently explain: “Well, every roll of film comes with a sheet of paper that tells you how to expose it, and I figured Kodak probably knows what they’re doing, so I just follow their directions!”
During the pandemic lockdown, one morning I had to go downstairs and let a delivery guy into the building. I'm still wondering which one of my neighbors ordered a six-pack of White Claw at 5:00 a.m. (actually, I'd rather not know).
One of the things I like about the lenses for the Hasselblad is that you can set them to an EV reading. All I have to do is set my hand-held meter to display EV values instead of aperture/shutter speed combos, and everything is quite simple.
Paper "cheat sheet" lost in the currents of time. Can't share what I now longer have. The five settings have been committed to memory. Hope that keeps working.
Great walk down memory lane with this post, Kirk.
A quick Duck Duck Go search of "Kodak film exposure sheet" brought up the following link to a pdf file which looks like the real deal. Note the sheet's date: 2007!
https://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/acrobat/en/consumer/products/techInfo/e7022/E7022.pdf
Just checked the settings on my SL photos from yesterday afternoon's walk around the neighborhood and they match up pretty well with the Kodak suggestions. Variances were mostly due to my visual preferences - I tend to go a bit darker.
The one setting that differed from what you talked about was the WB. I was shooting (or adjusting in processing) at ~5000. 5500 is a bit too warm for my tastes and perception of the light, though I can see from your shots that you were around that. Maybe the light is more golden in Austin than in the slightly hazy SF Bay Area ;-).
Anyway, good reminder about the advantages of using your own control rather relying on than the camera. I definitely plan on going more manual on my upcoming trip to Europe/Scandinavia.
At the risk of sounding pedantic. If memory serves me correctly, and at my age that is up for debate, I believe those settings all correspond to the "Sunny f/16" rule and it's variations for different conditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_16_rule
Malcolm
PS: I enjoy reading all of your posts. I enjoyed the posts of your recent visit to "the Great white North" and the "Wet Coast" i.e. Vancouver, BC.
Malcolm, you are correct. The Sunny 16 rule rocks. Of course, Kodak would have told you back in the day that they invented it. Ah well.
Thanks for the compliment! KT
Hats off to those who can look at a scene and estimate exposure. I find the quality- and of course directionality- of natural light changes at different times of day, and the human eye simply adjusts automatically, whereas film is not so adaptive. And when you go into a roofed-over place, it gets even more difficult.
I thought I was hot stuff at estimating decades ago when walking around with a non-metered camera, but my contact sheets begged to differ.
Come to think of it, Hank Cartier was famously reticent about sharing contact sheets. We tend to think of him as a genius, and so he is, but I like to think he flubbed exposures, compositions, blur, with the rest of us mortals. It's his several dozen, or even few hundred, of winners out of all his zillions of shots that reveal his utter superiority.
Hi Anonymous, please read with greater diligence. I repeated throughout: in full sunlight. In direct sunlight. Most accurate two hours after sunrise. Two hour before sunset. Not relevant during changing weather conditions; nor implied that way.
There was no discussion of: "roofed over" places.
As to HCB's contact sheets....I paged through a number of them a few years back in the HRC collections and his exposures were pretty consistent and mostly accurate. I don't know where your conjecture otherwise arises from.
Happy to share a Kodak moment!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pentaxforums.com%2Fforums%2F8-pentax-film-slr-discussion%2F414083-sunny-16-rule-kodak-tri-x-400-a-2.html&psig=AOvVaw11HWAnyL2rH3LC6Qy71To-&ust=1681527765355000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBAQjRxqFwoTCNjYg82xqP4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
I've been scanning my father's old Kodachrome slides, which were shot in the 1960s and 1970s with a Kodak Signet camera that had manual aperture and shutter settings, no rangefinder or other focusing aid, and no automation whatsoever.
The old man rarely missed either exposure or focus. Probably 90% of the images are perfectly fine, and on finicky slide film, too. He wasn't a pro photographer or a techie guy, but rather a musician who made a living by working in a bank.
It could be done.
Kirk, my comments were about my own lack of abilities, and I saluted all those who were better able to judge exposure than I ever could.
I do see that his contact sheets have now been made available after all, and there goes my own last hope that he had mere feet of clay like some of us. However, during his lifetime I recall reading an article that he was very reticent about sharing his contact sheets, stating in effect that it's the final published result that actually matters.
"Roofed over places" can refer to interiors indoors. But it can also refer to areas with partially occluded light, such as alleyways, areas with intermittent tree cover, canyons natural or artificial (eg, city streets). The term was chosen to be widely applicable to areas with tricky lighting, where we used to be forced to use spot meters to measure reflected light when the subject was inconvenient to approach.
ah. okay!
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