Cheap selenium meter vs Sunny 16
Oct 5, 2005 12:25:29 GMT -5
Post by PeterW on Oct 5, 2005 12:25:29 GMT -5
Hi all fans of cheap popular cameras.
I started in photography way back, long before the days of built-in meters, coupled, uncoupled or TTL. Even a hand-held meter was a luxury many of us couldn’t afford so we had to learn the exposure for different situations by trial and error – largely error! Keen photographers in those days kept a record of every exposure they made, and the lighting conditions, in little books sold just for that purpose, and when they got their prints they looked at them together with the exposure record to decide whether or not a couple of stops up or down would have improved it. If you had more than one camera you had to adjust for each one because shutter speeds weren’t noted for accuracy on cheap cameras. However, over the years I got better at it and had fewer failures.
I heard about the sunny 16 rule quite early, but never got on with it. It was fine if the result was within your ASA, stop and shutter speed range, but I could never decide whether the weather was ‘sun obscured by light cloud’, ‘light overcast’, ‘dull’, ‘heavy overcast’ or what.
There was also another rule of thumb, ‘expose for the shadows and the highlights will take care of themselves’ – if the detail didn’t burn out!
Also, with today’s popular 400 ASA (ISO) films 1/400 sec at f/16 when the sun’s shining may be fine, but many shutters of the early post war years didn’t go up anywhere near 1/400 sec, and the smallest aperture was f/16 … HELP! Rule 1. Try not to use a film faster than 100 ASA with a cheap classic camera in the sunshine. There were charts and dial-type calculators, but they took so long to use that the picture had gone by the time you worked out the exposure.
Then, around the 1960s, affordable selenium hand meters started to come in, many from Japan. Oh joy! Now we could all get all our exposures spot on. Only we didn’t, because we didn’t know how to use a meter properly. Much the same applied when meters began to be built in to cameras. I must say that I’ve never been the greatest fan of built-in meters, not till TTL came along. I regarded the earlier ones as hand-held meters with a camera hanging on them.
Used properly, even a cheap selenium hand held meter can be a huge help, and in a few days when I’ve got a few minutes to spare I want to run through the right way to use one. So my advice FWIW is that if you want to get the best from a post-1945 popular camera get yourself a cheap selenium meter and learn to use it. There are plenty of them around, still working well, at camera fairs and the like – at least they’re still quite plentiful in the UK. The earlier CdS ones aren’t quite so useful nowadays in my opinion because they were designed to use mercury batteries, and they aren’t all that consistent with alkalines, or even silver cells, because the batteries drop off gradually and you don’t notice it. But if you renew alkaline batteries regularly, they’re usually OK even if they’re a half stop or so optimistic with new batteries, and a few spare alkaline 625s won't break the bank.
I know today's colour print film's got a fair latitude, and automatic printing machines that correct for wrong exposure have saved many a print, but they won't help you a lot when you scan a neg into the computer.
Of course, you may have different experiences. You may love sunny 16. So let’s hear your experiences with exposure guesstimation in different lighting conditions without a meter.
Peter
I started in photography way back, long before the days of built-in meters, coupled, uncoupled or TTL. Even a hand-held meter was a luxury many of us couldn’t afford so we had to learn the exposure for different situations by trial and error – largely error! Keen photographers in those days kept a record of every exposure they made, and the lighting conditions, in little books sold just for that purpose, and when they got their prints they looked at them together with the exposure record to decide whether or not a couple of stops up or down would have improved it. If you had more than one camera you had to adjust for each one because shutter speeds weren’t noted for accuracy on cheap cameras. However, over the years I got better at it and had fewer failures.
I heard about the sunny 16 rule quite early, but never got on with it. It was fine if the result was within your ASA, stop and shutter speed range, but I could never decide whether the weather was ‘sun obscured by light cloud’, ‘light overcast’, ‘dull’, ‘heavy overcast’ or what.
There was also another rule of thumb, ‘expose for the shadows and the highlights will take care of themselves’ – if the detail didn’t burn out!
Also, with today’s popular 400 ASA (ISO) films 1/400 sec at f/16 when the sun’s shining may be fine, but many shutters of the early post war years didn’t go up anywhere near 1/400 sec, and the smallest aperture was f/16 … HELP! Rule 1. Try not to use a film faster than 100 ASA with a cheap classic camera in the sunshine. There were charts and dial-type calculators, but they took so long to use that the picture had gone by the time you worked out the exposure.
Then, around the 1960s, affordable selenium hand meters started to come in, many from Japan. Oh joy! Now we could all get all our exposures spot on. Only we didn’t, because we didn’t know how to use a meter properly. Much the same applied when meters began to be built in to cameras. I must say that I’ve never been the greatest fan of built-in meters, not till TTL came along. I regarded the earlier ones as hand-held meters with a camera hanging on them.
Used properly, even a cheap selenium hand held meter can be a huge help, and in a few days when I’ve got a few minutes to spare I want to run through the right way to use one. So my advice FWIW is that if you want to get the best from a post-1945 popular camera get yourself a cheap selenium meter and learn to use it. There are plenty of them around, still working well, at camera fairs and the like – at least they’re still quite plentiful in the UK. The earlier CdS ones aren’t quite so useful nowadays in my opinion because they were designed to use mercury batteries, and they aren’t all that consistent with alkalines, or even silver cells, because the batteries drop off gradually and you don’t notice it. But if you renew alkaline batteries regularly, they’re usually OK even if they’re a half stop or so optimistic with new batteries, and a few spare alkaline 625s won't break the bank.
I know today's colour print film's got a fair latitude, and automatic printing machines that correct for wrong exposure have saved many a print, but they won't help you a lot when you scan a neg into the computer.
Of course, you may have different experiences. You may love sunny 16. So let’s hear your experiences with exposure guesstimation in different lighting conditions without a meter.
Peter
. When you see him again give him my best wishes for his centenary. I'll bet he's seen some changes! 
.). I've also got some dial type exposure calculators, some 1950s rangefinders that slipped into an accessory shoe, some old bulb flashguns (and some bulbs), D&P (developing and printing) wallets that chemists used to put your contact prints and negs in, packets that once had gaslight and POP paper in them, old bottles that once held developer, toner, intensifiers and reducing agents. and a few more bits and pieces. Some were bought new in the 1950s and 1960s, others I've picked up since.