On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Bob Walkden wrote: > Hi, > > Tuesday, November 4, 2003, 6:29:23 AM, you wrote: > > [...] > > > There must have been a time that people said, "real photographers don't need > > cameras with built-in meters." Because it's been about everything since, like > > "real photographers don't need auto focus." > > they still say it in some circles. > > A year or 2 ago I saw a magazine article which had about 8-10 > Magnum photographers discussing the technical details of one of their > picture. From memory, they were all using modern AF cameras with built-in > meters, but over half of them were had actually used a separate meter for > the shot they were discussing.
They knew what they were seeing--their cameras did not. Even the best cameras can only guess. > Cartier-Bresson apparently has a near-perfect ability to judge the correct > exposure without a meter at all. I believe some people on this list > claim to be able to do that. I can do it for certain _very_ simple > situations based around sunny-16 (well, it's not a matter of judgement > but of experience). On B&W or color negative film you really only need to be within a couple of stops. Most pros are probably at least that good from constant practice. I recently shot a couple of rolls of fujichrome velvia through a pair of Spotmatic SPIIs. I never use batteries in the Spotmatics because half the meters are broken and I wouldn't know how to interpret a full-frame averaging meter anyway. I set my exposure using a combination of hand-held incident meter, "sunny-16", and eye-metering. Only about 2 frames out of 150 were too far off to use. > In some situations you're far better off using an incident meter > rather than the built-in reflective meter. The world isn't always 18% reflectant, certainly. DJE
