I'll follow up to my previous post:
Picture taking with the Spotmatic F and an SMC Takumar lens will be the same as taking a photo with the K-1000 and a K-mount lens. Pick a shutter speed, select an f-stop while watching the needle in the finder. The viewfinder won't darken as you turn the aperture ring, because the lens isn't actually stopping down, although it is telling the light meter how much it will stop down for the exposure.
If you use a Super-Takumar lens, however, it cannot communicate this information (how many stops from wide open it will close down during exposure). Therefore, it must close down while you are taking a light meter reading, which is called taking a stopped-down meter reading. To do this, you have to slide the meter switch on the side of the lens mount up, which lets the lens close down to whatever aperture the aperture ring is set at. If you're taking a photo at f/8, f/11, f/16, or smaller, it's quite apparent in the viewfinder that you're going to be using a small aperture because the view darkens significantly.
With a Spotmatic F and a Super-Takumar lens, after you set your exposure based on the light meter reading, you can either leave the lens stopped down and take the photo, or you can turn the meter switch off, which opens the lens back up, giving you a bright viewfinder again. The lens will stop down again instantaneously to whatever aperture you selected when the mirror flips up to take the photo, and it will open right back up again when the mirror returns.
Open-aperture metering was a major selling point because you never had to look through a darkened viewfinder if you didn't want to (unless you wanted to see the depth-of-field preview, which stops the lens down to whatever the taking aperture is).
In this way, the Spotmatics are actually less complicated mechanically, because extra linkages to tell the camera how much the lens would stop down weren't necessary.
Joe
Yeah, but you see this metering wide open or stopped down stuff is exactly
what throws me. You can explain it until you are blue in the face and I am still
not sure I'll get it. Because what I am not getting is...
What I need to know is what STEPS *I* have to go through to take a picture.
I point the camera at something, I manually focus, I set the aperture, I set
the shutter speed, and the meter says, okay, go ahead. Then I take the
picture. That is what I was used to on the K-1000. It seems that the Spotmatics are
more complicated. And some only work with some lenses. Or maybe all work only
with some lenses.
When people mention stopped down or wide open metering, I keep thinking,
okay, that means *I* will have to do something differently. Take the meter reading
and reset the shutter speed or reset the aperture setting. Or do some type of
mental calculations to get the right meter reading.
Which is why my question was -- which meters *the most like the K-1000?* (See steps above.) And which can I use non-Tak/SuperTak screwmount lenses on? If any?
If I am limited to Taks/SuperTaks that's okay. But I need clarification on that point as well as what do *I* have to do step-wise, metering.
Sigh.
Marnie :-| I already know putting screwmounts on the Canon will mean some
mental calculations and resetting to get right meter reading. I guess. Pretend I
am a complete metering dummy here. :-)
