> > Despite DJE's explanations, I am still a bit confused. Also after a brief > read of the web pages, and briefly looked at the Spotmatic F and II manuals. But > as far as I can figure out, the metering on screwmounts was not the same as > present day or the K-1000. Only the Taks could be read because it was not > metering in the fashion that I am used to.
First of all; Pretty much all manually-adjustable cameras meter the same way. There's a visible meter of some kind, and you adjust the aperture and/or the shutter speed until the meter shows correct exposure. It could be a getting a moving needle to be between two arrowheads, or it could be lining up two needles (or it could even be using an electronic display :-), but it's still all basically the same kind of operation. The one big variation is whether the camera meters at the taking aperture (early Spotmatics, or later models when used with older lenses), or whether the lens remains at full aperture while metering. This makes absolutely no difference in *how* you adjust the camera (you still have to position that needle), but it makes a big difference in how easy it is to do it in low- light situations. I think you've got depth-of-field preview on that Canon, right? Well, unless both your camera and your lens support full-aperture metering it's like working with the depth-of-field preview permanently engaged. The viewfinder is darker, making it harder to judge composition & focus, and harder to see those needles you're trying to align.
