So I am buying a few old cameras and...

[collin_krabbe]

<p>So I am planning on buying and keeping a couple of antique cameras. I have been looking into TLR and found an Argoflex E for cheap, and after reading good things about it, bought it. I am also planning on buying a Zeiss Ikon Nettar f 4.5 camera off of eBay. My real question here is, can I use an external light meter to figure out the correct exposure for these cameras? More specifically, an older DLSR that is no longer used...?<br>

Thanks in advance!</p>

[walter_degroot]

<p>why spoil the mood. Buy something like a GE PR-3<br>

very easy to use., and compatible with old cameras.<br>

Try to find slower film. and use sunny 16 like most people did back then.<br>

Personally, I do not like a tlr. but prefer eye level cameras.<br>

I have a seagull 203. not terribly different fromn the nettar.<br>

Film is in the mail arriving soon.<br>

I believe there were different argoflaxes. one model had a better lens<br>

BUT many of the old box style cameras do better than some of the new cheap toy cameras</p>

[dave_redmann]

<p>Sure. Just keep in mind a few things. (1) The shutters in old cameras are often (but not always) slow (to a greater or lesser extent). For example, you might set it for 1/15 s and it's really open for more like 1/8 s, the net effect of which would be a one-stop overexposure. (2) Any DSLR and lens is going to be bulky, so maybe an old compact digital would be better. (3) Outdoors, during the day, especially for negative (print) film, a nuanced application of the "Sunny 16" rule often gets your exposure close enough. I agree with Walter's generally advocating use of the rule, but the alterations for different levels of sun, backlighting, etc. can make a substantial difference.</p>

[jim_peterson2]

<p>Many traditional photographers will chide you for using a DSLR as a light meter in conjunction with a fully manual camera. The "proper" way to do it is to have a hand held light meter. But in truth the DSLR is not a bad way to go. Just remember to have the ISO setting on the DSLR set to the same value as the film you're using. And you might have to fiddle around a bit since the DSLR will allow you to select shutter speeds and aperture values not available on the older camera. Furthermore, you need to use a lens on the DSLR that has a similar FOV as the older camera. Of course, if you are using a TLR you have a bit of a problem because it will include more sky or more foreground than the DSLR, which can and often will have a direct impact on metering. But once you learn to take all of those things into account and run a few rolls to see how it turns out you may find that it's a good way to go.<br>

On the other hand, walking around with a TLR in your hand creates a certain "aura" and frankly, having a DSLR in the other hand will completely destroy the "aura". Whipping out your hand held light meter, on the other hand, will greatly enhance the "aura"! ;)</p>

[rogerwb]

<p>With the Argoflex you will have to re-roll 120 film onto a 620 spool. Similar type cameras for little money are the Ciro-Flex or Yashica A. </p>

[johncox]

<p>One more thing to point out is that not all digital slrs use the same base ISOs. On some ISO 400 might be a half stop faster than another and this relates entirely differently to film. My Nikon D600 reads ISO 400 a little fast. When my handheld meter Reads ISO 400 the D600 Reads 320, while other bodies read different speeds.</p>

<p>A digital camera may not be the best light meter.</p>

 

[brett_rogers]

<p>Well, why <strong>wouldn't</strong> you be able to use an external meter to calculate exposure? It is, after all, what they're for. And it is surely a better option than carting around a DSLR that you won't actually be using for imaging to do the same thing but potentially less accurately.</p>

[c_watson1]

<p>You'd do better with a handheld incident light meter. A DSLR is a reflected light meter and can be fooled by backlighting, highly-reflective surfaces, and high-contrast lighting. Incident metering isn't since it measures light falling on your subject.</p>

<p>Get the newest meter you can afford. I'd not bother with relics like Westons, GEs or older Gossens. Remember, too, that a "working" isn't necessarily an accurate meter.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

... also remember that light metering technology isn't very complicated, that they 'nailed' it quite some time ago already, and that the latest meters mainly offer expensive bells and whistles while not making a better job of what you need such a thing for to begin with.<br>;-)

[szrimaging]

<p>When I bought my TLR, I dind't have a light meter with me, so I used an Olympus E-PM1 to meter. Worked perfectly fine.</p>

<p>That said, I do prefer to carry my Sekonic light meter (558R, I think) to carrying a second camera.</p>

[collin_krabbe]

<p>Thanks so much! I've actually found an older GE-PR 1 for very cheap on eBay that I will probably pick up, since they have a reputation for being good meters. </p>

 

[ondebanks]

<blockquote>

<p>You'd do better with a handheld incident light meter. A DSLR is a reflected light meter and can be fooled by backlighting, highly-reflective surfaces, and high-contrast lighting. Incident metering isn't since it measures light falling on your subject.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's fine, as long as you are able to position the meter in the light falling on your subject. But in many landscape situations and long-lens shots, you don't have that physical access to the light. [OK, TLRs and old folders aren't going to give you long-lens shots...]</p>

<p>And in many other situations, the subject is itself the emitter/transmitter of the light (twilight sky; stained glass window; neon lights; city skyline after dark; surface of the moon or sun; ...); in which case an incident meter is as useful as sunscreen in a coalmine.</p>

<p>So there are situations where incident light meters are simply not usable. Although reflected light (they also work for emitted/transmitted light) meters can be fooled, there is no situation where they fail to give you some sort of reading for the subject, which, with user experience (or fancy camera matrix-metering algorithms), can be compensated into a decent exposure.</p>

<p>Ideally, one would have both, in the same device.</p>

<p>For those who are interested, I'll expand on these points below...this is edited from a piece I had written for a photography club.<br>

<br />First of all, here's my favourite example of why incident meters are not the solution for everything. I am out in the countryside with my camera gear. It's January, around midnight, and the full moon is really high in a clear sky. I know from experience that to expose the moonlit landscape to my satisfaction will require 5 to 10 minutes at f5.6 on ISO 100 film. Let's say I have an incident meter. What light is incident on the landscape? The moonlight of course. I hold my incident meter facing the moon and get an exposure recommendation of ... 5 to 10 minutes at f5.6 on ISO 100 film. Damn, these incident meters are good.<br /><br />But now, I want to photograph not the moonlit landscape, but the moon itself, in all its stark, contrasty detail. I pull out my telephoto/telescope and aim at the moon. But what exposure time to use?<br /><br />Again, I know from experience, and indeed from standard tables. The full moon needs 1/125 sec at f/11 on ISO 100. Does that look familiar? It should do - it's simply the "Sunny 16" rule, opened up an extra stop - because the reflectance (albedo) of the full moon is around 10-12%, so we need about a 2x correction on the 18% grey card assumption.<br /><br />"Sunny 16" in the middle of the night? How can that be?! Well, let's get back to first principles: what light is incident on the moon? If I could don an astronaut's spacesuit and stand on the moon (at the "centre" of the full moon, as we see it) I would see a glaring, bang overhead, noonday sun. My astronaut's incident meter would tell me to use "Sunny 11" for the surrounding rocks.<br /><br />Now then; back to terra firma. How is my incident meter going to measure pure incident sunlight, when it's the middle of a January night, the sun set 8 hours ago, the sun won't rise for another 8 hours, and even at noon it won't be as intense as the overhead equatorial sun?<br /><br />It can't. Just pointing the incidence meter at the moon will give a reading which is off by an astonishing 18 f-stops, or about 250,000x in light intensity!<br /><br />This example might seem a bit extreme, but I like using extreme cases to open people's eyes to general principles of the physics. It brings us to Rule 1 for incidence metering: * you have to physically be able to place the meter to intercept the same type and intensity of light as your reflective subject is receiving. * If you can't access the same light, you can't meter by incidence.<br /><br />The same applies to less extreme examples. In place of the distant moon, the inaccessible light might be sunlight striking a distant mountaintop, while the local area is in shade. Incidence metering would do a nice job on exposing the nearby foreground, but blow out the mountaintop.<br /><br />Or consider the difference between exposing for a landscape illuminated by a sunset, and exposing for the sunset itself.<br /><br />And it's not just bright sources like the moon and sunsets that an incident light meter cannot be used for. <br>

Rule 2: * you cannot correctly incidence meter a transmissive subject. * Anything which filters light or has partial opacity - a stained glass window, a closeup of a backlit leaf, a cell on a microscope slide, the sun shining through an umbrella or the sail of a boat. The incident meter will tell you how to correctly expose the pews in the interior of the church, illuminated through the stained glass windows, but not how to capture the detail in the window itself. Sure, you could run outside, meter the light incident on the stained glass, run back in (and hope that clouds are not changing the light in the meantime!) - but that's still no good, as you have no idea what the opacity (filter factor coefficient) of the glass is.<br /><br />Another situation. Say I want to get some of those classic "Manhattan-at-dusk" types of shots in my local city. The sky is nearly dark, the office buildings are there with the lights in their windows, and I'm at the other side of the park/river/whatever aiming my camera at them. What light is incident upon the office windows? Virtually none, compared to what's coming _out_ of them. Should I turn my incident meter around to face them, then? No point: then I would be right back in the situation of trying to meter the lunar detail (window detail) with an incidence meter far away. Can't be done.<br /><br />Crestfallen, I head downtown. Surely I can at least get a cool shot of that glitzy big neon sign? No; it's the same problem. The incidence meter will do a great job letting me capture the _streetscape_ illuminated by the sign, but the same reading will blow out the sign.<br /><br />All of which brings us to Rule 3: * you cannot correctly incidence meter an emissive subject. * Of course you might get lucky, if the subject is not the main source of light in the scene and its surface brightness is moderate - whatever's showing on a TV or computer screen, for instance, might expose fine in a moderately-lit room. But that's just because these objects are designed to have surface brightness in line with everyday reflective things around us, so that our eyes are not strained from hours of staring at them. The fact that you might get with a result with an incidence meter doesn't mean that you were approaching it correctly; it just means you were lucky with that particular emissive subject.<br /><br />Do I then completely dismiss incidence meters? Not at all; in fact I've often thought of getting a combined incidence/reflected one in the form of an old Lunasix Pro/Profisix [i'd pick that over the Sekonics for its extraordinary eV range in low light]. They are brilliant yokes to have in many circumstances. But I do know that those circumstances are more limited that some photographers would claim.<br /><br /></p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

<i>"That's fine, as long as you are able to position the meter in the light falling on your subject. But in many landscape situations and long-lens shots, you don't have that physical access to the light. [OK, TLRs and old folders aren't going to give you long-lens shots...]<br><br>And in many other situations, the subject is itself the emitter/transmitter of the light (twilight sky; stained glass window; neon lights; city skyline after dark; surface of the moon or sun; ...); in which case an incident meter is as useful as sunscreen in a coalmine."</i><br><br>Rule 1... That age old mistake, once again?<br>Yep! Once again...<br><br>The moon (to begin with that) is indeed lit by the sun. You can indeed use 'sunny 16' (which doesn't contain an <i>"18% grey card assumption"</i> you have to correct for. A classic reflective light meter user's mistake to think that you do. ;-)), or rely on what you meter on a sunny day on earth (EV 14-15 using ISO 100. There. I know that even without metering. Its the middle of the night here anyway, so - as you say - no chance to meter. ;-) ). No problem, Ray.<br><br>A landscape too is lit by the sun (or moon). And unless you are on the dark, night side of the earth while trying to use a very long lens to get a picture of something on the other, day side of the earth, you already are <i>in</i> the same light that is illuminating your subject.<br><br>With that out of the way, arethere instances in which incident light metering doesn't work? Yes, some of those examples you mention, Ray. When the subject is the source of light, or rather, when you want to capture the light itself. Your rule 2. And 3. (No need for two rules for one and the same thing).<br><br>The question is how often will you come across either situation: one in which incident metering will be perfectly feasible, and one in which it can't work. And how many incident light meters you know that doen't also do reflective light metering.<br>The answer is in your own picture albums and galleries. Have a look and see how many scenes captured by yu would not have been possible to meter using an incident light meter.<br><br>And what should not be forgotten is that the good thing about incident light metering is that it gives instant correct results. Reflective light metering always (!) needs judging and perhaps correcting.<br>You say something about not knowing the opacity of stained glass? You never know how much the subject you point a reflective light meter at deviates from your <i>"18% grey card assumption"</i>, until you have learned the hard way. And when you have enough experience to judge and correct reflective light meters (something you don't need to do using incident light metering), you'll not need a meter at all to take well exposed pictures of the moon, or sunsets. ;-)