How did they do it?

[kris-bochenek]

<p>I was looking at some of the famous street photographers' work and I cannot but wonder about the way they measured the ambient light. Did they use meters or just guessed exposures based on sunny 16 rule? I normally use old analog light meter for my street shots, but I am yet to try to go out without one. I find Sunny 16 rule easy and hard to understand. With shutter speed = film speed in full sun the aperture would be f/16, if I tried to shoot a subject with their back facing the sun it would be f/11. Now with the subject in open shade on sunny day it would be f/5.6 and a subject in deep shadow of tall buildings it would be f/4 am I understanding it correctly? For general scenes with light overcast it would be f/11 and for darker sky f/8.</p>

[bebu_lamar]

<p>I think you're correct.</p>

[SCL]

<p>Once you start using the sunny 16 guidelines it becomes intuitive. If you're unsure...make a guess and check it against a meter. If you're off, you just need to keep honing your eye/brain. My issues come mostly in rainy/near rainy conditions...but I keep it up.</p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<blockquote>

<p>...make a guess and check it against a meter.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's the fastest way to learn. You don't even need a camera, just carry the (incident) meter around and guess..AHEM...estimate...the exposure and check. Stick to one ASA speed for a while till you get the hang of it. It yields to practice and soon you'll start to recognize similar lighting intensities and scenarios. Then load up the camera and shoot fast, free and easy without a crutch...er...meter.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p>When I was a child, my first exposure "meter" was a Johnson's Exposure Calculator made of celluloid, where you could dial in various factors (film speed, time of year, time of day, type of subject, weather conditions) and get an exposure read-out. After a while I found I could think the same way as the calculator without actually using it.</p>

[grey_rogacion]

<p>It takes a little more time of getting used to with the same cam and one lens. Many times I would sit down and guess-estimate spot meter readings of the surrounding areas and check it on the cam's meter.</p>

[steve_mareno1]

<p>The easiest way to learn it is to accidentally leave the meter at home like I did the other day. It was cloudy, so I went to sunny 11 (first time to shoot w/o a meter) and the shots came out quite well. I took some shots inside where I'd had the camera before w/ a meter, and remembered the settings, so even those came out fine. Black and white film has such wonderful exposure latitude that even if you mess up a few stops you can get a good image anyway.</p>

[john_robison3]

<p>How did they do it?<br>

"They" had really good printers who could work darkroom magic with less than optimal negatives.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>How did they do it?</em><br /><em>"They" had really good printers who could work darkroom magic with less than optimal negatives.</em><br>

And thickly-coated (even double-coated) films that were designed to give wide exposure latitude on the assumption that photographers were guessing exposures. Today's films are more thinly coated for optimized sharpness and won't stand the same kind of abuse.</p>

[machts gut]

<p>I have no data at hand, but there are many voices that claim the latitude of modern b&w film is much wider than the old films of the past.</p>

[winfried_buechsenschuetz1]

<p>Back in the days of b/w films it did not matter much if you over- or underexposed them by one step. Also, if you check exposure values during a day you will not see much change from late morning to early evening hours. So it was not too difficult to make proper shoots with guesstimatic. My father bought his first lightmeter soon after starting to shoot with color reversal film. He used to shoot b/w either without or just with an extinction meter and always had good results. </p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

Back in the days of b/w films, they did have and use light meters too. ;-)

[steve m smith]

<blockquote>

<p>or just guessed exposures based on sunny 16 rule</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Sunny sixteen isn't guessing, it's knowing.<br /> <br /> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>When I was a child, my first exposure "meter" was a Johnson's Exposure Calculator made of celluloid</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I have one of those. It works fine.<br /> <br /> Sunny sixteen and all of the other exposure guides work because the source of light, the sun, is a constant. It is only varied by the amount of cloud cover diffusing it.<br /> <br /> We cannot tell the difference between actual levels of light as our eyes adust to it automatically but we can judge the amount of cloud diffusion by changes in the contrast of a scene and by how distinct the shadows are.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Back in the days of b/w films</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Also known as now!</p>

[john_robison3]

<p>Well folks, with my first SLR, a Miranda with no meter, (purchased used in 1970) I used the instruction sheet with exposure suggestions that came packed with every roll of film back then. Worked good too. Of course, after I started using bulk film loaded into Kodak Snap Caps (remember them, box of 10 for a buck) I had already memorized those sheets. I stuck with Tri-X and Diafine, which also worked good and the chemicals lasted almost forever.</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>Modern "T" grain emulsions are much less forgiving of exposure errors than old fashioned emulsions, I guess that most people these days have cameras with excellent meters.<br>

Folks like Cartier-Bresson sometimes got it wrong (horror) but was saved by the film and a really good printer. Of course you can get away with exposure errors on modern B&W by using various processing techniques, but they reward you with really correct exposure.<br>

The sunny sixteen rule is great for middle of the day stuff, but interiors and dusk and dawn can really fool our inbuilt meters!</p>

[kris-bochenek]

<p>Thnx for the tips and info. I will try to use the Sunny 16 more often and at first compare my readings with the meter.</p>

[chuck_foreman1]

I think it s a llof the above . B&W film has some latitude. And when you control the printing stage it becomes a routine in how you expose and print to achieve the optimum or at least desirable results. Back in the 1980s when I was printing, my negative ( usually PLUS X were really much better than I now achieve. I've been thinking about this and I think I was very meticulous with times, temps and inversions. I'm a bit sloppy now. I just realized the recommeded interstion are every 30s not once a minute. This I guess brings more contrast. DUHH! The comment about thicketr emulsions is also interesting. The Kodak Tri-X seems so thin to me now. I like Acros for it's blacks.. but this is now sliding into more a processing discussion as an exposure discussion. Something I'm trying now with exposure is to go ahead and use the wider apertures to accentuate the subject for DOF. In the old days they didn't always have the fastest film so I think they used these principles to their advantage. I noticed my father was always checking the on camera DOF scale. So there are many things to consider.

[dhbebb]

<p><em>The comment about thicker emulsions is also interesting. The Kodak Tri-X seems so thin to me now.</em><br>

Seems that way to me too. It has of course been reformulated (I have no data on exactly when) since the 50s and 60s.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>the latitude of modern b&w film is much wider than the old films of the past.</em><br>

This would surprise me. For a given subject brightness range, lens contrast (single-. double- or uncoated) and development contrast, latitude really depends on emulsion thickness. Old snapshot films like Verichrome and Verichrome Pan had double coatings, with a layer of fast emulsion over a layer of a slow one, which meant that highlights did not block even with fairly generous overexposure while you still got some kind of image with underexposure. These films were used in box cameras, the simplest of which had no exposure adjustment. It is perhaps significant that Verichrome and Verichrome Pan were never offered in 35mm size - they gave good results in rollfilm sizes, but did not have enough sharpness for 35mm</p>

[tanjyhhern5]

<p>Interestingly, I use the sunny 16 rule even on my DSLR, mostly because I usually cannot get the results I want from following the inbuilt meter. After a while, I got used to "knowing" what the exposure would be to the nearest stop. Owning a meterless, quite unforgiving Nikkormat probably helped...</p>

[flavio_egoavil]

<p>"Thicker" is not necessary related to latitude.<br>

Almost all B&W films since the 60s are multi-layer films where there are emulsions of high, medium, and low speed packed on top of the other. This gives them such big latitude.<br>

It's not physical thickness but multi-layering. The manufacturer always tries to reduce physical thickness since this will help with resolution.</p>

<p> </p>