ryan_bertetta

Ah - I know slide film. It's just never been conveniently accessible up until this point. And it's been intimidating because of the exposure latitude. Actually, after shooting three rolls of B&W 120 on the RB67 I went ahead and bought Fuji Velvia 100 for a reasonable price. I've just ignored it up to this point because these days it's harder to find, harder to work with, and develops with different chemicals.

So I bought a Minolta IVf with 10 degree spot attachment. $200 on ebay. It does all three metering types, will store and average a couple of readings, and will read in exposure values. Individually the most expensive part of my foray into MF (so far). It will fit in my pocket, and generally seems like an investment for the sake of all my future endeavors. That': how I justify it. It's also simple. I already read through the manual, and it seems to do quite a lot in a simple presentation. I've heard the more expensive sekonics have menu systems to comb through - not something I'm interested in. I hadn't come across a ton of the meters that have been mentioned in this thread, and I might still sell the minolta and buy one of those if they seem cheaper, smaller and just as useful. I'm really interested in the small ones that were hot shoe mounted. But I feel safe in my decision, considering how deep this rabbit hole seems. Right now I'm reading about color correction/reduction filters - a separate, and equally deep hole... Lugging around a DSLR (mine is mirrorless, Olympus EM10) is not an option, as many people seem to do. Even though my first leap into MF was a 6x7 tank, I'm never willing to carry more than is absolutely necessary. One camera, extra film. Keep It Simple, Stupid. Though now it'll probably be a couple film backs, light meter, and tripod as well. I'm glad my assumption that you can't take an incident reading of a mountain 20 miles away was right. And most of the "extreme situations" in which a basic reflected meter would fall short are situations I like to put myself in. I did a two week stint backpacking the JMT out of Yosemite with 3-4lbs of Nikon F2 (which had a broken light meter, coincidentally). And this Christmas I'm taking a filmcation to Sapporo, one of the furthest north parts of Japan you can go. Ashamed to say I don't know what chrome film is. But I do all my own B&W developing and have the means to build a dark room when I move back to the states - something I've been wanting to do for five or six years now. I carted an enlarger from FL to CA when I moved thinking I would be able to, just to ship it back to FL when I moved overseas. Glad this caused a spirited discussion! This is now the type of photo.net thread I like to come across while doing research. Cheers

Late question, but I'm also shopping for Mamiya 645 1000s cameras. I've heard a lot about the WLF being pointless on 645 cameras in general, but I also don't care for a metered prism. Any information on the weight and size of AE prisms vs. vanilla prisms?

I also have had an issue telling which lens corresponds to which curve. The manual says the 127mm is the middle one, but I haven't figured out which lens is the top most curve or the bottoms most curve. Does the 50mm or the 250mm have the long, shallow top curve, or the short steep curve that indicates you would bever need to extend the bellows all the way?

I've been playing with the app on my phone. It seems effective to a point. Do they make new analog light meters? And while I want it to be cheap, ($200 is my limit, which isn't what I would describe as "cheap") I really just don't want it to be laden with features I never intend to use. I just want simple, yet full-featured in a very specific spectrum. Is that too much to ask for? And if you can't hold the meter directly up to what you're measuring, don't you need a spot meter at that point? Or is that not how it works?

Hi, long time lurker first time poster. So I've just bought my first medium format camera, a Mamiya RB67 Pro S. Still waiting for it to arrive. Exciting stuff. Incidentally, (get it?) this means I probably need a lightmeter. A surprisingly expensive one. A lightmeter that's going to cost as much as the camera body itself. First, I'm an amateur film-only photographer and I never intend to do weddings or studio work. I don't work with flash at all. I do landscapes and travel photgraphy, so that means I need a spotmeter. But I also shoot people and things generally within reach, so I want a meter that can do incident as well. In doing my research, I've found a few reasonably priced lightmeters I'm interested in. 1) Minolta Auto Meter III or IV Pro: small, has accessory for spotmetering Con: too complicated, too digital? 2) Pentax Spotmeter analog or digital Pro: Ansel Adams used it Con: large, no incident metering And that's as far as I've gotten really. I know Sekonic is nice, but they're on the expensive side and seem like they do way more than I need. Although, I found a Sekonic analog meter in a camera shop today. Seemed fine. Good price. I do like the idea of an analog style light meter. Digital can feel so...clinical. So besides getting learned on zone metering, I feel like I need some opinions and help on this purchase. Any ideas? Thanks in advance, Ryan