gordonbennett

I'll try those suggestions when I have a chance. Thanks!

I still haven't had time to return to the Zenit. My wife decided she wants to empty her storage unit, so I've been building a shed. (Well, I've been building the elevated deck for it. I'll put a canopy shed on it when it's finished. Maybe I'll frame it in a few years.) I couldn't read much of the manual. Thank you, though. I've bookmarked a page that has a transcription of the manual on my computer at home.

I have plenty of other cameras with built-in meters.

I seem to have accumulated a number of light meters, mostly Minolta Auto Meter IV Fs. I have at least three of those, all set to 24 fps Cine. :p I have the Sekonic L-398 as well, and that's the one I'll use for still photography. With the built-in light meters in my SLRs, and with the Minolta light meters for the cine cameras, I've never had to estimate exposure. Now that I'm getting a vintage camera (and I have a Zenit whose light meter I'm not sure about), it seems like a good time to learn how to estimate with Sunny 16. Thank you, stuart_pratt, and everyone else who confirmed my suspicions. I may not take a lot of photos, but that quote didn't pass the smell test. Here's a question about this forum. In the OP, 'This page' is linked to the Sunny 16 article. At my normal (non-photography) hangout, links are automatically underlined and also blue. The link here looks like the rest of the text. How do you highlight links on this site?

I am about to obtain a vintage camera that has no built-in light meter. I'll use a clip-on meter or a Sekonic L-398, but I'd really like to go old-school and try the Sunny 16 rule. This page discusses the Sunny 16 rule. I find something confusing. OK, I get that if you open the aperture three stops, then you have to reduce the shutter speed three stops. It makes sense that if you're shooting 1/200 on ASA 200 film with an aperture of f/16, then you would need to increase your shutter speed if you open your aperture. But in the example given in the quote, it's no longer sunny. Now there are overcast skies. Since it's not sunny, there is less light. Under heavily overcast skies, opening the aperture to f/5.6 is reasonable; but don't you want to keep your shutter speed the same? Less light outside, you need to let more light inside. In the example, it sounds like f/5.6 at 1/1600 seconds would let in the same amount of light as f/16 at 1/200 seconds -- which is great if you are shooting on a bright day, but not if the skies are dark. Am I missing something? Am I misreading?

I googled How To Change Focusing Screen On Nikon FM2 to find this thread. ;)

Where I come from, we call these threads 'zombies'. I should have looked in the FM2 manual. The instructions I found online had small pictures, and I assumed the .pdf manual I looked at online would be the same as the one I have saved. Note to self: Look at what you have first.

The exact location of the lock is what I needed. I've just successfully changed the screen in my FM2N. Thanks.

Wait, I found it.

I haven't had time to return to the camera yet, but something occurred to me. I should have posted that I have a Zenit 122s Fotosnaiper with a 300 mm lens. I read somewhere (I can't find it now) that the aperture on the lens needs to be 'cocked', and that there is a release lever on the bottom. (Again, I haven't looked for the lever and I'm short on time.) It has to do with the aperture ring. I did notice when I was playing with it, that there is spring tension. Since I did get the green correct-exposure LED and the red overexposure LED a couple of times, could it just be that I don't know what I'm doing and the camera itself is OK? I'm completely unfamiliar with this camera and lens.

I'm not sure I'd trust me to do that. I haven't had time to take a close look at the camera. Are there instructions online that show how to do it?

I have a Zenit 122s 'Fotosnaiper' that I got maybe 15 years ago. I never used it, but I've recently uncovered it. I put in some batteries and had a look. The lens is a 300 mm f4.5, and there's a cable that goes into a receptacle on the left-side bottom. I set the shutter speed to 60 and the aperture to 4.5 and aimed the camera around while holding the shutter release button. Only the bottom red LED lit. Fiddling a bit, I got the top red LED to light. And then I got the green middle light to light. But that was a freak occurrence. No matter what aperture/shutter speed/light combination I use, for example, f4.5 at 1/60, aiming at the bright sky, only the bottom red (underexposure) LED lights. I have a vague recollection that this happened over a decade ago, and that's why I never tried to use the camera. Am I doing something wrong? Or is the meter just junk?