You probably noticed that film photos have been creeping into my blog posts. Since September last year I have been incorporating film into my photography. I have learned quite some things, I have tried different camera’s, and I am slowly getting more confident. But I also realised that most of the time I am relying on my digital camera for the bulk of my photos, and only when I get some confirmation from the screen on my M240 I also take a photo on film. I try to take more photos without doing so, for example with the daily photos I take for my 366. But when I am in a nice place I still feel insecure without that kind of feedback. So in order to get more confidence in my film photography I needed to get out exploring without the M240. I decided to stay close to home in a familiar place, Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam. I brought my Leica M2 loaded with Kodak Portra 400 and the Minolta Riva Panorama loaded with Kodak Tri-X. There was a bit of sun, and I always enjoy the zoo, so I had a wonderful morning. I suppose you can tell that my favourite animal is the giraffe…
All photos were developed and scanned by UK filmlab (now Canadian Film lab). By the way my success-rate was 8 out of 14 for Portra, and 7 out of 19 for Tri-X, which is much more than I usually get with digital files 🙂 .
Thanks for reading!
Congrats! You did a great job without the M240. How did you meter? Did you use the camera meter? One thing I learned quickly is that incident metering is King! My current method of metering is using an external meter which I can use for incident or spot readings. I usually overexpose a about a stop or so. The more you shoot without the M240, the better and more confident you will become. It looks like you already have it down. You mention your success rate is already better than digital. This will only get better.
Thanks Travis! I meter with an iPhone app, for Portra 400 I overexpose 2 stops. I considered buying the Lumu light meter, but it seems to work pretty well like this. But I only use reflective, the app also has an incident mode, but I don’t trust that as much.
Incident light metering is nice as long as you are in the same light as the subject. Reflective spot metering, however, requires more consideration as the meter will always read for Zone V. Depending on whether you are measuring for the shadows or for highlights, you will have to add of subtract one or two stops. Also, the spectral response of an reflective meter is not fully flat. This makes that the color of the metered spot is also of influence.
I think that Aukje’s app is actually doing matrix metering, in which the full scene is metered and some kind of weighted average gives the metered value.
Consider using the sunny 16 rule. It will get you close 9/10 times without needing a meter at all. And with tri-x it is fine as long as you are within plus or minus a stop. (f/16 at 1/ISO shutterspeed for sunny scene, f/11 for an overcast scene, etc)
Or even better: guess with the sunny 16 rule, check with a light meter the first roll and then start eye balling it from there. 😉
Roy
Thanks for the extra clarification Roy! I do try to guess before metering, but mostly I have enough time to measure anyway, so I might as well…