Metering notes for the rangefinder

📌 TL;DR / Quick Summary <div style="background: rgba(0,0,0,0.3); border: 1px dashed rgba(255,255,255,0.2); padding: 15px; border-radius: 8px; color: rgba(255,255,255,0.7); margin-bottom: 30px;"> How I set exposure on 🎒 35 mm film camera when I do not trust its meter, which is often: it is a single cell above the lens, older than I am, and it believes whatever the sky tells it. First written in July 2019 after a whole roll of silhouettes of my mother. Short, because the rule is short. </div>

🛠️ Instructions / Core Material

1. The sunny-day rule. In full sun, set the aperture to f/16 and the shutter to the nearest thing to one over the film speed. With 400 film that is 1/500. With 200, 1/250.
2. Then open up as the light goes:
   • hazy sun, soft shadows: f/11
   • bright overcast, no shadows: f/8
   • heavy overcast: f/5.6
   • open shade, or the last half hour before sunset: f/4
3. This far north, start at f/11. Full sun in Port Vellan in March is somebody else's hazy day. I use f/16 from May to August and on water.
4. Meter once, then leave it alone. Light on a grey day does not change between frames. I set it at the start of the walk and only touch it when I go indoors or the sun comes out.

When I ignore the rule

• Anyone standing in front of the estuary. The water is three stops brighter than a face. Open up two stops from whatever the meter says, or walk round so the water is behind me.
• Fog and snow. The meter turns white into grey. One stop more.
• Indoors by a window. Meter off the back of my hand held where the face is, then one stop more, because my hand is not a grey card.
• Night. No rule. Widest aperture, 1/30, elbows on something, and accept it.

⚠️ Key Warnings / Constraints

• Colour negative and black-and-white film: when unsure, more light. This is the only reason the rule works for me at all.
• Below 1/60 I shake. Below 1/30 everybody shakes.
• Lisbon in May was the first place I have ever needed f/16 and 1/500 at once, and I ran out of camera. The slow roll went in the next morning. That is why 🪁 Film photography now says to pack one.

🔗 Related Entities & Resources

• 🎒 35 mm film camera: the camera and its optimistic meter.
• 🪁 Film photography: where the packing advice ended up.