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Forum: Photographic Technique
10-24-2020, 11:21 AM
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Thanks to everyone for the suggestions - this thread got way more responses than I could have hoped for, and I appreciate the community effort to help me improve!
One clarification - I know sunny 16 and the basics of using a lightmeter (whether it's the one built in to my MX, the one in my A7, or a phone app I sometimes use as backup). Shooting digital, I know how to do bracketing, and since I can immediately see the result, it's rare that I walk away without the shot I wanted. But with film....
To Swanlefitte's point, when I have been shooting film (I'm now about 3-4 rolls in), I always try to quiz myself to see if I can get the settings right before I check with the meter. But "right" here means "agrees with meter," not "photo turned out right".
It's because of the time lag between taking the photo and seeing the result that I want to track the settings. If 3 pictures come out great and 3 are underexposed, it's hard to learn if I have no idea what I did that made the 3 good vs the other 3 not good. For example, say I'm taking a picture with a bright sky background. I know I'll need to adjust from what the meter is saying if I want any detail in the foreground, so I shoot two stops over the meter's suggestion. Then a week later, I get the pictures back, but I've forgotten whether I followed the meter or deviated, or by how much. How do I remember the settings so I can learn whether the guess to shoot two stops over was right, or whether I should have shot 3 over or gone with the meter?
I'm appreciate the notebook suggestions, but I want to carry around as little gear as possible. I'm not a pro shooting in a studio, but more a guy walking around a city with a camera after work and on lunch breaks. I've been only shooting on one prime lens per roll - no need for a camera bag, and I like the challenge of finding opportunities that work for the lens, rather than just trying to capture anything I think is interesting. I have the chance to revisit all the same places the next day with a different lens if I really want. FWIW, so far, I've been using my Pentax-A 50mm 1.4 and my Pentax-M 100mm F4 (which I really like, at least until I can afford an 85mm).
I think the answer for me personally is the suggestions from lister6520 (plus Lord Lucan (tape is same idea), Wasp (though I don't have a canon, that's super cool to know about) and Stevebrot) to get a cheap solid-state voice record keychain I can attach to the camera and just narrate the settings and thought process. That's light-weight, easy/convenient, and lets me capture not just the settings but a sentence or two on what I'm thinking. Perfect!
Again, thanks for everyone's suggestions!
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