Re: M6 metering

[cyberdog@unicall.be]

At 12:03 +0545 01-05-1997, Ian Stanley wrote:
>
>        To keep this in line with Leica - I was using my new M6!  For a
>change I was also shooting Velvia as the shots are for a brochure for the
>Dhulikhel Municipality.  It has taken some time but I am starting to trust
>the meter in the M6 and did not resort to my best guess or Pentax spot meter
>quite as often.  I am finding that usually the three readings agree as long
>as I point the M6 meter at the right thing.  I have been pleased with the
>results I have been getting so far other than some problems with the
>processing and mounting.
>Ian Stanley
>
>Kathmandu, Nepal

I am also a new Leica M user since one month. I have been using Nikon
equipment for about 15 years (manual FM and a set of Nikkors, and more
recently also a 35 Ti). My Leica M6 and Summilux-M 35 mm f/1.4 ASPH make a
nice couple, but the transition from Nikon to Leica M was (and still is)
difficult. The rangefinder concept is somewhat discomforting for
long-standing SLR users (even if the manual FM can be considered as the SLR
equivalent of the rangefinder M6).
The most difficult problem, however, was to get used to the metering
system. First of all, the spot metering of the M6 is not quite accurate in
the sense that you do not actually "see" the metering spot in the
viewfinder (this is impossible due to the rangefinder concept where the
viewfinder stays the same for different lenses). So you have to guess and
hope it is more or less correct. I have already had numerous occasions
where shots were overexposured because I had a tendency to meter on a less
bright part of the object (habit from the FM). This took some getting used
to but, frankly speaking, I am still preferring the 60-40 approach from
Nikon. In that case 60 % is determined by the round area in the middle of
the viewfinder, and 40 % is evenly spread among the other parts of the
image. This gives correct exposures in most situations. With much
contrasted objects, you just point the camera somewhat to the less brighter
parts, measure, and go back to your original position. In my experience
this will result in a much higher number of successfully exposed pictures
and slides. You could resume by saying that to expose correctly with the M6
you need a more careful approach - small mistakes will much quicker result
in bad results than with the FM (and then I am not even referring to the
latest Nikon F5 matrix-metering, which is giving incredible results).

Pascal
Belgium


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