Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/04/08

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Subject: Re: [Leica] 18% metering often wrong
From: "Peter Su" <psu@jprc.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 14:37:52 -0400

All this talk of metering has me thinking one thing, and one thing only.

In one of his how to books, John Shaw says something to this effect:

The "correct" exposure for a scene is the one that gets you a picture that
looks the way you wanted it to look. If the picture is lighter than you
wanted, then its over-exposed. If it is darker than you wanted, then its
underexposed. The goal is to learn how to use your light meter to get the
exposure that YOU want.

END SUMMARY

As with everything else in photography, the way you achieve this goal tends
to be different for everyone. There is no one magic bullet, one technique
that works for everything every time everywhere. In particular, the way you
meter for 35mm color slide film is going to be very different from the way
you meter for B&W 4x5 sheet film. I think we have to keep this in mind when
talking about "correct" metering.

So, just learn how to use whatever your favorite meter is the right way, and
go from there.

Pete