Re: [Leica] Re: m6 AND hexar rf

[Dante Stella <dante@umich.edu>]

> It is my humble opinion, as well as decades of manual cameras and
> experience, that the Hexar's AE ability contributed little, perhaps
> nothing, to the picture taking experience and whether the exposures were
> good or not. As a matter of fact, AE in a restaurant can give you a worse
> "hit" rate than no AE.

What do your decades of manual picture taking have to do with someone
else's experience?  Were you there?  Did you take the shot?  Can you even
say what kind of lighting there was?

> A reflected meter reads anything in front of it. Black jacket, white
> sweater, overhead light, etc. If you are in a restaurant, find a neutral
> subject in an average lighting situation, read it, set your camera, and you
> are done. Take pictures without changing the exposure. An AE camera will
> read that black jacket and give you much over exposure. It will read that
> white sweater or bright overhead light and give you gross underexposure.

The last time I checked, the M6 has a reflected meter, too.  So how is
metering off a grey wall by setting an M6 meter any different from taking
a read with the Hexar in AEL and keeping your finger on the button or
manually setting the shutter to the indicated speed?  One place the M6
meter doesn't do as well is in telling you what the contrast range is.

And what's an average subject?  What you see and what the meter see in
terms of response to different colors of light can be wildly varying.  CdS
and SPD and what not all have their own responses.  Short of using a Zone
VI meter, what do you suggest?

> In these situations, the Leica M camera is the master of perfect exposures
> (the human brain at work) and stealthily quiet operation.

The human brain can do many things, but accurately reproduce even an
average-contrast scene from a dark environment by guess is not one of
them.  

> So my humble opinion is, there really isn't anything that a Hexar can do
> that is "better" than an M camera. It does "different" things, not
> necessarily better things. Some of these "different" things can actually be
> a burden.

Well, I'm young and I can carry them. : )

> Jim
>