Re: Phillistines who own Leicas (fwd)

[Gary J Toop <gtoop@uoguelph.ca>]

	CMonck:

	I have a couple of quick questions for you:  

1)  How have you been metering the shots?  If you are using a Leica meter 
mounted to the top of the camera, remember that it should be tested and 
could need recalibration.  Also remember that even the most accurate 
reflected light meter is intended to give you a middle gray.  That means 
that if you point it at something dark, it will have you over-expose it 
and if you point it at something bright, it will have you underexpose 
it.  Since the varied lighting in many scenes balances out to something 
close to a middle gray, this often doesn't matter much, but it can make 
a huge difference in some circumstances.  
	Also, if you haven't already done so, I would strongly suggest 
getting your hands on the last edition of Ansel Adam's book  The Negative 
and reading the first two or three chapters where exposure and the zone 
system are explained.  Alternatively, you could get a copy of Fred 
Picker's Zone VI Workshop.  There are probably other good books out there 
about the Zone system.  The Zone system is much easier to grasp than many 
technophiles and understanding the principles by which is works are, in my 
opinion, extremely useful even if you never use the system.  Reading the 
first few pages of Picker's book provided me with a much better 
conceptual grasp of the interaction between film, exposure, and 
development than I had after a couple of years as an interested amateur.  
I often use an incident light meter - a big no-no for Zone 
system afficianados, I am told - but find that I get much more out of 
using it than I did before I had read Picker and Adams.

2)  My second question for you is "what kind of film are you using"?  
Some newer emulsions are very very picky about development times and 
temperatures - Tmax 100 and 400 are notorious in that respect.  You might 
want to try shooting something really forgiving, like Plus-X Pan, Tri-X, 
or the Agfa films.  It seems to be frighteningly easy to over- or under-
develope the TMax films.

I am sending this to your e-mail address in case you have not been 
reading the group, but I will post it to the group as well.  I am sure 
that a number of people will be willing to help you.  Just let us know a 
little more about what you have been doing.

Hope this helps
Gary Toop