[Leica] Consistent underexposure partially fixed, I think

["Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com>]

Some of you may recall that I asked a while ago about why I was consistently
underexposing my photographs taken with my M6.  Despite the horrific hypotheses
suggested by some (such that I've had to sleep with a light on ever since), the
camera is clearly not to blame (and I never believed that it was).  My latest
attempts (after a long stretch of rainy days) confirm this--it seems that, if
anything, I'm now overexposing more often than I'm underexposing.

Many more of my images were correctly exposed on these latest two rolls.  A fair
number were perfectly exposed (in my judgement).  There were one or two dramatic
underexposures (but still salvageable), and a fair number of slight
overexposures.  There were two dramatic overexposures.

It seems that my problem is in correctly judging something to be neutral gray or
not.  In the beginning, I pointing the meter at things that were too light, and
got underexposures.  Now I've slipped a bit in the opposite direction, and I've
pointed it at things that are too dark, resulting in slight overexposure.  I was
doing this all with slide film (Provia 100), so any error was easy to see.

These recent improvements have encouraged me, and their change in sign (from
underexposure to overexposure) completely rules out camera problems, lest any of
the unfaithful still entertain such evil thoughts.  I think I'll eventually get
used to it.  The images that are properly exposed are really nice, by the way.
This unimposing little Summicron-M is an incredible performer!

BTW, I haven't had any problems with out-of-focus images (except for two photos
I tried with a Noctilux at the Leica shop, but that could have been haste or
camera movement), so I guess I do okay at focusing (plus at 35 mm you don't have
to be very precise!).

  -- Anthony