New glass! and a question about metering alternatives.

[korreman]

So my grandfather let me borrow some of his used lenses indefinitely. There's a Nikon Series E 35mm f/2.5, a Nikon Nikkor-H 50mm f/2 and a Tokina 70-200mm f/4.5.



Now the thing is, while these lenses mount perfectly on my Nikon D5200 due to its lack of AF motor, I have no metering due to the aperture ring being manual and therefore unknown by my camera. Anybody have any suggestions for alternative methods of metering or some tricks and tips? Checking the histogram and re-taking photos constantly wont for other things than stills and portraits, though with some frustration.

 

[Derrel]

Well...film used to come with a small, printed sheet that had illustrations of exposures settings outdoors. It began on the left with a "Sunny 16" scenario, showing bright sun on open ground...there was also a building casting a big shadow, and the little stick-figure man was in "Open Shade". On the far right was "Heavy Overcast". So, basically, Sunny 16 states that exposure in bright sunlight is the ISO level as the shutter speed, and the lens f/stop is f/16. Now, as the instuctions said, on "Bright sand or open snow, close down to f/22". Which means that on bright beaches and open snowy areas in sunlight, f/16 will lead to over-exposure, so close down one more f/stoop, to f/22, and use the same shutter speed as the ISO level of the film in use.

So...Sunny 16 is a starting point for full sunshine. There is an old, old theory called the X-threory, which was marketed and sold on a calculator dial thingie...basically, the guy who came up with it said yuo could learn how many X factors, which were actually f/stops, many common situations were. For example, when the sun was out but obscured by clouds, that was 1x MORE light; heavy clouds 2x, overcast 3x, DARK overcast 4x, and something like moonlight night scenes was I want to say 34x, which was around where the calculator ended.

Kodak used to publish recommended exposure lists, for things like Brighter City scenes lighted by neon--like say Times Square, or the gambling district in Reno, for example. Do some web searching for those Kodak exposure articles; they used to have a long, one page list of typical situations, and the exposures were usually in narow ranges, which where accurate, like "floodlighted buildings at night, f/4 at 1/2 second", stuff like that.

You can use an ISO boost as "1x" and then "2x" and then "3x" if you go from ISO 100 to 200; then from 200 to 400; and then from 400 to 800. That would be 1,2,3 X factors under this system.

Indoors at 400 ISO, a typical living room exposure is around f/2.8 at 1/8 to 1/15 second, more or less. Welcome to the 1970's!!!! I learned to shoot 35mm on a Kodak with no light meter, and ASA 125 Plus-X Pan film. It's sink or swim time, buddy! But see, the thing is, almost every situation has "the right exposure"...you just need to get familiar with what those are. Indoors, I STRONGLY suggest you move to ISO 400 or 640 or 800 as the base exposure.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

Buy,borrow or rent a hand held meter and learn how to use it.

I've begun using a lot of MF lenses and prefer them for anything other than fast moving stuff. Even then I'm re-learning to use them on that as well. I had a 50-135 f3.5 chipped and it is wonderful. Sharp and easy to use.

 

[Derrel]

Goodle, and get search results on film exposure guide sheet + photos of

film exposure guide sheet + photo of - Google Search

here is a guy's blog post on The Sunny 16 Rule Tom Jung Photography: Exposure Fundamentals: Shutter Speed and the Sunny Sixteen Rule

and it even has a nice photo of the film exposure guide I grew up with!!! Check this out dude!!! Koday+Exposure+Guide.jpg

 

[korreman]

Thanks Derrel, that was just the kind of information I was looking for! I though light would change too much to get a decent sense of exposure, but from what I can see it's quite possible. Might take some time, but it should be worth it.

 

[greybeard]

Do you have the aperture of these lenses set to the smallest setting ex. f/22? The reason I'm asking is that I have a Vivitar 70-210 from that era that I have used with my D7000 and it meters in Aperture priority if I have the aperture ring set to the smallest opening.

 

[korreman]

Do you have the aperture of these lenses set to the smallest setting ex. f/22? The reason I'm asking is that I have a Vivitar 70-210 from that era that I have used with my D7000 and it meters in Aperture priority if I have the aperture ring set to the smallest opening.

This does not work with the 35mm at least. I'm on my way to sleep, but I'll try to see tomorrow! f/22 would be quite a restriction for general photography though.

 

[greybeard]

Do you have the aperture of these lenses set to the smallest setting ex. f/22? The reason I'm asking is that I have a Vivitar 70-210 from that era that I have used with my D7000 and it meters in Aperture priority if I have the aperture ring set to the smallest opening.

This does not work with the 35mm at least. I'm on my way to sleep, but I'll try to see tomorrow! f/22 would be quite a restriction for general photography though.

When you set the aperture to f22 or whatever the smallest is, the camera will hold it open to the largest possible opening and will stop it down to the needed aperture when it takes the picture. If you have the lens set to say f5.6 instead of the smallest possible one, the camera will only be able to stop down to 5.6 and no smaller.