Hello all !

I'm not sure if it could be interesting, may be you already know the how-to ! But there it is, if it could help someone ...

Here is how i work when i'm walking in the streets of Namur, looking for subject... Today the weather is good, nice sun everywhere...

• i make a measure of the light at a middle point between hard shadows and hard light. I've got 1/30è @ F8 (you can measure the light on the back of your hand, i works too)
• i put my body to manual and set 30è and f8
• i put my lens to hyperfocal, so i'm sharp from 2meters to infinite @f8 (i'm working with a fix focal 35mm)
• i take a pic and i check if everything is correct... (on digital of course)

i'm ready to just point and shoot...

This is nice because you will always have the same mood, and the tyle of view with the fix focal.

Hope this could be interesting,
Seeya
Olivier

Olivier,  I am glad to see you mention this. You are taking a sort of "zone approach" and picking the middle ground.  I would like to see pics of how it works out throughout the shooting time.

As for me, once in a while I actually disregard the in-cam meter or hand held meter and shoot using simple guidelines like the "rule of sunny 16'".   With some practice, using the mind and basic common guidelines as you employed,  exposure is quite acceptable.

I believe it is a good excercise to go to the field and shoot many images using the mind and experience as the meter, avoiding the in-build technical electronics and actually testing our own ability to read acceptable exposure.  When I have done this, not often by any means, I have enjoyed the test and find most images within acceptable ranges.

Ahh..the easy pitfall of depending on the tech stuff and not thinking exposure and result...so easy to fall into the "easy way" and miss the chance to do it ourself manually and with often surprisingly fine results.      Thanks for this post.      Tom.

P.S> I am by no means a purist and b elieve one way is better than another since I shoot mostly with camera metering, tempered with my own feeling at the time.  But, this does work and is worth trying for anyone with manual capability.

Yeah Tom, it's a nice way to go too ! ... I work somtimes like this at the 'nose-o-meter' lolll

The goal here was just a 'method' to put your camera in a mode where you don't think about it... Like hyperfocal, etc...

My latests BW were done often like this.... I will post some BW next days, because i've finished developing 2 bw 24x36 classics films.. I've used this technique a lot in theses ones...

See ya Tom ;o)
Olivier

The only problem with hyperfocal length is setting it...some lenses and many digital ones do not have a depth of field scale.   So, try and see with some idea of where to start.     Folks miss a lot when hyperfocal is not used in certain photography, the most mentioned being landscape.

This does take away a lot of the problems associated with quick shots.

yep, sure.. There is no many lens (and zoom lens) with the scale :os I know it's a problem...

Fix focal are greats... It add a lot of consistency to the set of pictures you've done... but you need to move to capture ...