Spock Misses The Point

- Australia Day, 2006.

The 35mm lens was testing a my courage a bit so I thought I’d take my new 50mm out for a walk. Since I had a bit of success with shooting sunny 16 on a sunny day I thought I’d try my eyes on a cloudy day. I was going to use the camera’s meter as a backup reference, but for some reason the needle was way off the chart. So I just tried winging it through the day. When I got home I realised I hadn’t engaged the metal flap on the lens mount that couples the lens’ aperture ring to the camera. I had a non AI lens on the camera before (the 35mm) and I forgot to flip the flap back up when mounting the 50mm AI lens. So the meter was giving me reading for f1.8. I had 400 film loaded. No wonder it was off the chart. Duh! I felt so stupid. The meter works now of course.

This is the only survivor from that roll because there was a thin patch in the clouds and I bracketed one stop on the bright side. Bit of a bummer, but it’s great experience. I think if I shot three, may be four, stops brighter I would’ve been fine. I’m going to keep trying to meter with my eyes. Surely I’ll get the hang of it one day, especially with the camera’s meter as a guide.

It’s really funny looking at this photograph now. It kind of sums up how I felt when the one hour lab showed me the photos.

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