American Cinematographer - May 1933 - 23

24

American Cinematographer

*

May 1933

AMATEUR SECTION

you know, get the feel of it and wish I had something
to shoot. That's when I put in my practice. I will take a
look at the light for the day and decide upon some certain
set-up.
I then judge the light and the exposure I would
make.
I then check that with the guide on the side of
the camera. I am going through the same things I would
go through if I were exposing film. I will change to some
nearer object and determine by judgment how much I
should open the diaphragm and then check it with my
guide.
By doing this I have engraved that guide indelibly
in my mind, I know every classification in their order,
which has proved mighty valuable as it gives me the num¬
ber of stops from normal immediately.
I haven't let my practice stop there.
I find myself
viewing something when I am riding along that would
make a good picture. I immediately endeavor to interpret
that into the proper stop to be used.
In this way I am
getting just as much practice as though I were shooting
the camera and exposing film.
This sort of practice has been tremendously valuable to
me, not alone in saving film, but in that fine satisfaction
of hitting the right exposure more frequently.
I suppose this sort of thing, getting the right exposure,
is just as much a matter of practice as learning to play
a musical instrument, or learning to write on this type¬
writer I am using right now. My first efforts were mighty
crude, slow and awkward and I frequently hit the wrong
key.
By the same token my average of wrong exposures
were in proportion to the number of times I used the
camera. However, with my practice method which you will
admit is not really a hard task, not a job, but if you love
to take pictures, you really get delight out of merely
setting your camera up; imagining your picture, and going
through the procedure as though you were exposing film.

I Practice
Correct Exposure
by

J. R. Nixon, Amateur

I

HAVE wasted a great deal of film.
But those days
are over.
I now hit the exposure on the "nose" every
time.

I decided that it was not an utterly impossible thing
to learn the correct exposure.
Thousands of others have
accomplished this and I do not believe it has just been
good luck with them.
Possibly they took more pictures
than I did, that gave them more practice.
So I decided to practice, but without film in the camera.

It does another mighty valuable thing for you. It gives
you confidence in your judgment after you have found you
are correct a couple of hundred times in your practice of
checking your judgment against the exposure guide on your
camera. If your camera hasn't an exposure guide, there is
a book of instructions with it that will serve the same pur¬
pose. If you have found a correction factor with the guide
you have because of the location in which you are living,
you will find that you will automatically apply this in your
practice.
At least that has been my experience when I
have taken pictures under different conditions. You recog¬
nize haze immediately, you recognize the yellowness of the
light as it grows later, you automatically discriminate be¬
tween summer and winter light. It simply becomes auto¬
matic with you.
When I had made a couple of good pictures I sort of
resented the exposure guide on my camera, I unconsciously
developed the feeling that I knew. In fact, I figured that
I could improve on the guide if I opened just a bit more
or closed down a trifle more than it indicated.
I felt I
could improve on their instructions.
A couple of poor
pictures, however, proved to me that the entire camera
was not worth any more to me than the correctness of the
exposure I gave the film.
I then argued myself into the
fact that the money I had paid for the camera was really
paid for the exposure guide and the rest was given with it.

My camera has an exposure guide.
It must be correct.
I hardly think the manufacturer would give me mislead¬
ing information.
In any event, I followed it on my first
pictures very carefully and secured fine results.
If it
worked once, it should surely work again.

The guide being a free accessory we are inclined to give
it might little value. If we had to buy that guide and paid
the price it represents in good pictures, we would pay as
much as we paid for the entire camera.
Because it does
not cost anything, it is frequently ignored by many amateur
motion picture makers.

Like many others I am not constantly shooting pictures.
like to take the camera out and sort of look it over,

I wouldn't say from this analysis that exposure meters
are not valuable, but at the time I first secured my camera

I

Continued on Page 34
American Cinematographer - May 1933

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