Learning to shoot without a light meter

Sometimes I feel I’ve missed good photos because I spent too long checking my light meter (or just messing with the setting in general). I’ve been interested of the idea of shooting without a meter for a while. Kind of like going even deeper into shooting without any electronical assistance. Built-in light meter is the only electronical feature of my Olympus OM-1, by the way, and I like the idea of removing even that from the equation, and actually learning to really know the light.

I think it would just be a very rad skill to be able to meter light just with your eyes. That would be a true skill. Usually I go with some kind of variation of the sunny 16 rule. Especially now, during the summer, when the light has been great, it’s been somewhat intuitive and easy. I’m now using Tri-x 400 so I usually keep my shutter speed at 1/500. That pretty much stays constant. I only fiddle with the aperture. I’ve noticed, that on a bright day f11 is actually better than f16 and I go from there. Then I simply adjust a stop or two down to f8 or f5.6 depending on shades, strength of the overcast etc. (Oh, in case I didn’t mention. This is purely for outdoors shooting on natural light only.) In a way, I’m on an “aperture priority” mode. Indoors I totally suck.

At the moment I shoot about 50% with the meter and 50% without it. If the lighting conditions are something that I’m well aware of, I can meter it in my head and just set the camera without thinking about it too much. I’m already semi-good from sunny to heavy overcast conditions, but anything more unusual than that, I need to heavily rely on my light meter. When I don’t have to rely on it, I can react so much faster and it feels like the camera is just an extension to my eyes and brain. I like that feeling so much, that I’m determined to continue honing this skill. Sometimes I can tell straight away what kind of setting to throw in and they can be surprisingly accurate.

Even when I’m not shooting, I might think “hmm, I wonder what kind of light this is? Looks a bit like 1/250 + f5.6 kinda light.” And then it’s fun to grab the camera and see how close you were, by checking the light meter. Just thinking about this stuff helps to learn. I don’t think I’d ever bother to learn anything like this with anything else than a mechanical camera.

When it becomes a second nature, there is one time consuming thing less to fiddle about with. I think having a good intuition about the light, would make me one step faster photographer. I’m fantasising about purchasing a Leica M series rangefinder camera, as soon as I win at the lottery. My choice would be between the M3 and M6. M3 doesn’t have a built-in light meter and the idea of so simple camera intrigues me. When the time comes, I think I’m going to be a pussy and go with the M6, but if I’m really good at metering by that time, I might just go full analog.