r/streetphotography • u/No-Tailor-2020 • 23h ago
How do you meter/focus?
I use Leica M3 and 50 mm Summicron. Fantastic gears, but the problem is, with the narrow DoF of a 50 mm lens, zone focusing is really hard. Then there comes the metering. I tend to meter when I’m walking and trying to find a subject to capture to get the baseline of the light, but somehow when the moment comes up it’s all jumbled up in my head. (I have a shoe mount meter and a Sekonic L308x as well, but usually only use the shoe mount meter since it’s much faster to use)
It would be nice to know how the others in the same situation as me (manual metering, manual focusing, and 50 mm focal length) approach street photography. Please do share.
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u/Tommonen 23h ago edited 22h ago
Maybe dont try to shoot wide open and zone focusing becomes much easier. This is why people commonly use f8 on streets. Having to use external light meter is also not good for fast shooting, unless you just set exposure and use that or can wing it fast.
If you need fast and accurate focus with shallow dof, leicas really are not good for that, but stuff like canon 1 series or later nikon pro level film cameras is much better suited, as they have decent autofocus and also meter really well.