How was accurate exposure achieved on older cameras with only full-stop settings?
Asked 9/30/2016
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Older film cameras often offered only full-stop (or sometimes half-stop) settings for shutter speed, aperture, and film speed. If exposure controls were this coarse, how did photographers handle situations where the meter suggested something like 1/3 or 2/3 stop different from the nearest available setting? Did they rely on film latitude, darkroom adjustments, or other techniques?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
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With full-stop intervals one can always expose within one-half stop accuracy. If you are over by 2/3-stop then you are only under the next brightest stop by 1/3-stop. Today, with 1/3-stop intervals one can expose to within 1/6-stop of any particular target EV.
Any finer gradations were taken care of in the darkroom, either by modifying the development time slightly, by modifying the printing time slightly, or both.
Keep in mind that most critical work done in the days when most cameras only had full-stop adjustments was done with sheet film, not roll film. Sheet film has one image per negative. A photographer could make notes when metering and exposing the shot and then customize development times for each individual negative back in the darkroom. The advent and increasing popularity of roll film, with which the entire roll is developed at once, is one of the driving factors that lead to cameras with finer exposure adjustments.
And by the way, Kodak offered their very popular Portra Professional grade film in ASA 160 speed and a variety of size formats, including the medium format 120 size. They also offered Vericolor and other films in 160 speed. Fuji and other producers also made films in 160 speed.
Originally by user15871. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user15871
9y ago
0
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Older cameras didn’t need exact fractional-stop settings as much as it might seem. With full-stop controls, you can always get within about 1/2 stop of the target exposure: if one setting is 2/3 stop too bright, the next is only 1/3 stop too dark.
That was usually acceptable because film exposure and manufacturing weren’t perfectly exact anyway. In practice, film and equipment had tolerances, and a small exposure difference often didn’t prevent a usable or faithful image.
Film photographers also had ways to correct small exposure errors after the shot. In the darkroom, they could adjust development time, printing time, or both. For critical work—especially with sheet film—each negative could be metered, noted, and developed individually to fine-tune the result.
So the answer is mostly: small errors were tolerated, and the rest was handled in processing and printing rather than with ultra-fine camera settings. ND filters were not the normal solution for correcting 1/3-stop exposure differences.
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