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What is match needle?
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Jun 8, 2021 12:01:12   #
BebuLamar
 
Give me example of a camera with match needle. I don't want to steal the thread but this member post this and I am wondering.

"sennamonster Joined: Feb 10, 2021 Posts: 26 Loc: fort wayne, IN

rmalarz wrote:
Are you sure you aren't making it more complicated than it really is? It's all rather simple, as far as exposure goes. The ISO indicates the sensitivity to light. The aperture controls how much light is passed through the lens, and shutter speed is how long the light is let through. It's just that simple.
--Bob


how i miss match needle"

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Jun 8, 2021 12:03:59   #
Ysarex Loc: St. Louis
 
Minolta SRT
Pentax K1000
Canon Ftb
Retina Reflex III

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Jun 8, 2021 12:04:09   #
CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City
 
You tried google, right? Just select / highlight your subject with your mouse, right-click and search in google. You don't even have to add 'camera' to the search. Photography-related posts start at maybe the 2nd or 3rd item down in the search results.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:05:53   #
Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area
 
BebuLamar wrote:
Give me example of a camera with match needle. I don't want to steal the thread but this member post this and I am wondering.

"sennamonster Joined: Feb 10, 2021 Posts: 26 Loc: fort wayne, IN

rmalarz wrote:
Are you sure you aren't making it more complicated than it really is? It's all rather simple, as far as exposure goes. The ISO indicates the sensitivity to light. The aperture controls how much light is passed through the lens, and shutter speed is how long the light is let through. It's just that simple.
--Bob
My very first SLR in 1971 was a Miranda. Sorry I don’t remember the model. It had a match needle. Loved that camera, all manual.

how i miss match needle"
Give me example of a camera with match needle. I d... (show quote)

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Jun 8, 2021 12:11:34   #
no12mo
 
Ysarex wrote:
Minolta SRT
Pentax K1000
Canon Ftb
Retina Reflex III


Add to that from the fine Canon "A" series the AT1.

It is totally dependent on the battery unlike the Pentax K1000 which will operate without the match the needle exposure indicator, but it will take the picture.

All you need to know on the K1000 is typical settings for your film and set the aperture / shutter for the desired results - OR you can use an external light meter.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:18:37   #
BebuLamar
 
CHG_CANON wrote:
You tried google, right? Just select / highlight your subject with your mouse, right-click and search in google. You don't even have to add 'camera' to the search. Photography-related posts start at maybe the 2nd or 3rd item down in the search results.


I knew the term since 1976 but I am still not sure what it really means.
In the examples the Minolta SRT, The Canon Ftb and the Retina there are 2 needles. One moves with the shutter speed and aperture combination and the other moves with light intensity and you have to make them match.
In the example for the K1000 there is only 1 needle and you are supposed to center it to the mark in the viewfinder.
What I thought is match needle is something like the Pentax KX where one of the needle moves with the shutter speed set and it also pointing at the shutter speed. The other needle moves with light intensity and the aperture set.

I am wondering the member in the post that I quoted as to which type does he misses.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:18:58   #
burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC
 
BebuLamar wrote:
Give me example of a camera with match needle. I don't want to steal the thread but this member post this and I am wondering.

"sennamonster Joined: Feb 10, 2021 Posts: 26 Loc: fort wayne, IN

rmalarz wrote:
Are you sure you aren't making it more complicated than it really is? It's all rather simple, as far as exposure goes. The ISO indicates the sensitivity to light. The aperture controls how much light is passed through the lens, and shutter speed is how long the light is let through. It's just that simple.
--Bob


how i miss match needle"
Give me example of a camera with match needle. I d... (show quote)


Match needle metering… Line up a pointer with a circle in the viewfinder (or on top of some cameras) to balance ISO, aperture, and exposure time. It was how we achieved “correct” exposure before automation. It requires some knowledge of how the three variables interact, as well as what type of meter is in the camera (spot, average, center-weighted, matrix…).

Beyond that, you had to understand light and reflectivity and what to meter.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:20:38   #
BebuLamar
 
burkphoto wrote:
Match needle metering… Line up a pointer with a circle in the viewfinder (or on top of some cameras) to balance ISO, aperture, and exposure time. It was how we achieved “correct” exposure before automation. It requires some knowledge of how the three variables interact, as well as what type of meter is in the camera (spot, average, center-weighted, matrix…).


Please read the post above as to which type you're referring to.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:20:51   #
CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City
 
BebuLamar wrote:
I knew the term since 1976 but I am still not sure what it really means.
In the examples the Minolta SRT, The Canon Ftb and the Retina there are 2 needles. One moves with the shutter speed and aperture combination and the other moves with light intensity and you have to make them match.
In the example for the K1000 there is only 1 needle and you are supposed to center it to the mark in the viewfinder.
What I thought is match needle is something like the Pentax KX where one of the needle move with the shutter speed set and it also pointing at the shutter speed. The other needle moves with light intensity and the aperture set.

I am wondering the member in the post that I quoted as to which type does he misses.
I knew the term since 1976 but I am still not sure... (show quote)


He's being sarcastic, saying if you think your D5600 is 'hard' to learn, you should have tried the pointed sticks and rocks real photographers used to have to use ...

My point was you could have researched this on your own. Now, you have various member's best efforts at cut n paste via google, taking your question with a level of seriousness it doesn't deserve.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:24:21   #
BebuLamar
 
CHG_CANON wrote:
He's being sarcastic, saying if you think your D5600 is 'hard' to learn, you should have tried the pointed sticks and rocks real photographers used to have to use ...

My point was you could have researched this on your own. Now, you have various member's best efforts at cut n paste via google, taking your question with a level of seriousness it doesn't deserve.


I know about a lot of different ways a manual metering system in a camera works. I thought I knew exactly what match needle means but then I see people define it differently that is why I asked. I asked also because the meter in the D5600 isn't match needle? I didn't think so but I think it's the improvement of the match needle.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:30:19   #
Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States
 
BebuLamar wrote:
...
...

how i miss match needle"


Match for exposure;
click the aperture ring up or down for "exposure compensation";
easy.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:30:29   #
ecommons
 
First you have to be old enough to have used a camera that used the match-needle process. I'm old enough to remember that first camera, Minolta SRT101 (late 60's) Before that I used a hand held light meter ( still do with close up work)

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Jun 8, 2021 12:33:51   #
BebuLamar
 
ecommons wrote:
First you have to be old enough to have used a camera that used the match-needle process. I'm old enough to remember that first camera, Minolta SRT101 (late 60's) Before that I used a hand held light meter ( still do with close up work)


I have 2 of those in my cabinets.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:34:46   #
BebuLamar
 
Longshadow wrote:
Match for exposure;
click the aperture ring up or down for "exposure compensation";
easy.


New definition I didn't know about.

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Jun 8, 2021 12:46:20   #
amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA
 
Virtually all cameras that allow users to control exposure settings have "match needle" metering. Even today.

It's a manual exposure technique that simply uses the camera's built in meter and "centers" an indicator on a scale by adjusting shutter speed, aperture size and/or ISO sensitivity... It means accepting and using the camera's meter reading, but doing so manually rather than with any "auto exposure" or "AE" mode (although an AE mode essentially does exactly the same thing).

Back in the good/bad old days we had cameras, like some listed above in other responses, with actual needles that moved over a scale to indicate exposure (far better than the sticks and rocks Mr Sager refers to). Sometimes these were in the cameras viewfinder, sometime they were displayed in a little window elsewhere on the camera.

The earliest cameras with meters didn't have connections between the aperture, shutter and ISO (film speed) settings and the meter. Instead the photographer read the info from the meter, then used that info to set the exposure parameters of the camera. This was little different from using a separate, handheld meter. Maybe a little more convenient when the meter was built into or attached to the camera itself.

Later they figured out how and started inter-connecting the exposure controls with the meter, so that all you had to do was adjust the various settings until the needle pointed at the reading the camera thought was correct. You were literally adjusting things until the needle matched up with a mark on the exposure scale. In some cases those needles were replaced by LEDs that lit up in the viewfinder.

Today's camera mostly read out with LCD screens located somewhere on the body and/or LEDs or LCDs within the viewfinder (if the camera has one). There's still a 0, + & - scale, but the pointer is now just a little hash mark that moves as the settings are changed. It's exactly the same method of setting a manual exposure and is still commonly referred to as "match needle" exposure method, even though there's no longer a needle.

The reason there's a scale in most cases (rather than just a centering mark) is because the camera uses a reflective meter, which can be "fooled" in certain situations. It measures the light being reflected off a subject and all meters are calibrated to "think" what they're seeing is "18% gray" tonality (or the color equivalent). This usually works out pretty well. The world, on average, is equal to 18% gray. However, sometimes the subject and scene are lighter tonality and other times they're darker. In those cases the photographer needs to recognize the situation and, with match needle metering, will want to skew the setting a little, to put the pointer a little off the center mark, to achieve the "correct" exposure they're seeking. (The same as is done in any of the auto exposure modes using "exposure compensation".) Whether it's with a needle, LED or LCD, the scale is provided as a reference for these user-controlled variations, when needed. They help the user deliberately not just "center the needle", to accommodate and "correctly" expose unusually light or dark scenes.

I put "correctly" in quotes because sometimes it also can come down to user preference or user judgment calls. It can depend upon what the photographer is trying to accomplish in an image. "High key" and "low key" images are purposefully over or underexposed, and are both cases where the needle deliberately wouldn't be centered. A silhouette of a strongly backlit subject is another situation where the image is often deliberately underexposed.

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