Getting Perfect Film Exposures with the TT artisan Light Meter

I never seem to learn my lesson. I’ve always brought too many camera and lenses when I traveled which made my bag heavier to lug around, and this time I brought two film cameras and the Sony FX3 to vlog on my trip.

One issue that I’ve often faced when it came to shooting on film is getting a proper exposure. On the Canon AE-1, there’s a built-in light meter where it tells you what your aperture should be set at based off the what the film speed and shutter speed was set at. However it can be difficult to see what the pointer lands on, especially in lower light situations.

While using a light meter phone app was a free solution to get proper exposure readings, it was a bit of a process to pull out my phone and switch to the app to get a reading. One day I was served an advert that showed me the Voightlander Speed Meter, which piqued my interest that was quickly taken aback by the $200+ price tag.

That’s when the TT artisan light meter popped up. It looked to be a similar sized product and seemed to offer the same use, but at around $70. $70 was much easier to stomach.

I was opposed to buying the TT artisan initially because I had a Sekonic Master light meter that my friend had gifted me from presumably the 1980s, which took a bit for me to figure out to set correctly, but was fairly bulky to carry around and the dials moved around in your pocket, changing the settings I set previously.

I thought I would have similar conclusion with the TT artisan, but the small size and easier user interface made it so much quicker for me to get a light meter reading. I found to prefer having physical dials and buttons over a digital app as I experienced some small glitches with the app not selecting the value I wanted at first try, and the TT artisan made it simple and easy to understand what settings I should set my camera at unlike the older Sekonic Master.

The small size also made it easy to slip in and out of my pockets, so it wasn’t a big hassle to carry around when I went out shooting. Once I got back home and had my photos developed, I was pleasantly surprised to see nearly all of the photos I took were well exposed.

Impulse Buying a $900 Vintage Camera | Battling Burn Out

While it seemed that work travels were starting to be permitted again, I wanted to make it a goal of mine to do a short vlog of each trip. Something short and sweet, easy to digest stories per trip to practice my storytelling, and a way for me to practice shooting with and editing 4:2:2 10-bit color 4K footage.

Going up to Seattle for a video shoot with Microsoft felt pretty easy to vlog: the weather was rather nice, the trip was a short two days, and there were a couple of easy tourist spots that I could visit. The Space Needle, Starbucks Reserve, Taylor Shellfish Oyster Company, Pike Place Market. and the Thompson Rooftop Bar were the spots I was able to cram in the two-day period.

It was refreshing to travel again and it felt invigorating to be able to make a travel vlog in a different state since so much time had passed since I was able to previously able to travel, but that same motivation and energy didn’t easily carry over when I went to Portland the following week for PDXLAN.

Already struggling to find a story to tell in Portland, its weather during the time we were there did not help matters either. It was predominantly pouring for our entire trip, which meant sightseeing was hard to capture and I couldn’t think of anything interesting if it was a vlog that focused on food or eating around Portland.

We wound up in a vintage store south of Downtown Portland, which I began perusing through their record collection to see if there were any records that caught my eye. What I didn’t expect was for them to also have vintage film cameras for sale. I thought I could buy a lens that would have fit on my Canon AE-1, but my eyes eventually wandered over to a Rolleiflex.

The only place that I’ve seen a Rolleiflex before was online when I casually browse at cameras, and I was immediately tempted to purchase it right away until I saw the near $900 price tag attached to it. The price definitely gave me pause and considered whether to make such a purchase. There was a similar style Kodak camera available for sale as well, however around a $40 price. The difference was that on the Rolleiflex, the tag specified that the camera was in working order while the Kodak had no note about its functionality. Moments later, I would leave the store as the owner of four vinyl records and a camera manufactured in the 1950s.

Included with the camera came a roll of 120 film, Ilford Black and White ISO 400. Not knowing how to operate the camera or to load the film when I left the store, I spent a few minutes on YouTube watching tutorials and I luckily managed to load the roll properly.

We went around Downtown Portland to take the camera for a spin, but one thing I forgot was that I didn’t have a way to know if my image was properly exposed. I pulled out my Sony FX3 in my hotel and set some settings based on what the Rolleiflex is capable of (max f/3.5 aperture, fastest shutter speed of 1/500), and went out into the streets to shoot.

Another aspect of this camera that tripped me up was the fact that the optical viewfinder is reversed horizontally. Panning left made the image pan right and it made it more difficult to compose my image quickly. Focusing was also a challenge since it was difficult to see unless I was shooting something with a good amount of light.

Yet, there was something about photographing on something so foreign to me that was a breath of fresh air. Given the nature of film photography and the unavailability of modern features such as autofocusing or focus peaking, I was forced to be more methodical with every shot. This allowed me to look at photography with a very different mindset than I would have at work while photographing product photos, whereas I’d have to be extremely efficient with my time and churn out images as quickly as possible while maintaining a standard level of quality.

While I still am in shock that I decided to pull the trigger on purchasing a vintage camera without knowing any guarantee of its functionality, I’m glad I took the gamble as shooting on this Rolleiflex refreshed my interest in photography.

The Constant Struggle with Procrastination | Taking 2 Years to Finish a Single Trip's Travel Vlogs

Roughly two years after Norville and Saori married in Japan and had their wedding reception in Southern California, I’ve finally managed to complete the final video of their wedding journey.

Back in 2019, Norville had asked me if I would be interested in joining him and Saori on a trip to Japan as their videographer/photographer as they would be having a traditional Japanese marriage ceremony near Saori’s hometown in Kyushu. I was stunned and couldn’t quite process if it was a serious request, but I instinctively responded with an unenthusiastic and slightly confused “Sure”.

This would be one of the most important projects I have taken on since I would be filming by myself, there are no retakes, I would need to balance the right amount of camera gear to bring, and my main task would be to recap the Japanese wedding ceremony for everyone at a second wedding reception in SoCal to see.

November rolled around and we embarked on our trip to Japan. In the past, usually the first day or two of a trip I’ll have a pretty clear idea of what video I wanted to make. However as the trip goes on, fatigue sets in as I try to balance enjoying the trip and filming.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is due to a lack of planning in advance what story I want to tell in each video, as I tend to leave it up in the air and try to film every bit of the trip as I can and try to find the story in the edit later on. This usually leads to me being discouraged to continue editing and I’ll set it aside to try and figure out later.

After coming back to the States, Norville and Saori would have their wedding reception on March 14th, 2020, which I would have had about 3 months to complete a recap of our entire trip, but with the holidays and preparing for work events such as CES and PAX East, I ended up having to focus on completing the wedding day in Japan recap video for the reception first and completing the rest of the trip after.

While I don’t think I’ve quite found my way of storytelling that will appeal to an audience outside of myself and my friends, I do think that I’ve become better at putting together videos that bring back the memories and experiences of those people that lived it.

I just need to be better about not taking nearly 2 years after the fact to finish what I promised.