Incident metering advice

Hey all,

Excuse the "noob" questions but I've learned a lot from you guys already and so I don't feel too awkward asking this question!

So, incident metering. I've done some experimentation with it and haven't had terrible results but really wanted to find out if there is more to simply pointing my incident meter towards the camera from my subject? I've generally been spot metering everything, which I guess is fine but have been wondering lately if I'm able to get "better"/quicker/more accurate/different results from incident metering. I've read a few tutorials and pages on the internet about incident metering and they seem to go little further than "point the meter at the camera from your subject". Perhaps I'm expecting it to be more complicated than that but anyway, if anyone has any links, book recommendations or any advice, then I'd be very grateful! I've got and read (many times) Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure and I've got and read (many times) Jeff Wignall's Exposure Photo Workshop as well as various documents on Luminous Landscape. All fine and informative but not quite what I'm looking for, which I guess is more tuition on actually using my light meters.

Thanks again!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by welly

Hey all,

Excuse the "noob" questions but I've learned a lot from you guys already and so I don't feel too awkward asking this question!

So, incident metering. I've done some experimentation with it and haven't had terrible results but really wanted to find out if there is more to simply pointing my incident meter towards the camera from my subject? I've generally been spot metering everything, which I guess is fine but have been wondering lately if I'm able to get "better"/quicker/more accurate/different results from incident metering. I've read a few tutorials and pages on the internet about incident metering and they seem to go little further than "point the meter at the camera from your subject". Perhaps I'm expecting it to be more complicated than that but anyway, if anyone has any links, book recommendations or any advice, then I'd be very grateful! I've got and read (many times) Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure and I've got and read (many times) Jeff Wignall's Exposure Photo Workshop as well as various documents on Luminous Landscape. All fine and informative but not quite what I'm looking for, which I guess is more tuition on actually using my light meters.

Thanks again!

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It isn't more complicated than that, really.

I doubt another book is going to teach you anything new. Why not tell us what meter you are using, wha type of images and film, and what the resulting images look like... maybe we can help you figure out what isn't working well for you. Incident metering is really quite straight-forward.

The book "Beyond the Zone System" by Phil Davis, commonly referred to here by the acronymn BTZS, explains the art of evaluating exposure with incident meters.

Many forum members here have extensive experience with BTZS (and carry on the tradition of Phil Davis), they report genuine success. So I would recommend it - because it is well understood and actively supported.

Exposure manual 3rd edition or better is good too - http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/...l/author/dunn/

Not just limited to incident metering, great info about why you might choose to meter one way or another.