Using a spot meter on landscapes

[Ed Richards]

I have been using the histogram on my 10D to determine exposure for my 4x5. Works pretty well, but there are still areas that need more exposure. Tried a 1 degree spot meter today, thinking that would be the best solution, and realized that the areas I am concerned with are much smaller than 1 degree in the landscape. Typically these might be shadows under tree branches or in the background, but all fine details. Since moving closer is usually not an option, do you just meter in the general area and eyeball the difference?

[Scott Fleming]

That makes for a pretty heavy lightmeter.

Why Sekonic or someone can't put a histogram display in a meter is beyond me. A spot/evaluative combo would be nice to go with.

As to metering shadows I find that putting the spot in the shade of the trees or whatever will give an accurate reading of the deepest shadows. I seems not to mater that the shadow is not solid.

[Ken Lee]

Some times you just need to take an incident reading, or meter off a grey card, or find something which is familiar enough and large enough to meter - or take several shots.

After a while, we start to remember the values of familiar subjects in familiar lighting conditions, and even the final exposures, like "Oh yeah, here we go again: 1/15 sec at f/32", or whatever.

[ronald moravec]

if the areas are that small, I would let them go black. If they are that important to the photo, experience should have told you they are open shade and require three stops more than sunlight.

Meter an object in the sun, then bring it to the shade of a building and remeter.

[Alan Davenport]

Or take an incident reading. I find that my averaged reflected readings almost always match the incident reading. (The obvious exceptions are whitewater (waterfall, rapids) or large areas of dark rock such as basalt.) In any case, I usually take an incident reading and use it as a control point to evaluate my exposure choice.

I don't have a 1 degree spotmeter. I use the 7.5 degree attachment on a Luna Pro F. I am seriously attached to that Luna Pro. Since the meter scale (the actual area that the needle moves in) is graduated in one stop increments, for +/- 3 stops, I can meter a highlight and adjust the needle to show 1 or 2 stops overexposure for that reading. Then I can meter the shadows and see if they fall within -2 stops or less, and I'm usually good to go. When the contrast range exceeds +/- 2 stops, I usually just place the highlights at +2 stops (I usually shoot transparencies) and read the exposure from the meter scale. It's harder, and takes longer, to explain than it does to do. Although I sometimes choose to bracket my exposures, I find that I almost always like the first exposure best.

[Ed Richards]

> That makes for a pretty heavy lightmeter.

You better believe it. It does have the advantage of giving me a great reference image to remember what the scene looked like. I also like to carry an SLR with me for opportunities that do not lend themselves to LF. That said, I may experiment with my Canon S70, which also has a histogram and is smaller than a spot meter.

I always used incident when shooting slides, and got great color. Moving back to incident is an interesting thought. I should just take my incident meter and my 10D and do some systematic comparisons.

> if the areas are that small, I would let them go black.

I need to make more prints and see whether they are important. I scan the film and do the rest in digital, which encourages one to obsess over details too small to see in print.

> experience should have told you they are open shade and require three stops more than sunlight.

The ones that are open shade work fine. Under the canopy of a big live oak it is a lot darker than open shade.

[Dan Jolicoeur]

I have been contemplating buying a 1 deg spot, but I also can not part with my Luna Pro F with the 7.5 deg attachment. I use the same method as Alan described, except I actually move the dial on the Zone system ring. Then I check the total difference between the highlights and shadows with the needle. This meter has helped me learn the zone system, and sensitometry in general, more than any book I have read. The analog meter is so much quicker than a digital. In my opinion it is still a great meter at a good price on the used market.
Regards,

[David Roossien]

I mostly shoot slide film and here is what I do.

When there is an area that is smaller than my spot meter can measure, I simply consider whether that area is composed of the all the same levels of brightness (darkness) or not and try to estimate by how much it might vary within that area. Then I do an average in my head and set the exposure. I try to think (average) in 1/3 stop increments so that larger mistakes are minimized. Aim small, miss small.

Experience tells me that even a purely white subject like a flower petal will have areas that are brighter than others. I simply meter the brightest area and then decide if that area also includes areas that are not as bright. If the area includes something that is not as bright, then the meter is telling me that there is an even brighter value present in the area I'm metering. If I want to maintain detail in the truly brightest area (that I can't actually meter by itself) then I must not expose as much as the meter tells me. Experience, lighting conditions, subject texture, etc...tell me by how much.

You can use this idea/example in darker areas as well. What's important is to keep your mind active and engaged in analyzing the scene. This is very basic, but I hope it helps someone else.

[Brian Ellis]

In my experience it's very unusual to encounter a situation where there's only one darkest area in which you want to maintain detail and for that one area to also be so tiny that it can't be metered with a one degree spot meter. I would think an area that small wouldn't be an area in which maintaining detail was important to the photograph. But assuming it was, did you look around and try to find larger areas that appeared to be as dark as the shadows under the tree branches and meter them instead? Surely there was something else in the scene larger than those tiny shadows that was about as dark as they were but that was large enough to meter with a one degree spot meter.