When shooting by available darkness, a friend timed his exposures by cigarette, ie: 1, 2, or more cigarettes. If it prints, the exposure was OK; if not, not. When in doubt use the chart printed inside the 35mm film box. No electronics, and if you drop it, it will still work fine. Otherwise, do the film tests...
Michael
Could the difference in the spot meter reflected reading and the handheld meter reflected light reading be attributable to the difference in their angles of measurement?
Last edited by cyrus; 16-Jun-2006 at 14:10.
Best advice I ever got was from my Technical Skills photography course where we learned to calibrate the ISO of our film and properly meter (zone) our exposures and it was:
"Pick your favorite and most accurate thermometer and light meter and sell or throw away the rest" Essentially use those and only those for whatever you do. It eliminates two variables and any shift of values you will inherently become accustomed to and will know how to adjust. Good Luck!
PJ
This subject has been beaten up through the years... you may want to run some searches on this forum... the ultimate photographic light meter was never made, and it never will be made now that digital photography is taking over the world. A clever contributor to this forum described it in a thread awhile back... a short list of some of the problems that come to mind....
1. improper meter calibration
2. non linear
3. Color bias
4. UV bias / not knowing if UV is present.
5. spot meters calibrated to different reflective values (rarely stated)
6. Films not rated honestly for marketing.
7. Spectral response of film vs. meter.
8. Dome position variances, 2d vs 3d.
I could go on....but the reality is... you can spend forever trying to get you meter perfectly suited for you application, which will greatly increase your liklihood of an accurate reading.... but is beyond the scope of only the most qualified, such as Jeff Conrad who wrote the pdf which is linked bove. But even then, when you have a shot you HAVE to get, nothing beats bracketting the shot. Sad, but true. My success rate is very high, but I still occasionaly get bitten... rarely extreme, but sometimes a stop, which with chromes is a killer...
Hi Patrik,Originally Posted by Patrik Roseen
First thing I would expose a transparency with the incident meter and lab process. Perhaps a portrait in shade assuring a reasonable subject brightness range (SBR). If the transparency looks good then the meter is OK (notice I did not say good, accurate etc.).
You could do the same thing with the spotmeter. If your model is caucasion place the skin at zone VI or perhaps meter a gray card or place the gray card in the scene. You could also make notes on where other values lie in zone terms. Generally one can expect good open and luminous detail for zones IV through VII. III should be getting dark and not showing good detail. I would reserve VIII for bright areas where detail is not important. Once again lab process. Unless you have proven two meters to work well together I suggest avoiding that.
I generally use a Pentax digital spot. And use a incident (Luna pro digital F)for flash. Occasionally I use the reflective mode on the luna pro for distant subjects to try and realize the extreme SBRs.
Interesting stuff. My Sekonic meters agree with each other for the most part. My Minolta spot is 1/2 stop different in typical conditions, and my Minolta Flashmeter agrees with the Minolta Spot ( reflected gray card, one read with spot, one read with reflected flashmeter ). In the same studio flash light, the Sekonic incident indicates 3/4 stop more exposure required than my Minolta with incident dome, and well, the Sekonic is "correct" for my B&W work, as well as the lab in L.A. that I use as my personal "gold standard" for correct, normal E6. In addition, my Sekonics agree with my Canon DSLR. So, while the two Minoltas agree with each other, they seem to have a different opinion as to what is right. In practice, I often push or pull a little whether depending on situations, so it wouldn't matter if I consistently used the Minoltas - I'd adjust my film speed rating. And well, those two Minolta meters MUST be correct - they are consistent. Of course, both Minolta meters are collecting dust right now, soon to go to where old meters lay down to die...
2-4 cents -
Ahem... E6 labs can vary by +.5 to - .75 stops in my neck of the woods ( Los Angeles!! ), beware. Also, shutters can vary too, even the same one at different temperatures / humidity and amount of recent use, however in the same shutter, usually not by enough to matter if it's a modern and good one.
The lightmeter should be considered as a relative tool. Best to get one that seems to agree most with your checking system, be it zone or a lab that you always use, or even your hi-end digicam if that's your standard.
There are no absolutes. The fine-tuned standard for it ends up being what you pick. You may wish to increase contrast in E6 - so you push it, or similar with B&W - control relationship between development process and exposure. Many of the perfect exposures are "normal", many other "perfect" exposures are judgement calls combined with manipulation. Most meters are adjustable and can be matched to read the same for a specific condition.
Normal is just an average, absolutes may lead to normally correct values, however the exposure one wants may be another thing.
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, I have learned alot from you.
The situation for me is that I now have three different meters which I trust or rather they 'work' for me.
- SPOT, Soligor Spot sensor II - has proven itself on chromes and my personal development of B&W
- INCIDENT, Shepherd DM-170, has proven itself with chromes and my personal B&W
- REFLECTIVE, Porst Special - gives same EI as the spot and has proven itself in my B&W
And still to break-in is the FLASHMETER, Shepherd DM-990.
So I'm stuck with four 'trusted' meters...which I fortunately got rather cheap, BUT if someone wants my recomendation I would propose to buy one modern (new?) meter including Incident,Reflective and Flash from the start. Again thank you all, Patrik
Last edited by Patrik Roseen; 18-Jul-2006 at 16:37.
Reflected light and incident light does not have the same physical properties even when from the same source. Colour temperature will be different, as will planes of polarization, and relative intensity. Most meters do not have a totally linear degree of spectral sensitivity either. I would expect the two types of readings to be different, as will be the image. My most consistent meter (for performance) is my Minolta spot - largely because I can control what it's seeing and what I interpret as "middle gray" or highlight or shadow. My Sekonic L328 and my Minolta auto iv frequently differ by a 1/3 stop, not always in the same direction...
Last edited by Paul Coppin; 6-Aug-2006 at 08:55.
Im really late to the post on this but one thing really sticks out. Incident and spot meters will always give you different readings. An incident meter doesnt reference any point in the photo but rather tells you what 18% n(or 13%) grey is.
A reflective meter always turns everthing into 18% grey. You then need to decide if the item pointed at as lighter or darker than 18% and by how much.
I primarily shoot portraits and fine art. I always use the incident meter. I know if landsapes are your subject this is impractical.
George
One often overlooked problem with analog meters is an out-of-balance meter movement. Perhaps most of the old GE and Weston meters I've considered buying have had this problem to some degree. It doesn't make so much difference on the GE, as the meter axis is vertical, and little affected by poor balance. It can make a lot of difference when taking low light readings with the Weston. The problem can be corrected in old analog meters, but isn't cost effective except by doing it yourself.
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