Senile Eldertog needs reminder about exposure meter
It's been a long time since I've used a hand-held meter. To check calibration, I point it at 18% gray card held at an angle half way between the sun and the meter, on a clear late summer day with bright sun, between 10 AM and 3 PM. The meter should read EV=14? Then, to make exposure of average subject, exposure should be increased by 1/2 stop (if meter reads f:8, then exposure should be made at f:6.3)? Is this correct? Thanks.
Wilhelm (Sarasota)
don't know cos I don't use a grey card. But what I can tell you is that what you are attempting to do is to take an incident reading and not a reflected reading which is what a spot meter is designed for. If you are going to meter like that you would be better off using an incident meter which would be much easier. i.e. just point it at the main light source and take a reading.
Last edited by robc; 10-Sep-2006 at 16:32.
but you have to stand on one foot while you do it
Sound about right. I incident metered this afternoon for a shoot and got EV 14.3.Originally Posted by Bill_1856
100 Asa
Bill just to further scramble things .... maybe yes and maybe not. Not all meters are calibrated for 18% gray. Some are calibrated for 15% gray (includes Sekonic IIRC).
Theoretically, "Sunny" conditions should give LV 15 (LV and EV are the same at ISO 100; EV changes with ISO, but LV doesn't), but what you actually get depends on sun angle, atmospheric transparency, meter calibration, meter spectral response, and possibly how old your gray card is. If you're north of the 45th parallel, you'll get less than that light value, though you'd have to be halfway to the Arctic Circle before you'd be a full stop down.
FWIW, in Seattle I don't recall *ever* seeing LV 15; the brightest the sun ever got, in the peak of summer (late June), was about LV 14.5; I attributed that partly to being at 47 degrees north, and partly to the fact that the air there is *always* a little hazy as moisture from Puget Sound is swept into the upper air by the prevailing wind pushing up from sea level to the nearby mountains...
If a contact print at arm's length is too small to see, you need a bigger camera. :D
Whoops...my meter was set on ISO=400. Guess that I'll have to waste a few sheets of Polaroid to actually check it ($$$). Oh, darn.
Wilhelm (Sarasota)
It's really not a "waste", Bill, if you need to figure out what's going on. It is expensive, however. Where are you located... as Donald said, location counts. Also, what meter??
BTW, the number I gave you yesterday was a metering facing North and Sount. Facing West it was in the EV15 range. Sorry I didn't mention that earlier... I noticed when reading my notes late last night.
Sarasota, Florida. Weston Euromaster and Pentax Digital Spotmeter, (whose readings matched within 1/3 stop). Also tested against several in-camera meters, and these were all over the place (although they seem to give good negatives).
Guess I'll run down to local camera store this morning for the Polaroid film, and while there check my meters against one of their new ones.
Sometimes I feel like such a fool, enjoying these old cameras (and their accessoreies), when I always get perfectly good pictures with the latest auto-focus, auto-exposure, self-winding, battery-wasting, anti-shaking, auto-bracketing, electric-zooming, obsolete-next-month digital wunderkind.
Old loves die slowly in the memory.
Wilhelm (Sarasota)
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