Sekonic L-508 - 1/10 f-stops?

[AutumnJazz]

Well, my Sekonic just arrived. As I was fooling around with it, looking through the manual, etc. I noticed that there is something called a "1/10 f-stop." Eg., if I choose F/2.0 in aperture priority mode, there is a little subscript 9. I have no idea what that means.

So, uh, can someone get rid of my ignorance?

[Dan Schmidt]

You set the aperture, then the meter figures out the shutter speed, but then it adjusts for the coarseness of the shutter speeds by telling you how to slightly adjust the aperture to get the exact exposure.

In practice I don't adjust the aperture. I set the aperture, store readings from the scene into the meter memory and use the spread of values and what critical regions are metering at to determine the shutter speed.

[AutumnJazz]

9/10 of a stop isn't a big deal?

[Aender Brepsom]

Please someone correct me if I am wrong, but here is my explanation of the 1/10 f-stop thing and how I handle it on my L-508:

If you set the aperture to f/16, take your reading and get an exposure time of 1/15th of a second for example, with a small 3 behind the f/16, then I set the aperture lever to f/16 + 1/3 of a stop, if there is a small 5, I'll set it to f/16 + 1/2 of a stop and so on. The small figure indicates tenths of a stop that have to be added to the actual f-stop.
Am I completely wrong?

[Dan Schmidt]

9/10 of a stop isn't a big deal?

If I remember right the marker at the bottom of the meter shows regions between normal shutter speed values. So for instance the reading will be 1/30 sec 2.0 +9/10, but at the bottom the marker will be very close to 1/60 sec

if that one region of the scene is where you want to meter and only that, then set the shutter speed to 1/60 or 1/30 and close down the aperture.

But like I said usually we want figure out the range of the scene

[AutumnJazz]

I know, I do need to learn the zone system, but, eh, :P.

[Walter Calahan]

If the meter reads f/2.0 9/10, that's 1/10 stop off f/2.8.

So shoot at f/2.8. Simple.

If the meter reads f/2.0 5/10, set your lens half way between f/2.0 and 2.8.

1/3s of a stop increments are what you should look for.

[aphexafx]

As someone who has had trouble doing math with direct f-stop readings in thirds and halves, I think that f-stop tenths are great. If you know your whole stops (...8, 11, 16, 22, 32, 45, 64...) and use that as your number system, the tenths, then, make perfect sense and are easy to calculate.

f/32 + 5/10 = f/32 and 5/10. f/64 and 4/10 - 8/10 = f/45 and 6/10. f/8 and 7/10 + 3 and 1/10 = f/22 and 8/10.

Approximate your final tenths value to the nearest third and put it to your lens, etc.

Brilliant. Makes everything nice. I've just recently grasped this concept and I'm a better person for it.