why not meter with a DSLR?

[Preston]

"I gave up using a DSLR as a meter because my little brain couldn't handle all the arithmetic. "

Mental gynastics at sunrise, after only one cup of coffee, when the light is changing rapidly, would not be my idea of fun. Heck, at my age, any mental gymnastics is, well, you know... :-)

A camera meter will be just fine if weight is not critical and you've run some tests to ensure consistency.

I use a Pentax Digital Spot and the Zone System. It is quick and easy for me.

-Preston

[Allen in Montreal]

Frank,

You would need to calibrate your dslr first, who says it is right.
I have 4 Canons, they all vary, my 1d Mark 3.....Canon is full of crap on stated ASA settings.
Do it right, get a hand held meter, you will be way ahead of the game over the long haul imho.

[Frank Petronio]

Yeah but everybody knows that Canon's metering is the worst!

I used a Pentax Digital spot meter for 23 years... I think the (non -Canon!) dslr is a more useful tool.

[h2oman]

I used my DSLR for a bunch of color transparencies, and it did just fine. I'd shoot the scene with the DSLR (I had calibrated various focal lengths of the zoom with my 4x5 lenses, so I could frame roughly the same scene) and look at the histogram. If the entire graph was a bit in from each edge I'd get a good exposure with Velvia, for my DSLR.

As far as calculations, my DSLR meter went down to 100, which matched the ISO when I used Velvia 100. For Velvia 50 I just added one stop of exposure (meaning more exposure). I never found the f-stop thing a problem. I'd set the DSLR f-stop at f22, dial up the exposure, then start "trading out" time for aperture as needed.

Now I'm doing primarily B&W and I find a spotmeter much easier for me with that.

[Preston]

"Smart People Live Upwind from Kodak"

...And uphill.

:-)

-P

[r.e.]

You know, it ain't that hard to get a sense of how the meter on one's digital camera is metering. The shots that will tell you this are processed instantaneously and they are free.

Now, the meter on my Mamiya 7II ... figuring out how it works is a bit more complicated

Seriously, there are suggestions in this thread that amount to saying that all those photographers who have run Polaroid tests were wasting their time. They weren't, not just for composition, but for exposure. It isn't like a handheld meter is omniscient - even in incident mode, although that comes damn close, and no arithmetic too

If one thinks that tests for composition and exposure are worthwhile - in other words, if one believes that there was actually a reason why Polaroid sheet film had a market - digital is the successor. It ought to be embraced, and it's hard to understand why anyone would reject it out of hand.

[Brian Ellis]

Many digital cameras have a spot meter so you can still use the zone system when metering with such a digital camera.

Many digital cameras go down to ISO 100 so even if you're using 50 ISO film, the math isn't too hard - just calculate the exposure and then double it.

If anyone still has a 35mm camera it could be used just as well as a digital camera but some 35mm cameras are bigger and heavier than some digital cameras (my wife's digital camera is smaller and weighs less than my Pentax spot meter). Also, you lose the benefit of the histogram in a digital camera, which can be useful when calculating exposure.

FWIW, if you don't use the zone system or some variation of it that requires a reading of the darkest important shadow and brightest important highlight in the scene and you're using b&w film I don't think you need a meter at all. With a little experience the Sunny 16 rule can be used as the basis for the exposure about as well as an averaging or weighted averaging meter.

[Paul Kierstead]

My sekonic meter has a nice memory and display of all the saved exposure points, with of course an average reading as well, which you can then evaluate (by looking at the little graph) w.r.t to highlights and shadows, in terms of an f-stop. No camera meter touches it. A histogram on a digital camera gets there, although it is unscaled; you don't really know how far the right or left of the meter is from your exposure in terms of stops, so it can be difficult to map that to your film. All that said, I very often bring a LX-3 for exposure and composition help (and some shots here and there too); I find its histogram to be useful and it can even do B&W mode to help guess how the outcome will be. And it fits in a pocket. It does require some practice to know how it maps to your camera/film though (as will a DSLR). To be honest, I shoot a lot of "closer" stuff so often my light meters incident meter nails it perfection time and time again (and I cross check it with the LX3 sometimes). All this goes for flash, studio work as well.

[Frank Petronio]

The B&W preview on a digital is really helpful -- much as Fred Picker's old "Viewing Filter" was for seeing overlapping grey tones.

It would be pretty cool if some nice camera company made a sort of "tricorder" digital camera -- big LCD screen, more sophisticated metering options, tri-color Histogram and calibration options, maybe even an f-stop-based calculator so you could set your ISO and aperture for your film... heck they could throw in all the functions of the old Minolta $1000 Color Meter for free ;-) Really it could all be software-based if someone could hack a P&S digicam.

That could really kill Polaroid once and for all!

[Eric Leppanen]

A conventional spot meter is calibrated to an 18% grey scale target, and if there are no areas in the photograph that are close to 18% grey scale, then a spot meter will yield an erroneous exposure reading unless manually corrected by the photographer. For further elaboration on this, take a look at these posts:

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ght=chromazone
http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ght=chromazone

DSLR spot meters are color sensitive, and (theoretically) should not be thrown off as much by non-18% tones.

I think when folks ask about using DSLR metering, however, they are asking about using the overall exposure recommendation of the DSLR metering algorithm. In my experience, this works reasonably well with chrome film as long as you check for blown highlights (clipped histogram). DSLR models that offer RGB histograms offer the best control in this respect. If clipping occurs, manually reduce exposure until the clipping is largely eliminated (it is best to avoid blown highlights and let the shadows fall where they may with chrome film and DSLR sensors, as blown highlights are lost forever, while shadow detail can often be retrieved during post-processing). The (relatively limited) dynamic range of chrome film is similar to that of DSLR sensors, so even though there are some differences in color renderings between the sensors and various chrome emulsions, DSLR metering can work pretty darn well.

DSLR metering algorithms are not as good for color neg or B&W film, as these films have much wider exposure latitude and are better metered for the shadows than the highlights. These films have so much latitude that lately I have been "exposing for the shadows, and letting the highlights fall where they may" with great success, especially if you print digitally (you are no longer limited by the limited dynamic range of traditional photographic paper).

Personally, I find the bulk of a DSLR excessive for LF field use, and prefer a combined incident/spot meter.