Reveni spot meter

[nolindan]

Dropping the 1/3 stop aperture readout was a big boo-boo.

Modern SLR's let you set the shutter speed in 1/3's of a stop (ie 1/80 ...). But there is no need for a separate meter with a modern SLR although I'm sure there are a few who will clip it to their F6.

Outside of that the design is rather brilliant. I was skeptical of the optic-less aiming system for the spot meter but I built a mock-up of it and it works really well.

A spot meter only makes sense, to my mind, for Zone System work. If I am lugging a 4x5 or 8x10 along with tripod and all the other paraphernalia a Pentax meter doesn't add anything to my burden. So a super small meter is more a problem (where is that darned thing...) than a help.

Thinking about it a bit more, the meter would be a help to me if clipped to my Speed Graphic, where I go out for some hand-led LF work with a pocket full of film holders.

I would like to find a good meter for clipping to a meterless Leica et al. or a MF folder. I don't really need spot metering in this situation - what I would like is a clip-on matrix meter. You can't do ZS stuff with 35mm or MF as you can't develop each frame individually, and in any case with modern films and VC paper there isn't much need to. What you do need is to be able to place the important parts of the scene in the linear part of the film's HD curve - which is what matrix metering tries to accomplish for you.

Metering with a cell phone and appropriate app would work for an external matrix meter, but a clip on meter on my Nettar would be much more convenient. Especially if combined with a rangefinder.

For the authentic Nettar experience I set the exposure by a sunny-16 exposure table. The one my Mother had taped inside the case of her Nettar has blown away - but as it was for Kodacolor-II it didn't have much use any more, only sentimental value.

[David Schaller]

The Voigtlander external meter is a pretty good averaging meter for a cold shoe.

[Alan Klein]

Sure. First let me say that this may not apply to others, this is just my own metering flow combined with trying to be particularly accurate when I shoot slides when light conditions are quickly changing.

With my Sekonic spot meter, when you enforce a given aperture, e.g. F22, say you get a reading of 1/8s of a second and a reminder of 4/10ths. So now you know that you can set the shutter to 1/8s and adjust the aperture to a bit passed the first submark in your shutter (I'm assuming here you have a shutter like a Copal that shows markings in 1/3 steps between the nominal 1-stop apertures). Easy peasy. If don't do this type of adjustment, you are at risk of exposing up to 9/10ths off from where the meter tells you (not a good thing particularly with slides!).

Since V4 of their SW, the Reveni spot meter stopped showing this reminder. The idea was that the SW added the capability of metering to 1/2 and 1/3 stops, so it would seem that having a reminder is obsolete. But that's not the case for my metering flow. If you set it to, say, 1/3s stops, then you will get the time needed to expose in 1/3 of a stop, which obviously you cannot set on your shutter. So for example, the meter will tell you 1/80s but you can only set your shutter to 1/60s. So now in my mind I need to convert back that difference into an aperture difference. It's not complicated math but it's the last thing I want to be doing when the light is rapidly changing.

One approach is then to shoot in 1/3's but in shutter priority, and let the meter pick the apertures for you, which resolves converting shutter speeds that are not possible. But that's not my flow. Right? I want to specify the aperture because I know what it will take to keep things in focus for a particular scene, and I don't want to iterate or change modes or guess the exposure time.

Another approach is to use the EV reading as a rounding reminder. For example, say you take a reading of EV 11.4. In 1-stop mode, the meter would give the shutter/aperture pair for a rounded down value of EV 11, so there is a +0.4 rounding remainder left over (in half stop it rounds to the nearest 1/2, and third to the nearest 1/3). So basically you could set it to whole stops and then just adjust the aperture by at most +/-0.5 based on the EV reading. This would seem to resolve the problem, but there's a catch. If the EV reading ends exactly in .5 is it rounded up (ie. a 10.5 is considered an EV of 11, such that it would really correspond to a reminder of -0.5); and the rounding is done on 2 decimals, so a 11.49 would display as EV 11.5 but would be rounded down to 11 for the aperture/shutter math. What this means is that you're "exposing" yourself to making significant errors if the readings fall on these boundaries.

For all these reasons, personally I've gone back to using my Sekonic.

I think I understand. I'm not familiar with the Reveni, but can you select aperture or shutter priority mode? If so, use the Aperture mode to take a reading set for f22. You'll get a shutter read in a full stop. Then switch to Shutter Priority mode using the full stop given. The result will be the aperture setting in 1/3 stops. Then adjust the aperture ring on the lens to the setting indicated. Would this work?

[Kiwi7475]

I think I understand. I'm not familiar with the Reveni, but can you select aperture or shutter priority mode? If so, use the Aperture mode to take a reading set for f22. You'll get a shutter read in a full stop. Then switch to Shutter Priority mode using the full stop given. The result will be the aperture setting in 1/3 stops. Then adjust the aperture ring on the lens to the setting indicated. Would this work?

Yes that would work — but changing modes and setting it up as you describes takes longer than what my patience is willing to take…. Can you imagine saying, wait let me make sure I did this right, so you have to do it all over again, and then the light changes (because you’re in between sunset and twilight) and you have to do it again, etc.

It’s just not practical in those conditions. Why bother when I can do it in one shot with another meter? It’s not like the size or weight is such an advantage for large format…. Maybe if I’m going out with my Texas Leica and I mess up a couple of shots in a 120 roll, ok, but at ~ $30 per shot of an E6 8x10 (film and development) …. No thanks.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

The meter shows 1/3 stops, just not in fractional notation. So, rather than 1/30 +2/3 it shows 1/50, and similarly with aperture. Is that what you mean?

[Kiwi7475]

The meter shows 1/3 stops, just not in fractional notation. So, rather than 1/30 +2/3 it shows 1/50, and similarly with aperture. Is that what you mean?

In short, yes you can look at it like that, ie. when configured for 1/3 stop steps, in aperture mode the SW computes the closest shutter time in 1/3 steps, without providing the fractional stop relative to a 1-stop shutter time. And when configured to 1 stop steps, it does not provide the residual to the computed exposure either. And all other approaches to work around it have some gotchas.

[lassethomas]

Some of us had problems with the Revenue spot meter not showing decimal fractions of a stop.
I'm not going to explain again, Kiwi7475 do so very well in post 90.

Well, for other reasons I was in contact with Matt of Reveni about a month ago, and as a side note at last got him to understand the ambiguity where you in some instances can not derive if to correct up or down (due to rounding).
And he agreed to fix this.
And so he did. A new firmware was released today.

https://www.reveni-labs.com/spot-meter-firmware-update

So now you can display whole steps with decimal fraction, like most other spot meters, at least my Sekonic and Minolta.

Now at last it's usable to me.