Reveni spot meter

[f9likethekey]

Well, the other day I bought two second hand Pentax Honeywell Spot Meters, because I like to solder and rebuild old things - Sorry, but I have never come across anything more unergonomic. They run on two different batteries (mercury button cell and 9V block), have two different meters for light and dark, with a shock sensitive pointer instrument, a scale whose values like "11 1/3, 12 2/3 and 14" you have to cache in your brain to transfer them to a calculator disk that has no zone system scale ... You copy it from the manual and stick it over the cine scale ... With the Sekonic, whether L-408 or L-558, I measure the shadows, press the Memory button, then measure the highlights, count the EV steps on the graphical scale, and decide which average to take and how to develop. When I am lazy, I take the dedicated "Average" button. That's what I call intuitive. Even the question of what a medium gray should be is obsolete for me, because it's all about contrast, which belongs in the printable range of tonal values. Of course, you have to pick the right mode for it. It has a dedicated "Mode" button for that. If you do not change this, you always measure in the same way.

From all your coments on this thread, it appears you're quite happy with everything that is YOUR way and have only supplied reasons to not explore this spot meter or PMM. Thanks for being a troll.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

From all your coments on this thread, it appears you're quite happy with everything that is YOUR way and have only supplied reasons to not explore this spot meter or PMM. Thanks for being a troll.

Nonsense. I just wanted to know from you what PMM is, and you didn't want to explain it to me, for whatever reason. Anyway, you are annoyed by me instead of just explaining it to me. This is how I should behave with my children. They would kick me in the rear end. We'll find out when the light meter comes. Perhaps PMM is a useful method ... (Otherwise, I always thought a forum was for discussing stuff. I am always happy when someone explains to me how he does something with his equipment.)

[nbagno]

Nonsense. I just wanted to know from you what PMM is, and you didn't want to explain it to me, for whatever reason. Anyway, you are annoyed by me instead of just explaining it to me. This is how I should behave with my children. They would kick me in the rear end. We'll find out when the light meter comes. Perhaps PMM is a useful method ... (Otherwise, I always thought a forum was for discussing stuff. I am always happy when someone explains to me how he does something with his equipment.)

You pick a tone. You decide where that tone should be compared to a neutral tone and decide if it's +4 stops over gray, - 4 under gray, or +/- 3 if using reversal film. If you feel that tone should be a very light tone, then you might say that the tone is a+3. Whichever way you want that tone to come out in your picture will guide you to where on the +/- scale it should land. You take that EV reading for the tone you picked and place the EV marking on the Pentax scale to align to a custom sticker that you place on your Pentax. That gives you your shutter and aperture speed. You can if you wish meter other tones in the scene to make sure it all aligns. This new meter will do away with the customer scale sticker, and of course, be a much smaller device. Nick's course, which I bought, is very good, and very in-depth not just for PMM, but other topics related to metering. It's easy to understand and quick in practice. I think it's imperative that the younger generation innovate where ever possible to keep film alive. This meter is just one of the many innovations that continue to flow out of the younger creative minds. Very exciting for the future of film.

[Tin Can]

A fool and money soon part

i have never seen 'troll' acusationion used here

I am shocked, I tell you!

Get a grip

From all your coments on this thread, it appears you're quite happy with everything that is YOUR way and have only supplied reasons to not explore this spot meter or PMM. Thanks for being a troll.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

A fool and money soon part

A 300$ tutorial: why not?

What is described here as PMM can actually be well integrated into a combination of two different (!) zone systems, if I understand correctly. Perhaps PMM is just a combination of these old methods that have been around for at least 50 years.

First, there is a tonal control by placing the reading in a particular zone. I still find this to be a serious exposure control. What is white remains white, what is black remains black. Don't be afraid of II and VIII. Anyway, many color negative films reduce contrast. Black and white films can be developed to reduce contrast. With color slide films, contrast is probably higher. An incident light meter does not know neither II nor VIII ... If that is PMM, then the only difference from incident light metering is that you are willfully overexposing or underexposing.

Of course, if you scan film, do you have to rely on the printable tonal range?

Secondly, tonal control is achieved with the help of development. In the classical zone system, this is done with unidirectional contrast control, in which structured darkness is regarded as III. White, Zakia and Lorenz in "The New Zone System Manual", page 82-87, have proposed a bidirectional contrast control, which not only flattens the highlights, but also raises the shadows, so that middle gray in V always has the same density, wether you're pushing or pulling the film. For example N+1 for exposure, N-1 for development. Or N-1 for exposure, N+1 for development.

In the first case "the print value interval for middle zone exposures begins to widen. Maximum separation in print values between adjacent subject brightnesses is achieved. More exposure and less development produces the opposite result. Adjacent subject brightnesses are rendered with less separation in tone." White, Zakia, Lorenz: The New Zone System Manual. 1976, page 86.

The exposure adjustment is stronger than in Adams. Ansel Adams says with N-1 development we need a 2/3 brighter aperture. White, Zakia, Lorenz say that it has to be a whole f-stop, and for N-2 development even 2 whole f-stops. This increases the density in the lower zones enormously.

Peter Fischer-Piel, who had tested this method in more detail and published it in the German speaking zone system community, calls this bidirectional contrast control "snapshot method". We simply set N+1 on the camera, i.e. half the effective ISO, for example ISO 16 as N+1, instead of effective ISO 32 for a Ilford FP4+ with nominal ISO 125, and develop so that we achieve N-1 compaction. Result: "maximum separation in print values", compression of II and VIII into the printable range, and that with a 35 mm camera, with 135 film ...

Of course, with PMM you can choose where to place the gray of the spot meter. And if it really becomes too contrasty: that's just the way the world is that we photograph. But conditio sine qua non is to know whether the film works with high-contrast or soft, and that you know how to treat it to preset a certain look.

[nbagno]

New features now include a zone mode:

Zone Metering Mode

While Nick Carver's Precision Metering Method is a fantastic zone-style system, lots of people have asked for the traditional Zone system to be available. Many photographers have spent years (or decades) using the Zone system with their other meters and now "think in Zones" as it were, and so they would like to keep working this way. I totally understand the desire and so I'm adding a 4th mode, a Zone mode. The operation is simple; sample a tone in the scene, assign a zone to it with the arrow buttons, and the meter will give your middle grey settings. Use the compare function to check the rest of your scene and the meter will read back the Zones for those areas.

[John Layton]

Given this very sensible additional feature...I'll be giving this meter a much closer look!

[Alan9940]

I've already backed this project, but I was glad to read in this morning's project update e-mail about all the practical changes Matt is already making for the final production unit. He sure seems to listen to his customers!

[esearing]

Wonder how well it works in dim light. Morning in the forrest can get down to 2 - 4 EVs and you are reading a black background while viewing a dark wet rock or shadowed tree bark . I do not think the two eye method would work for me as my eyes would tend to zoom in and out of the scene or scan the periphery.

[Andrew O'Neill]

It seems to be doing very well on KS. Almost at a quarter million $$, and he only wanted 28K! What do KS people do when they have a ton of money leftover?