I've seen the old Zone VI literature and it made a lot of sense. The Paul Butzi website claims there's very little difference. Who knows!
I've seen the old Zone VI literature and it made a lot of sense. The Paul Butzi website claims there's very little difference. Who knows!
I used a Minolta Spot Meter F for a while and changed to the Pentax digital spot meter about 10 years ago and haven't used any other meter since then. Like almost everyone else here, I think that for zone system photography the Pentax is hard to beat. The Minolta had a lot of features that the Pentax doesn't have but I didn't use any of them so all they did was unnecessarily complicate things for me. I suspect the Gossen would be the same though I've never used it.
As far as the Zone VI modification is concerned, I have it on mine but I don't know that anyone has conclusively established that it really accomplishes anything. I remember years ago Photo Techniques (I think) ran an article in which the author maintained that it didn't do anything. Then in the following issue Paul Horowitz, the inventor of the modifications (I think) followed up with a lengthy letter disputing the author's conclusions. So who knows. I'm not sorry I have the modification but if I had it to do over I think I'd save the $180 or whatever I paid 10 years ago.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
In spite of my great appreciation of what Fred Picker had given the photographic community in terms of helpful devices and modifications of the existing ones, he had to somehow justify the quite high a price for meter modification.
I never made my own tests (and I don't doubt there was an improvement in laboratory tests), but the truth is that my "unmodified" Minolta F has given me years of dead-on accuracy supported by reading consistency I mostly care for. It appears its price has gone up again on ebay, perhaps a sign of recognized quality (or depleting quantity).
With all due respect for the Sekonic rep, I don't think he really understands meter calibration, and most likely has not read ISO-2720, the ISO standard that covers handheld exposure meters. The calibration of reflected-light meters has nothing to do with reflectance, which becomes an issue only when you try to relate the calibration of reflected-light meters to that of incident-light meters. If you don't want to purchase that standard (and I could think of many ways to better spend the money), I cover the topic fairly extensively at Exposure Metering and Zone system calibration (PDF).
The argument certainly has been made that reflected-light exposure meters are based on a scene of 12.5% average reflectance, depending on one's definition of "average scene reflectance." Ctein did so in Post Exposure, and Doug Kerr makes a somewhat similar case from a very different approach in his paper Exposure Meter Calibration (PDF).
However one interprets the calibration, the differences among various manufacturers is minimal: Pentax (and formerly Minolta) use a K of 14, and most others use 12.5. As has been discussed in previous threads here, a far greater issue is the wildly varying spectral responses. The Pentax meter has quite a broad response, while Minolta meters had a response that roughly matched that of the 1932 CIE standard observer. I've compared the two in unusual conditions (e.g., a yellow-light room used for photolithography) and seen differences of 5-6 steps. In more normal circumstances, I've still seen differences of 2-3 steps when measuring objects of certain colors. I don't have much practical experience with Sekonic, so I can't say how it compares with the Pentax or Minolta.
Again, the nominal calibration of a Pentax or Sekonic meter shouldn't be a factor in choosing between the two.
Even if there was something to the modification, films have different sensitivity, so it would make little real difference. You still need to figure out what works for you.
Ed Richards
http://www.epr-art.com
As a side note, there's one feature of the Sekonic L558 that I absolutely love.
You can do multiple spot meter readings (midtone, highlight, shadow, etc) and save them into memory (a simple two button press operation, don't need to remove the meter from your eye) then hit the average button which gives you a recommended exposure reading.
Of course most photographers shooting LF wouldn't trust the meter to make the exposure decision for them (myself included), but it actually does a pretty good job of choosing the exposure.
Now the really cool feature is that after you have your recommended exposure, you can then spot meter the scene while holding down the metering button, and the readout in the spot meter viewfinder gives you the exact exposure differential between the "Averaged" reading and the item you are spot metering, with real time continuous update.
This effectively means that I can scan through the scene and see that my selected midtone is 0.2 stops above the averaged reading, that the shadow detail is 1.8 stops below the averaged reading, and that the highlight is 1.7 stops above the averaged reading. If there's any discrepency it's immediately apparent how much I need to revise the exposure.
It is incredibly cool, a feature definitely worth having. I also use the flash meter and incident meter readings quite a bit, so I'd be lost without my Sekonic.
Sheldon's response is incredibly accurate in the way that I also work. If you would like to see an article about color temperature response with meter sensors like the Minolta Spot Meter F, you can go to markwoods.com, click on articles, and click on archives. Look for an article "Candlelight to Daylight." I think you'll find it most interesting. As for the difference, Ed mentions a very valid point. If you do your test with a given shutter, a given meter, a given F/Stop, and a given development time while exposing an 18% gray card. If everything is constant, you will get constant results. That's really what AA's, and others, tests are about. How many different shutters are accurate? One probably needs to test them all. That said, I generally work in cinema, and the tolerances are very tight. A meter that reads incident at 18% and spot at 12.5% is something that needs to be brought to the attention of the user. If it's no problem for the user. Cool. But that person should be aware of it, the same as the color temperature affecting the incident/reflected reading of a meter. No right. No wrong. Just what is going on with the meters.
Mark Woods
Large Format B&W
Cinematography Mentor at the American Film Institute
Past President of the Pasadena Society of Artists
Director of Photography
Pasadena, CA
www.markwoods.com
I vote for the Sekonic. I used the modified Pentax digital for twenty years and it truly is an adequate meter to ZS practitioners. However if someone will ever consider using BTZS the Pentax meter is not as easily amendable to BTZS since it is restricted to reflective readings. I switched to the Sekonic after I switched exposure methodology. Beyond having both incident and reflective capabilities the Sekonic that I have has flash capability and radio triggering capability that makes it more of a full featured meter from where I saw it. The price difference was a non issue when I considered the inherent value of the two meters.
Makes perfect sense to me! Everyone dreams of a magic bullet, and Z6 was offering one. I'm sure the modified meter gave/gives excellent exposure accuracy. Just like the unmodified version...
I use a Gossen Luna Pro F with the spot attachment. I find the 7½° spot to be perfectly adequate for anything I've metered with it -- exposures are 100% dead accurate unless I screw up. Much more important than one's choice of meter, is being familiar with the tool in your hand and knowing how to interpret it.
Mark, if you like Minolta meters - are the Kenko range any use? There's not a true spotmeter in there but the others have 'similarities'
To the original topic, I have both - a Pentax digital spotmeter and a Gossen Starlite. I'd unfortunately have to say that the Starlite was one of the worst purchases I made with respect to the low light photography I was doing - it used to take a lot of repeat button presses for it to wake up and get a stable reading and would quite often give up the ghost on 1° readings and just show 'Err.' It was great for flash metering but that's only a minute percentage of the requirements for me. It was flimsy and was sent back to Gossen for repair (front screen cracked and battery compartment door lugs snapped and I wasn't being heavy-handed)
I bought a Pentax Digital and haven't looked back - OK it won't do all the things of the Starlite as it's not a digital whizzbang gadget meter but it's bulletproof in what it can do. One reason I bought the Starlite was for the ZS measurements but I've got a zone sticker on the Pentax and it's a lot more intuitive (or it's me that's simple... )
I've sometimes looked round for a second Pentax as backup but for some of the exorbitant prices they're selling for new and on the auction site, I'm considering the Kenko KFM2100 as I know someone with the Minolta original and they tend to get decent exposures. I already have a Minolta colour meter and that's accurate / well made for what I want so hopefully the Kenko stuff is as well.
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