Originally Posted by
austin granger
Thank you for the kind words. As far as your question, for large format stuff, I use an old Pentax spot meter, and employ a sort of sloppy Zone System. Generally, that means I'll meter the shadow area, or the darkest area where I want to retain some detail (here it was the landform at left, where it meets the water), and then I'll place that on Zone three, so basically dark but retaining some detail, and then I'll let the rest fall where it may. Alternatively, for a scene with bright highlights, say sunlit snow, I might meter the brightest area and place that on zone eight (so I'd add three stops to the meter's recommendation which wants everything to be zone five middle gray) and then let the rest fall wherever it does. Does that make sense? As I said, this a very sloppy way to use the zone system, but I'm simple-minded when it comes to technical stuff, and need all my mental facilities to try and recognize pictures in the first place.
I can't speak specifically to the L358, but I often use a medium format camera with center-weighted metering (a Fuji GF670), and in this case, I would take its general recommendation and then have given an extra stop or so, figuring that the brightish sky might have fooled it to underexpose, and also to retain the general feeling of lightness that I wanted.
I realize that this all sounds somewhat vague, but I'm afraid it's the best I can offer. Honestly, when I'm out photographing, I'm not super precise, technically speaking; it's more like I have a feeling that something needs more or less exposure. In general, I tend toward fuller exposures, as I can reign those in somewhat, whereas if I under-expose, it's a bigger problem.
If you don't have it already, I would highly recommend the Ansel Adams book "The Negative" which covers metering way better than I ever could. It was very helpful to me when I was starting out.
Best, Austin
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