Where can i find a grey card?

[Clark King]

That really answers alot of questions, thanks cj. I was actually going to use it meter for outoors (environmental) portraiture! What did I know? Due to a recent situation I thougt it might help with balancing exposure when the subject is brightly lit but the bkgnd is shaded by trees. I'm getting too much contrast between my subject and the bkgnd. I guess not enough bkgnd detail or shadow detail, but I don't want my subject to be overexposed. (Something like a 3 stop difference between these two) I try to find a middle toned something to meter from. The ideal sit. would be an evenly lit scene foregnd (subject) and bkgnd, right? According to your advice I should try exposing for some of this shadow detail in the bkgnd? Anyway thank you very much for the input, i'm still learning!

Clark King

[Andy_1233]

You will get a lot more consistent results if you angle the card somewhat to just 'catch' the ambient light rather than just pointing it directly at the camera. Kodak's grey card comes with instructions that kind of illustrate this. After some experimentation I find I get surprisingly consistent results with this. That said, I use the grey card strictly as a reference point and rarely, if ever base my exposure on a grey card reading. It can be tricky but useful on some occasions if you do some experimentation with it beforehand.

[Andy_1233]

Of course with a three stop range between the subject and the background, depending on the film you are using the contrast might just be too much regardless of exposure. Are you using transparency, color neg., or B&W film? With slide films the three stop range is too much and although I don't shoot color neg. film I suspect the result would be pretty much the same.

[Bob Salomon]

"Light meters area skewed to 13% grey, not 18% grey"

Are you speaking about Minolta and Gossen?

They usually don't post specs on the Sekonic site.

[Erik Ryberg]

Clark,

The way I look at it, you can spend 8.95 on a gray card and confuse the hell out of yourself watching it give you different readings as you turn it slightly toward or away from the sun, or you can spend ten times that on a really good incident meter and never be confused again. (at least about what settings are appropriate for the light!) That's what I did and my gray card sits in my closet forevermore. I think incident meters are definitely the way to go for people like me who are exposure-challenged.

[Bill Glickman]

Bob, it was my understanding that all the silicon chips used today in reflective meters are calibrated to 13% grey. This 18% grey was a figure that came about from Kodak in the early 1900's to simulate NY's grey clouds and these grey cards have been produced ever since. Here is a clip from the Luminous Landscape web site.... this guy is very sharp...

A meter capable of taking incident light readings, like the Sekonic L508 reviewed on these pages, features what looks like a half of a golf-ball-sized hemisphere, usually on a swiveling support. To take an exposure reading instead of pointing the meter at the subject, as one does with in-camera and reflected meters, you instead place the meter in the same light as the subject.

The hemisphere, or lumisphere as some call it, is designed as a 13% gray object and thus provides a reading equivalent to that which you would get if you took a reflected reading off a theoretically perfectly integrated scene, or a Kodak 18% gray card. (It really should be 13%, but don't ask!?)

The beauty of the incident metering approach is that you needn't carry a large gray card around with you on location, and you don't have to worry that your subject matter ? whether because of its colour or reflectance characteristics, will give an erroneous reading.

From what I have learned it seems all meters use this 13% standard. The 18% card was also appreciated since it was 1/2 way between white and black. The difference between 13% and 18% is approx. 1/2 a stop, which is very significant with chrome film. Assuming all this is true, then it does not make sense to use a grey card in the field for exposure purposes unless you use a compensating factor. But as one poster mentioned above, there is many other reasons to not use this method.

Bob, since you have many industry conacts, maybe you can shed some light on this 13% issue, as there seems to be no written information from the makers of these meters.

[Michael Feldman]

I read somewhere (exactly where I have forgotten) that Ansel Adams lobbied for the 18% value very heavily, and Kodak accepted this figure. For Adams, 18% was convenient because it corresponded to a Zone V value, whereas 13% is about IV 1/2. But does it really make much difference if one calibrates their film speed to the proper Zone I density?

[Bill C]

>> Bob, since you have many industry conacts, maybe you can shed some light on this 13% issue, as there seems to be no written information from the makers of these meters. <<

I'm not Bob, but I can state with some authority that the instruction manual for a new Minolta Autometer IV F states, on page 14 (Reflected-Light Readings), "Like all reflected light meters, the Auto Meter IV F is calibrated to provide an exposure which will reproduce the metered area as a tone with 18% reflectance (zone 5) regardless of its true shade.".

I don't necessarily take this as "proof"; it's simply what the manual says.

[Bob Salomon]

Apparently Sekonic showed different recommendations then some other meters when compared under identical lighting at the same time.

The Sekonic factory, when questioned about this, responded that it was because they picked 13% rather then the 18% most other makers use.

This doesn't make it right or wrong since you calibrate the meter you use to the results you prefer.

[Christopher Campbell]

The best gray cards I've ever seen or used are the ones made by PhotoSystems, Inc., in Dexter, Michigan (they are also the manufacturers of Unicolor chemistry) and I've been using theirs for at least ten years. They are made of a non-warping plastic, are completely flat, and are18% gray on one side with an extremely carefully executed matte finish that doesn't seem to have any glare angle at all, and is surprisingly durable (although it will eventually get scratched). The back is glossy white. They also have a hole punched in them, so that it's easy to put the card up on a studio wall with a pushpin. They don't seem to be listed as an individual item on the manufacturer's web site, http://www.photosys.com/, but I just called and they can be ordered over the telephone at (800) 521-4042. The only proviso I would add is that these cards are expensive, currently $20.00 for the 4x5, and $28.00 for the 8x10, but as usual, you get what you pay for, and these are well worth the cost.