Re: spot, averaging, or incident metering?

>Good question and excellent examples, Sharon.
>
>I have a Pentax spot meter for my large format work. Why take 20
>minutes to set up a shot and not use a dead-on exact meter system.
>
>I too like to walk about with less metering encomberances and have a
>Weston Ranger 9 that I use with the [heavy] Graphlex 5X7 D. Here's
>what to do.
>
>Absolutely first thing is to compare the readings, which you did,
>and find they all read the same under perfect and controlled
>conditions.
>
>Next, aim the meter into the brightest sunlight and 'wack' the cell
>into action. Read the shadow, the highlight and at a forty-five
>degree angle, read the brightest light off your hand. Yes, your
>hand. That gives you Zone VI and will tell you how much the
>highlights are over and where the shadowed light falls.

Are you doing this with an incident or averaging meter, or with a
small spot meter?

--shannon

>
>Works e v e r y s i n g l e t i m e.
>
>Steve Shapiro
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Shannon Stoney" <sstoney@pdq.net>
>To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
>Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 12:45 PM
>Subject: spot, averaging, or incident metering?
>
>>Now that we've been talking about the zone system and zone III in
>>particular...
>>
>>Lately I've been experimenting with a little averaging/incident
>>meter that is very small and light. I used it as an incident meter
>>for a few weeks and just developed some of the negatives. A lot of
>>them are either over or underexposed. I was metering in the shade,
>>with the meter set at twice the speed I normally shoot the film at,
>>as I was advised to do on the BTZS forum. (When I tried metering
>>at my normal film speed, I got even worse results.) My tests had
>>shown that metering in shade at twice the normal speed gave the
>>closest results to my spot meter readings, which are generally
>>pretty accurate.
>>
>>But since the results were rather spotty, I have been using the
>>meter in averaging mode recently. This seems to yield slightly
>>better results, but still not as good as the spot meter.
>>
>>Am I doomed to carry around my heavy spot meter everywhere, even
>>when using small cameras? It seems that when I meter a scene with
>>all three meters, I rarely get the same reading from even two out
>>of three. I believe the spot meter, as I said, because I get very
>>consistent results when I use it. But the incident and averaging
>>meters only agree with it under rather special circumstances, when
>>the light is perfectly even everywhere and the scene is not too
>>contrasty. Like under overcast skies.
>>
>>What do other people do, when they're carrying a small camera that
>>doesn't have a meter in it? Several of my favorite cameras are
>>old and don't have meters. Or maybe you have an averaging meter in
>>your small camera, and you also have spotty results. Do you carry
>>around a spot meter? Or just make do?
>>
>>--shannon
Received on Sat Oct 1 08:10:51 2005