Re: spot, averaging, or incident metering?

From: Dave Rose ^lt;cactuscowboy@bresnan.net>
Date: 09/30/05-10:14:50 PM Z
Message-id: <005701c5c63e$aacd4b20$11ac9045@dave6m4323wvj7>

I use a big Pentax spotmeter that I've had for years. It's the most
accurate and useful by far. It's survived countless backpack trips and jeep
expeditions.

Best regards,
Dave Rose
Powell, Wyoming

----- Original Message -----
From: "Shannon Stoney" <sstoney@pdq.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 1:45 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 Fri Sep 30 22:12:31 2005

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