18% Grey Card. To use it or not.

[Taylor K Nankervis]

Camera exposure profiling is “interesting” but I chose to set clipping points on whole stops and call it Zone System calibration. Meaning instead of fitting camera to meter, I was fitting meter to Zone System.

I left the constants at factory defaults.

Profiling with the L758D/DR is more generally useful for digital cameras than analogue. But there is a handy trick!

In lieu of the profiling function's original purpose, camera profiling is in my case used to switch between separately set metering metrics for the Pentax 67 (camera profile 1) and pinhole photography (camera profile 2).

 

[xkaes]

Your process does not work in this case. If you're shooting color chrome film, you want to shoot based on the exposure in the bright sunny light. If you pick a middleground between light and shadow, you;ll blow out the whites in the sunny areas. With chromes you pretty much ignore the shadow areas.

Not a problem for me -- I gave up chromes when they killed Kodacrome 25 & Cibachrome.

 

[xkaes]

There is no trick, no rocket science, no mystery. The lumisphere and spot meter both have their critical applied uses. Neither is superior to the other in each and every application. With a spot meter (1° in the case of the Sekonic L758D/DRs)

• Meter a bright section of the scene, but not a bright spectral.
• Meter a transitional scene between bright and dark; and
• Meter a shadowed area, but not completely black
Areas that require special consideration by the meter can be double-tapped;
• Average all.

Simple way is to use a grey card, locked in as reference reading No. 1, then all the other readings and
averaged — very quick and efficient. Spot/incident/mixed metering is critical to a good exposure (but every photographer will have his/her own preference of what constitutes a 'good exposure' in their experience), but the process of metering should not be over-complicated!

This is pretty much what Paul Farber outlined in Petersen's Photographic back in the 70's -- i.e. May, 1978 -- The Two-Zone System. You meter the high and the low, as you described, and compute a contrast index (C.I.) from the difference between them -- (HIGH EV - LOW EV) / 0.3. Then you can look up in the Kodak charts for how to develop that specific film and C.I..

But, as he points out, this is best used with sheet film, but can be helpful sometimes with roll film too.

 

[Maris]

I've used a variety of spot-meters all the way from the Pentax 1/21 analogue up to the Sekonic L758D digital and I've always carried an 18% grey card BUT I don't use the card for light-metering.

The card becomes a fixed visual reference for judging the tones of things. I place the card on rocks, tree bark, dirt, dry grass, concrete, and so on, in an attempt to develop a mental catalogue of
the visual world in terms of what's the same, what's darker, what's brighter, and by how much.

It is a great power of spot-meter use within the Zone System that any tone can be placed on any Zone. This is the "place" and "fall" technique; place one zone and see where the others fall.
My worry was to do the initial placing in a credible way. And knowing the inherent brightness and darkness of things helped me get the place correct with some confidence the fall would make sense too.

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

The card becomes a fixed visual reference for judging the tones of things. I place the card on rocks, tree bark, dirt, dry grass, concrete,

Sounds like well-travelled, domesticated grey card then!

 

[wiltw]

The card becomes a fixed visual reference for judging the tones of things. I place the card on rocks, tree bark, dirt, dry grass, concrete, and so on, in an attempt to develop a mental catalogue of
the visual world in terms of what's the same, what's darker, what's brighter, and by how much.

I too mostly use the gray card as a visual reference for 'middle tone' of surrounding objects, rather than as a meteing target. But just as the gray card makes a variable density due to surface reflectance while metering, that variabillity of apparent desnty can manifest itself as a variable tonal reference! One needs to keep both in mind whenever a gray card is employed.
This illustrates both the variable tonal reference as well as variable metering target!

At the same time, an incident light meter's angle to the sun position, and angle relative to vertical both make a difference

IOW one needs to understand that foibles of BOTH the gray card target and the incident light meter hemisphere in order to optimize the use of each.

 

[baachitraka]

There is no trick, no rocket science, no mystery. The lumisphere and spot meter both have their critical applied uses. Neither is superior to the other in each and every application. With a spot meter (1° in the case of the Sekonic L758D/DRs)

• Meter a bright section of the scene, but not a bright spectral.
• Meter a transitional scene between bright and dark; and
• Meter a shadowed area, but not completely black
Areas that require special consideration by the meter can be double-tapped;
• Average all.

Simple way is to use a grey card, locked in as reference reading No. 1, then all the other readings and
averaged — very quick and efficient. Spot/incident/mixed metering is critical to a good exposure (but every photographer will have his/her own preference of what constitutes a 'good exposure' in their experience), but the process of metering should not be over-complicated!

Yes, trick is not the word. But incident meter the shadow facing the camera and -1 stop to the exposure.

 

[eli griggs]

Let your grey card be your standard reference, for film exposure, film . developing, developing prints, and final finished work.

In other words, your personal Zone System, with additional cards, keyed to one main card, over time.

If you like low or high key work, you can calibrate your kit to give steady results, or work from a middle key, it’s nothing special, just steadyness in your processes working toward one result..

Meters can be adjusted for one common result and, in my opinion, is the most difficult chiore but will make your results so much better over a wide range of negatives.

 

[xkaes]

Sounds like well-travelled, domesticated grey card then!

And when used for that purpose, you don't need to bring a full 8x10" gray card. You can cut it into FOUR 4x5" pieces. I usually bring one along with me on longer treks.

 

[Steve York]

Meter off the palm of your hand then add one stop of speed is old photographers trick. Of course make sure the light is the same on your palm as on the subject of the photo.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I have a couple of 8x10 sized grey cards, and one 4x5. I always have the smaller one with me. Sometimes it is difficult to take reflective readings, and it comes in handy. I also use it on Sunny 16 days, to calibrate my metre.

 

[wiltw]

Meter off the palm of your hand then add one stop of speed is old photographers trick. Of course make sure the light is the same on your palm as on the subject of the photo.

The palm supposedly is a surrogate target with +1EV brighter typically, regardless of the racial background of the person.

OTOH, I have measured my own palm with +1.3EV brightness compared to a gray card, and just now I measured my palm at +0.6EV compared to the 18% gray card (measurement with Minolta Spotmeter F)

 

[DREW WILEY]

That palm trick based on the notion that every ethnicity has the same palm value is a myth.
But one's own palm might be somewhat predictable provided their own exposure to the sun
stays relatively consistent over the seasons. This seems to stem from an era where the majority of portraits (at least in western culture) were Caucasian, and typical films had a fair amount of latitude.

Here in this foggy coastal climate, the back of my hand and the palm are almost identical, except for some freckle-like age spots.

 

[mshchem]

I use an incident meter, have for 40 years. I have a spot meter, nice one, never use it. Probably should. I do everything on variable contrast silver gelatin paper so I can get away with a lot.