...And real accuracy is never guaranteed with a light meter, either. We must learn to correct that 'dumb' meter and we do so by judging: 1) the reflectance value of the scene's important elements (ie, the meter does not know how light of dark an object should be) and 2) the overall contrast...
Reasonable, workable, but not always exactly right.
...I'll estimate using sunny-sixteen or even a know luminance in a pinch, but I really prefer to use my spot meter...
I've posted these before in various places:
Average indoor lighting--enough to read by--is remarkably consistent: f:2.0 at 1/30 sec., EI 400. Open up a stop for medium-low light or maybe even three for dark spaces like bars, and stage lighting is something else entirely.
Most floodlit buildings at night are about f:2.0 at 1/4 sec., EI 400.
Outdoors on a sunny day, open shade is about two stops darker than direct sunlight--but these are the old rules on the film box--f:22 at 1/ISO for a sunny day at the beach or in the snow, f:16 in a regular scene, and so on.
... there is no substitute for a (accurate) meter. ...
My bottom line conclusion... but I wish good will to anyone who quests for an alternative.
Of course, if anywhere is going to be the repository of knowledge how to estimate light without a meter... it's got to be APUG.
As I just pointed out in another thread (and as David A. Goldfarb just pointed out too)... A valuable purpose for learning to estimate light... is so you know instinctively that your light meter ASA dial might have slipped.
I evolved to where I can function without a meter. Sort of a walking incident meter. But I have never managed to reach the point where I can evaluate values within a scene as well as my spot meter, and I doubt I ever will.
Ambivalent? Over lighting? :confused:
I surmise that your theories may come from a lack of in-depth knowledge and experience with meter. Especially the commentary about the lack of accuracy of light meters. Where did you get that idea from? In skilled hands, exposures are what the photographer sought, first and foremost, provided he has the skills and experience to know. What's difficult about that? Meters certainly are not dumb.QUOTE]
Poisson, there's something fishy here. First, I did not say that light meters were inaccurate. But I did say that they were dumb and that is because they do not know what the reflectance value of the photographed objects should be. That makes them dumb. A black cat in a coal mine receives quite a different level of exposure than does a white bride surrounded by her bridesmaids, even if the incident light level is the same. But...and this is the tricky part...NOT as great a difference as that light meter would indicate. The light meter would indicate that BOTH scenes should be recorded as medium grey. Of couse, this must be modified by the human brain's interpretation of the subjectivity of that subject matter. One EXPECTS to see quite a different rendidtion than what the meter assumes is 'correct'.
The responses to my post are really overwhelmingly intelligent and well thought out. This is a topic that simply cannot be hacked to death. David Goldfarb, I am going to disagree a bit with you in that the particular situations you offer are really quite easy and redundant and lend themselves towards mastery without a light meter. But what perplexes me the MOST are those shade or dull scenes that are literally 'all over the place' and conflating that fact with the fact that the brain 'accommodates' such extremes points to a virtual necessity for a light meter in such situations. - David Lyga
... than what the meter assumes is 'correct'.
Ambivalent? Over lighting? :confused:
I surmise that your theories may come from a lack of in-depth knowledge and experience with meter. Especially the commentary about the lack of accuracy of light meters. Where did you get that idea from? In skilled hands, exposures are what the photographer sought, first and foremost, provided he has the skills and experience to know. What's difficult about that? Meters certainly are not dumb.QUOTE]
Poisson, there's something fishy here. First, I did not say that light meters were inaccurate. But I did say that they were dumb and that is because they do not know what the reflectance value of the photographed objects should be. That makes them dumb. A black cat in a coal mine receives quite a different level of exposure than does a white bride surrounded by her bridesmaids, even if the incident light level is the same. But...and this is the tricky part...NOT as great a difference as that light meter would indicate. The light meter would indicate that BOTH scenes should be recorded as medium grey. Of couse, this must be modified by the human brain's interpretation of the subjectivity of that subject matter. One EXPECTS to see quite a different rendidtion than what the meter assumes is 'correct'.
The responses to my post are really overwhelmingly intelligent and well thought out. This is a topic that simply cannot be hacked to death. David Goldfarb, I am going to disagree a bit with you in that the particular situations you offer are really quite easy and redundant and lend themselves towards mastery without a light meter. But what perplexes me the MOST are those shade or dull scenes that are literally 'all over the place' and conflating that fact with the fact that the brain 'accommodates' such extremes points to a virtual necessity for a light meter in such situations. - David Lyga
David. All tools are dumb, i.e. non-sentient. No tool is better than whomever wields it. The most important piece of equipment is between your ears.
The way light meters operate are based on engineering assumptions, but it is not one of "correctness" as much as it is one of statistical normalcy.
A Zone System sticker quickly converts a reflective meter from one that assumes a statistical normal to one that facilitates intentional interpretation. Thus the "black cat in a coal mine" can properly be turned into that.
Sure, but I'd phrase that just slightly differently: ... from one that assumes a statistical normal to one that MORE EASILY facilitates A PHOTOGRAPHER'S DESIRED intentional interpretation. I can do that intentional interpretation with or without a ZS sticker, for example. The meter is still "dumb" even with a ZS sticker.
... there is no substitute for a meter. ...
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