Light meters with reflective, incident and spot metering

[Helge]

Helge, this thread is in the LF section...

> After planting a 8x10" , the least concern is if you spend 15s to decide your exposure. After making the remarkable effort to shot a LF sheet you spend as much time is necessary to nail the shot. Many times you take two shots, with equal exposure to have a backup, you don't make a bracketing... so you meter the best you can, to not tell the case when you shot a 8x10" velvia, if you toast a 8x10 velvia you remember the pain for decades... so usually you spend the necessary time. An exception was the Moonrise, light was changing, Adams lost the meter and he guessed the exposure from a certain Moonny 16 rule. A master usually nails exposure even in that situation.

> If you don't have (real) knowledge and practice then better you practice with 35mm film, so if you are in LF then you have the knowledge or you plan to get it soon, destroying sheets makes not much sense.

> In LF the scene is reasonable passive, usually we shot on tripod, with some handheld exceptions (graflex, wanderlust...), but what I shot with a Cambo 8x10 sure it's a reasonably passive scene.




Of course it depends on the scene.... but the easiest way to nail the exposure of a sheet is spot metering, you point to the shadows and you place them at the underexposure level you decide, then you point to the highlights to know at what overexposure you will capture them, having the opportunity to decide a development that will place those highlights in the Zone you want.

Using other strategies may also be valid, but you have to make guesses if not knowing the local under/over exposure of the interesting subjects in the scene. Even we may simply use the Sunny 16... An experienced photographer may meter by simply smelling the scene. If you are not experienced enough then better if you spot meter, this is the way you won't get nasty surprises, specially if you shot slides that have to be critically metered.

In LF, spot meter is the way to go when starting. You know what you are doing and you get feedback from the results. It's about taking notes.

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. But subjects do creep and people forget..
With LF just meter off the ground glass (or behind the glass as some meter probes are made to do).
For tele and macro on LF it’s indispensable and the only sensible thing to do.

You have this wonderful unique tool in the screen. Use it!

 

[wiltw]

yup. I agree. There is no need for a spot meter. Ever.

The above statement is not alway true!

Spot reflective reading is very important when one is shooting a studio setup and one needs to make sure the brightest area vs. the darkest area falls with the narrower dynamic range needed when a photo is to be printed by the offset press, in a brochure, for example.

There are times when each type of metering has its advantages over the other types.

I use either incident mode or reflected one degree spot mode for a handheld meter.; a reflected 45 degree mode never., and 5 degree spot seldom. On my camera, Spot mostly, evaluative occasionally when I am shooting in brainless mode.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Again, nothing about large format photography necessitates any kind of special light meter or light metering technique.

You do not need a spot meter.

Maybe you do not need a spot meter, but there are times I need and use a spot meter to guarantee that I have enough exposure to bring out the shadow detail.

 

[BrianShaw]

There are times when each type of metering has its advantages over the other types.

“Now can we all just get along?”

 

[grat]

With LF just meter off the ground glass (or behind the glass as some meter probes are made to do).
For tele and macro on LF it’s indispensable and the only sensible thing to do.

I don't think metering off the ground glass would produce reliable results-- they typically vary in brightness from the center to the edge. Adding a fresnel can make it brighter, and easier to get critical focus, but again, you're altering brightness unevenly across the GG.

For landscape, much easier (and consistent) to meter the actual scene with a 1 degree spot.

For macro work, it's usually going to be well enough lit that an incident meter would be more appropriate.

 

[Bob S]

I don't think metering off the ground glass would produce reliable results-- they typically vary in brightness from the center to the edge. Adding a fresnel can make it brighter, and easier to get critical focus, but again, you're altering brightness unevenly across the GG.

For landscape, much easier (and consistent) to meter the actual scene with a 1 degree spot.

For macro work, it's usually going to be well enough lit that an incident meter would be more appropriate.

You can very accurately meter through the ground glass if you do it properly.
First you need a good fresnel. Then you take a reading off a grey card. Then you meter the same grey card through the gg at the same magnification ratio. Note the difference in the 2 readings and put that difference into the filter factor of your meter. That difference is the absorption loss of your gg/fresnel screen.
LInhof has been using this system for decades. They make a metering/ focusing bellows that attaches to the camera back. It accepts meters with a microscope attachment. The tube of the attachment fits into the rubber eyepiece of the focus/metering bellows. It then lets you meter any section of the gg the diameter of a quarter or the entire gg. It is deadly accurate.

 

[Helge]

I don't think metering off the ground glass would produce reliable results-- they typically vary in brightness from the center to the edge. Adding a fresnel can make it brighter, and easier to get critical focus, but again, you're altering brightness unevenly across the GG.

For landscape, much easier (and consistent) to meter the actual scene with a 1 degree spot.

For macro work, it's usually going to be well enough lit that an incident meter would be more appropriate.

The bright spot moves with your head.
The GG is not a perfect diffuser as that would loose too much brightness. But with your head at the right point the actual brightness is the same.

Fresnel screens loose ultimate sharpness.
Macro typically has the lens quite close to the subject, which means it's hard to do non invasive metering.

 

[Alan Gales]

Again, nothing about large format photography necessitates any kind of special light meter or light metering technique.

You do not need a spot meter.

Use whatever meter you have and whatever technique you’ve used previously and make photos.

Some use an app on their cell phone.

I prefer my Pentax digital spot meter but that is me.

 

[138S]

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. But subjects do creep and people forget..
With LF just meter off the ground glass (or behind the glass as some meter probes are made to do).
For tele and macro on LF it’s indispensable and the only sensible thing to do.

You have this wonderful unique tool in the screen. Use it!

Of course using a probe is a great way, problem is that it can be relatively expensive and we have some drawbacks, still as Bob Salomon pointed (and teached me) we can use the filter factor in the meter to introduce the calibration found with the gray card.

Another way I used is attaching a SLR in the view camera back, as I use a Norma monorail I attached a Nikon F mount (macro) extension ring in a lensborad, this allows me to mount the SLR (DSLR) in the camera back without the SLR lens and the LF lens projecting in the SLR focus screen or the DSLR sensor. This provides a true TTL metering for the view camera.

...with shift rise we can explore the image circle, but we may need the F mount attached in a corner of the lensboard to explore the format corners. IMO this way is more for experimentation than for practical usage...

Anyway today an smartphone will also give perfect exposures for our view camera. Still to shot LF we may want the meter kind we feel confortable with.


Having a DSLR attached in the camera back is also a cheap way to understand how our lenses behave. A DSLR may have 125 pixel pairs per mm, so it may be useful to check how our lens behaves in the corners with different apertures without spending sheets, we may also attach a SLR to shot real film for that, to see the real effect with the film we use...

 

[138S]

I read that incident metering is often used in landscape photography, that’s usually a situation where the subject is far. Do really have take the metering near the subject?

From the examples I pointed in this post (https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...cident-and-spot-metering.180410/#post-2360422) it may look I was telling that incident meter was "worse"...

Please let me point an example in what the incident meter stars: Portraiture

Depending on the skin tone you have to place the reading in a different zone:

The variaility is not narrow, you have to move the exposure by two stops depending on the skin tone...

With spot metering a white wall gives the same density on the negative than a black wall !!! provide we expose from the reading we took in that single spot...


In studio shots you are modifying the illumination a lot depending on the kind of face and depending on what you want to express... but when we take the readings in the face then every time we should modify the exposure depending on the skin tone we took the reading on !!! and glares on skin may introduce a complication...

With an incident meter we simple read the key and the fill light, placing the meter in the right places and in the right direction, this is an straight job... many portraiture gurus have been using that way with great results.

As strobes are used then you use a flashimeter that is a kind of incident meter. Today we can adjust the LF exposure for portrait by making pre-shots with a DSLR... I've used that when playing with the flashes in ratio mode, if you shot the DSLR at the same time than the view camera you also know if the shot is to be good... if the eyes are open and if the catched expression is the one you wanted.

IMO using an incident meter for portraiture (also in other situations) is a pure joy. Still in some situations (https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...cident-and-spot-metering.180410/#post-2360422) what is most useful is spot mode.

To me, one has to understand how each meter type works, how to use each kind in different situations and then going to one way or other depending on our personal preferences. What is clear is that ecah way has to be used differently for different situations.



But (again) see the meter used by one of the most prominent photographers (!!!!) we have presently, min 0:40,




Also Ansel Adams made his most famous shot without a meter, min 0:30. One of the Moonrise prints (1300 copies printed) was sold for $773,100 (2019) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonrise,_Hernandez,_New_Mexico




LF has something amazing... you may remember for decades (or the entire life) the calculations you made to take a shot, even in the case had no meter...

 

[bonk]

works for the Leica M2, Mamiya TLR, 4x5 Graflex Crown Graphic and Deardorff V8

Similar diversity of cameras as mentioned above (but no Leica since I’m not a DDS... LOL)

In what way does a light meter need to be compatible with any camera whatsoever? Measuring light and aperture, exposure time and film speed are standardized. Every light meter should be compatible with any camera.

 

[Bob S]

In what way does a light meter need to be compatible with any camera whatsoever? Measuring light and aperture, exposure time and film speed are standardized. Every light meter should be compatible with any camera.

Never saw an old Polaroid EV meter?

 

[BradS]

.....Measuring light and aperture, exposure time and film speed are standardized. Every light meter should be compatible with any camera.

That’s the point. There’s nothing special about large format photography in this regard.

 

[138S]

That’s the point. There’s nothing special about large format photography in this regard.

Brad, yes... there is nothing different in how rolls and sheets react to light and development... it has to be noted that in LF we often have different needs in the metering, IMO.

The reason is quite clear, with sheets we have the opportunity to make a custom development for each single sheet, and this influences the way we meter and what we want to know from the scene to decide an exposure and a development.

Of course one may expose/develop 36 sheets like if they were a roll with 36 frames... but some people go beyond that !!!

 

[Oren Grad]

Check out the L-718 Sekonic. I have used it successfully in all these modes. The spot attachment is a bit wide at 5° but quite usable.

Same with the L-318 model which I have.

 

[BradS]

Brad, yes... there is nothing different in how rolls and sheets react to light and development... it has to be noted that in LF we often have different needs in the metering, IMO.

The reason is quite clear, with sheets we have the opportunity to make a custom development for each single sheet, and this influences the way we meter and what we want to know from the scene to decide an exposure and a development.

Yes. I’m very well aware of the possibilities. I’ve been doing photography since the early 1970's and large format photography since 2004 - including about five years of shooting a 4x5 crown graphic with the lowly 135mm Optar exclusively, often hand held and range finder focused. Thousands of sheets of 4x5 Tri-X, FP4+, RDP3 and E100g. I’ve loaded film holders while crossing the equator, 1000miles off the coast of South America and many motel bathrooms and, of course, in in my own bathroom.

In my experience, making notes about lighting, exposure and processing and then comparing these notes to the resulting transparencies or negatives and prints is far more valuable than what light meter one used (assuming it is accurate of course). After a few hundred exposures, the light meter becomes incidental...as in you mostly don't even need one.

 

[Paul Howell]

To a large degree BradS is right, AA tells stories about shooting with Edward Weston, they would get out their old Weston light meters out, Weston meters are not related to Edward, Edward would take his reading, look at the sky, but the meter in his bag, look at the sky again set his exposure and shoot. In most cases what I would have guessed is what my meter tells me. There are times I am fooled, and glad I brought a meter.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Yes. I’m very well aware of the possibilities. I’ve been doing photography since the early 1970's and large format photography since 2004 - including about five years of shooting a 4x5 crown graphic with the lowly 135mm Optar exclusively, often hand held and range finder focused. Thousands of sheets of 4x5 Tri-X, FP4+, RDP3 and E100g. I’ve loaded film holders while crossing the equator, 1000miles off the coast of South America and many motel bathrooms and, of course, in in my own bathroom.

In my experience, making notes about lighting, exposure and processing and then comparing these notes to the resulting transparencies or negatives and prints is far more valuable than what light meter one used (assuming it is accurate of course). After a few hundred exposures, the light meter becomes incidental...as in you mostly don't even need one.

Yes I could estimate the exposure, however after using light meters for decades for slides, I am well practiced in the art of metering and I would rather use a meter than blow a photograph, especially if I will only be there once. Indoor or dim lighting is always tricky so I use a meter and do not loose time nor photographs. Additionally I have calibrated equipment so it would be silly not to use it.

 

[BradS]

Yes I could estimate the exposure, however after using light meters for decades for slides, I am well practiced in the art of metering and I would rather use a meter than blow a photograph, especially if I will only be there once. Indoor or dim lighting is always tricky so I use a meter and do not loose time nor photographs. Additionally I have calibrated equipment so it would be silly not to use it.

Yup, agreed. When I have the camera on a tripod, I like to estimate the exposure, take a meter reading, make notes and think. When photographing handheld, the process is considerably simplified but almost always involves at least an occasional light meter reading. I have not exposed any color transparencies in probably ten or twelve years and even then I did not use it very much - maybe a couple hundred sheets of 4x5 and a handful of rolls of 35mm.

 

[BradS]

The thing is....if you have the gear go ahead and use it but one can certainly be quite successful in large format photography without a spot meter. The notion that one needs a spot meter to do large format photography absolutely preposterous!

I'm trying to encourage the OP to just get out there with whatever light meter and experience he has and make photographs!
Tell yourself, I don't have a spot meter but, I'm gonna do it anyway! Make notes, make mistakes. Don't let gear stand in your way.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Speed Graphics were the core of newspaper photography for thirty years or so (at least in the USA), and most of their users never used a meter at all. They exposed by experience, Sunny 16, and Guide Number once flash came along (before the War, but not much before). You'd never have seen Weejie without his cigar or his fedora -- but I doubt you'd have ever seen him with a light meter.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I did not use a spot meter until very recently and that was because I wanted more shadow detail than I was getting.

 

[bonk]

I'm trying to encourage the OP to just get out there with whatever light meter and experience he has and make photographs!.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. I am very well aware that the best way to learn is to actually take photographs and make mistakes and it is important to have fun in the process.
I can assure you that I am having fun and I am already shooting LF quite frequently whenever I get the chance to borrow the gear for it (usually a Linhof Technicardan S 4x5 and a Sekonic L-478D using mainly incident light measurement, btw). But mistakes should not be the only way you learn and I really I have fun to see how others work and I made the experience it helps to improve my own skills a lot.

Regarding the gear: I am currently in the process to select my first own LF gear. My goal is to select something that will make me happy for many years to come without having to buy something new for as long as possible. I've had situations where I would have wished that I had a meter with a reflective mode and sometimes even a spot meter. So if there would have been a halfway decent meter that has all three, I might have considered it because it would have reduced the amount of stuff that I need to carry (and maybe even the €€ I have to pay).

As the camera I think I will chose the Chamonix C045-F2 btw.

 

[138S]

In my experience, making notes about lighting, exposure and processing and then comparing these notes to the resulting transparencies or negatives and prints is far more valuable than what light meter one used (assuming it is accurate of course). After a few hundred exposures, the light meter becomes incidental...as in you mostly don't even need one.

Of course! if not taking notes then we don't have much feedback, taking notes is quite important when starting.

But please see next reasoning about why spot metering (in combination with notes ) is also a very powerful resource when starting.


> If you take notes of the local spot metering of sky, clouds, vegetation, people (key, fill), rocks... then you know how each subject gets depicted at each level of under/over exposure. For example you learn at what overexposure sky is toasted with velvia...

> instead, if taking an averaged metering then you ignore if the sky was at same exposure than another shot you want to compare, so you learn way slower from a fuzzy feedback.

So to learn, for sure, best is taking notes of the spot metering of the important areas and lerning how each is depicted at each particular/local over /under exposure. Next time you to meter an scene, from the local exposures you predict exactly how each part of the scene will get rendered, and what contrast you'll have between areas.


Then add that (in LF ) you have to learn the N+/- effect in differently exposed areas, for example how glares at Z-10 are depicted after a N-2. If you don't spot meter you get lost when wanting to learn !!!

Later, when one has more experience, then he can use the metering way he likes, but absolutely there is no doubt that spot metering the local exposures in the scenes (taking notes) it's what provides the strongest feedback and what also allows to predict well the result sooner with surgical precision, specially when also wanting to learn the N+/- effect.

Still each one advances how he wants, in my case I can say that spot metering helped me a lot to learn.

 

[BradS]

@138S There's just simply no need to make it so complicated...and there is no need for 'surgical precision'.
Get out of the theoretical academic minutia and get into the field. Make some photos. It is really quite easy and satisfying.