Reflective metering with Sekonic L-358

[robbalbrecht]

This may have been done a million times before I did it this morning but it just popped into my head. Tell me if I'm crazy or not... Hahha

With my L-358 and the lumagrid thing (not the dome) I metered the cloudy sky and put that reading in memory, then metered the wheat field I was photographing and put that reading in memory then hit the average button and shot at the resulting reading. I was trying to find a good balance between the sky and the field.

I'm pretty new at using my meter for ambient light so forgive me if this is a basic technique.

Anyway, input is appreciated. I'm shooting with a Bronica SQ and I'm learning as I go. Thanks.

 

[Pgeobc]

Well. let us see the resulting picture, please. That will tell a lot.
Was the wheat green and immature or was the wheat mature and yellow? That would make a difference.
My gut reaction is that green, immature wheat should be more like middle gray than the sky. Yellow wheat would be at least one whole stop lighter than middle gray. What this means is that I am guessing that your meter was inflated and caused you to underexpose the picture. Maybe not, let's see the pic.

My problem with some of these scenes is, that when there is really not a sufficient range of lights and really darks to meaure for an average, one must do some guessing to get things where one wants them. I'm not always really good at that,

 

[robbalbrecht]

Thanks for the insight, Geo.
As soon as the roll is back from the lab I'll post the pic. The wheat is a lighter golden color so probably not close to middle gray and probably one stop over middle gray like you suggested. I'm not too good at guessing some of these things yet but I'm learning. I guess I could try it with my digital and see how it works out.