So were there any popular well-regarded spot-metering SLR's?

RLangham · Jul 2, 2020

I've heard that they exist, but the vast majority of SLR's I've ever owned have either been averaging, center-weighted, or Minolta's cool little CLC system that is variable bottom-weighted, and the ones that haven't have been unmetered. I know the Pentax Spotmatic may have been intended to be, hence the name, but must have been changed to center-weighted metering before release, since it's clearly not spot-metered now.
Now, I find some of the center-weighted systems sufficiently weighted to use them almost as spotmeter, (one can almost do basic zone system with a Nikon F2SB) but that is still very clumsy compared to a true one-degree handheld meter.

My question is, what spot-metered SLR systems existed (if any truly did) and have you used them? Would you recommend them based on their other merits?

Les Sarile · Jul 2, 2020

In the manual focus camera world that would be the Olympus OM3 or OM4 . . .

RLangham · Jul 2, 2020

Would you believe when I was a runt I turned down multiple OM-2's for good to incredible prices because I thought something was wrong with the shutter curtain? It had black and white squares on the front of it! I thought it was dry-rotting and flaking off!

Those look nice, being Olympus and all. I assume they come with AV autoexposure and OTF flash metering too? Are they metal-bodied like the earlier ones?

Les Sarile · Jul 2, 2020

RLangham said:
Would you believe when I was a runt I turned down multiple OM-2's for good to incredible prices because I thought something was wrong with the shutter curtain? It had black and white squares on the front of it! I thought it was dry-rotting and flaking off!

Those look nice, being Olympus and all. I assume they come with AV autoexposure and OTF flash metering too? Are they metal-bodied like the earlier ones?

The OM3 is all manual and have all shutter speeds available without batteries while the OM4 has aperture priority. They are all you could dream of and then some.

ic-racer · Jul 2, 2020

I only shoot B&W negative. I think, to 'spot meter,' one needs some way to interpret the data. On my Rolleiflex, the exposure compensation dial can function as a 'Zone' dial to interpret the readings. Otherwise, with no way to interpret the readings as Zones, a spot reading is not useful unless one happens to find a gray card in the scene.

Chan Tran · Jul 2, 2020

Most AF SLR's have spot metering mode.

TheFlyingCamera · Jul 2, 2020

The Contax RTS III, RX, AX, ST, and S2b (I think it was the 'b') all had very well-regarded spot meter options. In fact, I believe the S2b was spot meter only.

bdial · Jul 2, 2020

The Nikon F5 has spot metering, F100 as well, as I recall. Not sure about which others from Nikon. As for Pentax, and the "Spotmatic" name, as far as I know it's just a name, it didn't refer to having a spot meter, at least not in the way we'd usually think of the feature.

The grey card in the scene is the spot that you want to be recorded as middle grey. That method doesn't make it easy to place other values if you don't have a zone scale to work with, but it works for many situations

RLangham · Jul 2, 2020

ic-racer said:
I only shoot B&W negative. I think, to 'spot meter,' one needs some way to interpret the data. On my Rolleiflex, the exposure compensation dial can function as a 'Zone' dial to interpret the readings. Otherwise, with no way to interpret the readings as Zones, a spot reading is not useful unless one happens to find a gray card in the scene.

View attachment 249479

I find your premise faulty. A meter set to the correct film speed will read an average of its metering area and give exposure information that will lead to a neutral exposure that averages out to the middle of the tonal range. Adams defines what a spotmeter reads by default when set correctly for the film and pointed at a solid area as being zone V.

This is because in conventional photography, the average tone of a black and white image when correctly exposed is assumed to be midway between light and dark.

Adams broke with the assumption that this is always the correct exposure and so he defined that neutral tone as a reference point on a continuum of possible zones.

No neutral reference card is needed for the zone system. This is because a photographer using the zone system can look at something that the spotmeter reads as such and such an exposure and say (in the case of a simple subject) "hmm, that's not a neutral gray at all. The correct exposure would be to put that one [for instance] zone III, which is two stops less than this metered exposure." The photographer knows what he's seeing is not neutral gray and compensates.

The only way I can imagine a neutral gray reference point being necessary is if you didn't know what your meter's response would be and you wanted to calibrate it.

RLangham · Jul 2, 2020

bdial said:
The grey card in the scene is the spot that you want to be recorded as middle grey. That method doesn't make it easy to place other values if you don't have a zone scale to work with, but it works for many situations

Why not? If you can remember that your metered exposure is V, the darkest zone that retains detail is III and the lightest that retains detail is VII, and that each zone is one stop, it seems easy to do zones in your head from a spot reading.

Les Sarile · Jul 2, 2020

RLangham said:
Why not? If you can remember that your metered exposure is V, the darkest zone that retains detail is III and the lightest that retains detail is VII, and that each zone is one stop, it seems easy to do zones in your head from a spot reading.

Personally, I prefer spot metering because I have learned the exposure range of the film that I use and know when blowout or shadow detail are unrecoverable. Probably most important with slide film since most all color negatives and b&w film have such huge toreances.

Paul Howell · Jul 2, 2020

Miranda EE, one of few early mechanical SLR with average and spot, the spot is pretty wide, I think about 3%, but you cheat by using a long lens record the reading then switch to a normal or wide lens. The Minolta AF 9000 has spot shadow and highlight mode. I think the OM system had the most advanced spot of any MF 35mm.

RLangham · Jul 2, 2020

Les Sarile said:
Personally, I prefer spot metering because I have learned the exposure range of the film that I use and know when blowout or shadow detail are unrecoverable. Probably most important with slide film since most all color negatives and b&w film have such huge toreances.

See, ever since I got into film three years ago I've been hearing about the latitude of B/W film and it seems to me that that tolerance is overrated. If you want contrast or tonal range, it seems to me there's usually a correct exposure and you have maybe a stop but often less of leeway on either side, compared to multiple stops over or a stop and a half under on color negative film.

Now sure, you can try to add contrast and range back with contrast filters in the printing stage or digitally if you scan the image, but overall, I feel like you never quite recapture the amazing tones of a well-exposed negative.

Now, I'm not nearly as experienced with B/W as I am with color negative film,.so I could be very wrong, but that's how it seems to me.

btaylor · Jul 2, 2020

Metering off a gray card is about the same as using an incident meter- as pointed out above a spot meter is very useful in determining the range of luminance in the scene so adjustments can be made either in exposure, development or adding or subtracting light from the subject. I have an OM4 with the spot meter feature, but if I am really going to use a spot meter I just pull out my Sekonic 1 degree meter and use it instead.

Pioneer · Jul 2, 2020

The Pentax PZ1p has a terrific 1 degree spotmeter but it is autofocus.

Les Sarile · Jul 2, 2020

RLangham said:
Now, I'm not nearly as experienced with B/W as I am with color negative film,.so I could be very wrong, but that's how it seems to me.

I look at it from a whole system perspective and we each individually have our own workflows, limits and preferences. I know what I can deal with as I am sure you know for your own use what you can deal with.

MattKing · Jul 2, 2020

The OM-2s/OM-2Sp also has a spot metering mode, along with aperture priority and program modes.
The OM-2 and OM-2n do not.
Zone system analysis is fine - but the major premises it is founded on are:
1) the value inherent in visualizing your results (or pre-visualizing your results if you follow Minor White); and
2) the need to customize a negative to the response of printing paper that offers one single fixed contrast.
The first premise continues to be extremely valuable.
The second premise isn't particularly applicable any more.
There is also a third factor that should be understood - modern films are capable of high quality results in a much wider range of circumstances than the films that were current when the Zone system was being created.
If Ansel Adams, Minor White and the other pioneers were doing their work right now, they would be creating a much more complex but flexible version of the Zone system.
Adams became an extremely talented printer. I wonder how much of that ability would not have developed if he had had available to him the flexible materials we have now.

ic-racer · Jul 2, 2020

RLangham said:
I find your premise faulty. A meter set to the correct film speed will read an average of its metering area and give exposure information that will lead to a neutral exposure that averages out to the middle of the tonal range. Adams defines what a spotmeter reads by default when set correctly for the film and pointed at a solid area as being zone V.

This is because in conventional photography, the average tone of a black and white image when correctly exposed is assumed to be midway between light and dark.

Adams broke with the assumption that this is always the correct exposure and so he defined that neutral tone as a reference point on a continuum of possible zones.

No neutral reference card is needed for the zone system. This is because a photographer using the zone system can look at something that the spotmeter reads as such and such an exposure and say (in the case of a simple subject) "hmm, that's not a neutral gray at all. The correct exposure would be to put that one [for instance] zone III, which is two stops less than this metered exposure." The photographer knows what he's seeing is not neutral gray and compensates.

The only way I can imagine a neutral gray reference point being necessary is if you didn't know what your meter's response would be and you wanted to calibrate it.

The spot meter is always V unless you have a zone compensation dial like I posted. So one would need a gray card in the scene's light for proper measurement.

CMoore · Jul 2, 2020

Chan Tran said:
Most AF SLR's have spot metering mode.

This never occurred to me.
I only have manual focus bodies.
But i guess you are right. by the time AF came around, a spot meter was probably a "easy" feature to include.
I am 60 now and can still see well enough, but as i get older, i might have to give up my MF bodies and go with AF.
No sense in fighting it i suppose.

Les Sarile · Jul 2, 2020

CMoore said:
I am 60 now and can still see well enough, but as i get older, i might have to give up my MF bodies and go with AF.
No sense in fighting it i suppose.

Or you could use even greater magnification . . .

Comes in handy when you're using manual focus lenses on tiny viewfinders common in AF cameras . . .

RLangham · Jul 2, 2020

ic-racer said:
The spot meter is always V unless you have a zone compensation dial like I posted. So one would need a gray card in the scene's light for proper measurement.

Why? Zones are stops.

RLangham · Jul 2, 2020

CMoore said:
This never occurred to me.
I only have manual focus bodies.
But i guess you are right. by the time AF came around, a spot meter was probably a "easy" feature to include.
I am 60 now and can still see well enough, but as i get older, i might have to give up my MF bodies and go with AF.
No sense in fighting it i suppose.

It would not have occurred to me either. I prefer metal bodies and shutters that can fire without batteries so most AF bodies in my price range are right out. I don't really need it at my age either, despite having moderately bad vision.

Mainecoonmaniac · Jul 2, 2020

RLangham said:
I've heard that they exist, but the vast majority of SLR's I've ever owned have either been averaging, center-weighted, or Minolta's cool little CLC system that is variable bottom-weighted, and the ones that haven't have been unmetered. I know the Pentax Spotmatic may have been intended to be, hence the name, but must have been changed to center-weighted metering before release, since it's clearly not spot-metered now.
Now, I find some of the center-weighted systems sufficiently weighted to use them almost as spotmeter, (one can almost do basic zone system with a Nikon F2SB) but that is still very clumsy compared to a true one-degree handheld meter.

My question is, what spot-metered SLR systems existed (if any truly did) and have you used them? Would you recommend them based on their other merits?

Canon F-1 n allowed for spot metering by changing the focusing screen. http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/canonf1n/metering/index.htm

Huss · Jul 2, 2020

Leica R4, R5, R-E, R6, R6.2, R7, R8, R9 all have multiple metering modes, including spot.
And they all are fantastic camera bodies to use.

Jerevan · Jul 2, 2020

TheFlyingCamera said:
The Contax RTS III, RX, AX, ST, and S2b (I think it was the 'b') all had very well-regarded spot meter options. In fact, I believe the S2b was spot meter only.

It is the S2 that is spotmeter-only, while the S2b has centre-weighted metering. I've sort of wanted an S2 for years, but prices on bodies and glass kept it out of reach, and I really have enough 35 mm cameras. I've read somewhere that they did the S2b because people had problems using the spotmeter, but who knows?

So were there any popular well-regarded spot-metering SLR's?

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So were there any popular well-regarded spot-metering SLR's?

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