Using a light meter

rayonline_nz · Dec 4, 2015

What is your technique? I see some people spot meter the brightest area and the darkest area and average it while some like Bryan Peterson (Understanding Exposure) says meter the scene correctly so you can see the correctly on the slide. The technique I have been using for 35mm format is the latter. It is nice to the see the real colors and correct exposures as your film returns from the lab.

If I were to average the scene out, the physical slides won't look as pretty right? Before I can share them I would need edit them?

I picked up a Sekonic 758 due to a half price sale and I am moving to larger formats in 2016 hopefully.

Willie Jan · Dec 4, 2015

Spot metering is a deliquite process.
If you measure from 10 feet, it gives a different value, than metering from 1 feet away is my opinion.

I only use spot to measure the differences in contrast to find out if the scene is above the 4.5 stops for b/w. If so i know that not everything can be shown on the paper....
The measurement of the whole scene is done by a normal light meter.

RobC · Dec 4, 2015

telling us which film might help. They are not all the same and so you will need to know what is optimum for your particular film. Spot or incident should both work but incident is probably easier since you don't know what your film requires of as of yet.

Dwayne Martin · Dec 4, 2015

A basic understanding of the zone system and a Pentax digital spot meter with a zone system sticker on it will make your metering far more predictable and controllable. The book way beyond monochrome explains this very well and has pictures of the zone dial stickers that can be copied, it my have a web link to them as well.

RobC · Dec 4, 2015

Devorobin said:
A basic understanding of the zone system and a Pentax digital spot meter with a zone system sticker on it will make your metering far more predictable and controllable. The book way beyond monochrome explains this very well and has pictures of the zone dial stickers that can be copied, it my have a web link to them as well.

That will be bugger all use if you want colour matching.

rowghani · Dec 4, 2015

Sounds like you are inquiring about exposure for slide film. I always use Incident reading for slides. My cameras have a meter and I ignore them. If its a sunny day I draw a direct reading from the sun and set my camera to that. This insures that things in the sun, which is usually what im shooting for anyways, will have accurate representation on the film. The ''downside" of this is that your shadows can turn pretty black but I actually love that contrast. let me know if you have any other questions.

MartinCrabtree · Dec 4, 2015

Another for incident w/transparencies.

Rich Ullsmith · Dec 4, 2015

Agree with incident metering, but note the reading must be taken at the subject (or close as possible), even in bright sun the the incident light at the subject can be quite different than at the camera . . .reflectivity of different ground or nearby objects. Like shooting from white concrete onto grass or pavement, you gotta take the reading at the subject.

CropDusterMan · Dec 4, 2015

I always used incident readings for slide film, and if it was a scenic, bracketed a bit sometimes as an
insurance policy... For BW, I'll do a little of both incident and spot metering, with a complexly
(contrasty) lit scene usually spot metered.

rayonline_nz · Dec 4, 2015

Velvia 50 or 100. Cityscape and sunrise sunsets.

I'm past I learnt with my Nikon F100 spot meter blue sky at twilight overexpose 2EV. Works well. But should do that to get pretty slides or should I maximise what it captures on film but on physical slides look less pretty.

Dan Fromm · Dec 4, 2015

One more for incident with transparencies.

wildbill · Dec 4, 2015

I use a pentax digital spot meter for everything. I shoot 4x5 and 8x10. Bracketing is for people who don't know how to use a spot meter and those who have access to disposable income. Whatever works for you, I guess. You cannot meter distant highlights on a mountain, a scene across a river, on an untracked beach or snow without walking there with your meter. Save time, learn the spot.

There are many threads like this one so I'll stop there.

markbarendt · Dec 4, 2015

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

DannL. · Dec 4, 2015

I only shot chromes through the 80's (Kodachrome/Ektachrome) and maybe 10 rolls of Elitechrome since then. I simply pointed the camera, adjusted for a centered meter needle in the viewfinder, and made the exposures. Never had a bad exposure in all that time.

Sirius Glass · Dec 4, 2015

For all reflective readings minimize the sky in the meter reading.
With the previous sentence for slides I trust the readings on Minoltas, Nikons, Canons, Hasselblad and Leicas.

With the first sentence for black & white or color prints I trust the readings on Minoltas, Nikons, Canons, Hasselblad and Leicas Or choose a spot and set that spot on the Zone System zone Or spot read the brightest and dimmest spot and average the readings.

rowghani · Dec 4, 2015

Rich Ullsmith said:
Agree with incident metering, but note the reading must be taken at the subject (or close as possible), even in bright sun the the incident light at the subject can be quite different than at the camera . . .reflectivity of different ground or nearby objects. Like shooting from white concrete onto grass or pavement, you gotta take the reading at the subject.

Rich is absolutely right about this.

Bill Burk · Dec 4, 2015

rayonline_nz,

Have you read Galen Rowell's Vision, the Art of Adventure Photography? He says you only get about a stop and a half in either direction (three stops brightness range) with Velvia.

The L-758 has diamond points that show dynamic range and clipping. You know... you can adjust these points. If you do make adjustments, I recommend writing down notes about the buttons you pushed, because I guarantee in a week you will forget how you made the change.

Galen Rowell suggests exposing for the most important highlight.

To answer one of your first questions... I'd want the slides to look good.

rayonline_nz · Dec 4, 2015

Bill Burk said:
rayonline_nz,

Have you read Galen Rowell's Vision, the Art of Adventure Photography? He says you only get about a stop and a half in either direction (three stops brightness range) with Velvia.

The L-758 has diamond points that show dynamic range and clipping. You know... you can adjust these points. If you do make adjustments, I recommend writing down notes about the buttons you pushed, because I guarantee in a week you will forget how you made the change.

Galen Rowell suggests exposing for the most important highlight.

To answer one of your first questions... I'd want the slides to look good.

Yes I think I need to develop a laminated card for the 758 and keep in my camera bag.

I got the toy today and I had a play around with it.

Yes, I had read his book (got it from the library). Ben Horne does Youtube videos on his 8x10 and he says 2 stops either side. I understand his approach mete the mid and then the highlights and shadows to ensure they are within range. Thanks for Galen's tip on the 1.5 stops either side.

Ben's approach is to spot meter the mids, the highs and lows. That means treating all three as midtones to capture the detail.

My approach have been. Meter the mids as mids. Meter the highlights and then overexpose it by 2 stops or 1.7 as the meter can be fooled. Do the same to the shadows. Compare these numbers to the mid tones am I outside the film's range.

However I do get Ben's approach if it is to - meter the mids as mids. Meter the sky area mid tones as mids like the sky but not the brightest area and same to the ground gravel stones. Bryan Peterson's book touched upon this.

RobC · Dec 5, 2015

be very careful of advice about dynamic range of slide film which relates to printing. When Cibachrome paper was available the required subject contrast range to print direct to it was very short. But you won't be printing to cibachrome paper becasue it doesn't exist anymore. You will either be projecting or scanning which allows for a much greater subject contrast range than for printing.

wiltw · Dec 5, 2015

How you use a meter depends both upon type of meter, and what you want to accomplish with it!
If you have a spotmeter...

Meter highlight and meter shadow area, to determine if the dynamic range of the scene CAN FIT on the emulsion's dynamic range...if not, you then determine what part of the scene you desire to compromise for the shot, and different shots will dictate sacrifing highlight vs shadow area.
Meter a grey card simply to determine the middle brightness level of an average scene, so you know if you want to increase saturation of color neg in shadow areas to prevent color muddiness, or if you want to give a touch less exposure with color transparency to increase color of the sky.

Use an incident meter for the same reasons as for #2

Bill Burk · Dec 5, 2015

rayonline_nz said:
Ben Horne does Youtube videos on his 8x10 and he says 2 stops either side.

2 stops is easier to count and probably close enough

To put in perspective, Galen Rowell was explaining how to use Singh Ray neutral density graduated filters when he brought up 1.5 stops either side.

But ND grads are another whole can of worms.

RobC · Dec 5, 2015

I also think you need to sort out a few things in your mind before you begin.

REAL colours are not going to be given by Velvia. Velvia, depending which one you use, gives saturated colours so they will "never" be real. If you want close to real then use Provia. Then if you are using provia you can do some test tests photographing a Macbeth colour chart (or print your own colour chart to photograph). (No point using Velvia for this test because velvia won't closeley reproduce the colour chart.)

That way you can either meter with incident or spot and get a feel for how much "compensation" you need to obtain the closest to real colour reproduction.

Of course if having thought about it you realise that real is not what you really want and you continue to use velvia, then things are somewhat easier and you can use a spot meter which for distant landscape is probably going to be better than incident, especially if you are photographing at dusk/sunsets.

But you will still need to work out the useable dynamic range of your film type. I'd guess about a 6 stop range for velvia. Your spot meter will give you a reading of close to 3 1/2 stop less than what you point it at. So if you assume that in zone system terms that each zone 0.6 stops, and you meter something you want on zone 7 (full highlight textural detail) then I would open up 1/2 stop to get you into middle of 6 stop range and then 1.2 stops to get you onto the highlight. So I'd guess 1 2/3 stops in total should be closish as a starting point. But I'm no expert with slide film so others may give better advice.

pdeeh · Dec 5, 2015

markbarendt said:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

+1
I learned more about how to improve the technical quality of my photographs from this article than anything else I've read on apug.

Btw wouldn't this thread be more at home in "Exposure Discussion" than "Misc. Equipment" ?

removed account4 · Dec 5, 2015

rayonline_nz said:
What is your technique? I see some people spot meter the brightest area and the darkest area and average it while some like Bryan Peterson (Understanding Exposure) says meter the scene correctly so you can see the correctly on the slide. The technique I have been using for 35mm format is the latter. It is nice to the see the real colors and correct exposures as your film returns from the lab.

If I were to average the scene out, the physical slides won't look as pretty right? Before I can share them I would need edit them?

I picked up a Sekonic 758 due to a half price sale and I am moving to larger formats in 2016 hopefully.

hi rayonline_nz

when i shoot chromes in a 35mm i snoot at box speed and use the meter in the camera, sometimes i bracket
if i am using a meter it depends on the scene. if it is a house fully lit lawn fully lit no real shadow on the subject
i will put my meter ( not a reflective but ambient ) above my head if i am in the same sunlight. the globe towards me
and that is my reading. i also walk to the subject, point the globe back to the camera and take a reading.
if there is both shadow and light, i take a light reading, and take a shadow reading and average them.
i don't use a spot meter, but a regular old seconic, and a lunar ... i do the same sort of meter reading whether it is b/w, c41 or slides ..
i mentioneed that i bracket -- until i am comfortable with the film and know what it is going to do ( and the lab if it is color )
the last handful of years i stopped using a meter altogether ( unless it was client work ) and sunny-11 everything from chromes to b/w and intuitive meter paper negatives/glass plates.
( intuitive meaning that i am familiar with the lighting don't sunny 11 and know from experience that kind of overcast day or deckled light will take 10 seconds of light )

good luck, and have fun with LF when you "transition".
john

rayonline_nz · Dec 5, 2015

It is December. Been a while since I have used grads and do any of these meter readings with slide film.

If it was a very cloudy day near white sky. If you simply just spot metered the sky the meter probably get fooled by it.

1) Do you knowingly then overexpose it
2) Or do you if it does underexpose just accept this and rejig it after? Since you have all the info anyway.

Playing around with the 758 - it does let you compare from one point to the next like the mids to the highs or lows BUT - it doesn't let you compare the mids to the highs (if an adjustment needs to be dialed in).

In the past to simplify things - as two pictures. I've metered the sky as what I want it to look like - muted medium sky clouds or if the sky is very bright I compensate. I do the same to the ground. What's the difference is the grad that I use if I am outside the film's range.

Using a light meter

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