Good Spot Meter to go with M8?

[cometsoft]

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I second the recommendation for the Sekonic 758DR. Also it works with Pocket Wizards and can store 3 different camera profiles (including camera specific clipping points and dynamic ranges).

 

One caveat is the profiling for specific cameras. Sekonic has offered a few canned ones on their website (not the M8), but if you're going to do your own prepare to spend some time. Plus the profile card they make that is specific to that meter doesn't come with the meter. It's an extra $99. Still cheaper than the Kodak grayscale cards and it's not just a piece of cardboard.

 

The profiling is very time consuming. You can create four separate profiles for each camera flash (reflected and incident) and ambient (reflected and incident).

[wparsonsgisnet]

... My solution for tricky lighting has for many years been the exact opposite of a spot meter -- an incident meter ... Totally accurate if you can find a place with the same light as on the subject, and you usually can, if in the open.

 

One can, of course, take a reading of ones hand as a substitute for an incident meter. Same problem of getting lighting similar to that of the subject.

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[arthury]

Hi Dave,

 

The meter on the M8 is strongly center-weighted as was described in the manual. You can imagine it as a large broad-stroke spot meter and use it to meter off the mid-tone area in your frame and re-frame + shoot. For the worst case scenario, where there's no mid-tone, you can always meter off your own hand and shoot.

 

Carrying a spot-meter seems to me that we're missing the whole culture of a versatile highly mobile eletronic rangefinder device. It's your choice, of course, ... I'm just sharing my thots.

 

I only carry a handheld meter when I have no choice, like when I'm using my Hasselblad SWC or my large format camera. I use a Sekonic.

[reven]

Just 9one short question :-P You don't have time to take 2 or three shots ? ( Like first in Auto, check the LCD and than adjust the exposure on the wheel if needed.) BUT you have time to measure diffrent things with a spot meter ? I mean I think the Camera technic will be much faster and better.

[wparsonsgisnet]

... you can always meter off your own hand and shoot.... QUOTE]

 

I'm with Arthur in using the M8 for the metering, but I still would go for the WhiBal card. they make one that will fit in a shirt pocket.

[jelderfield]

Everything I've been taught about digital tells me that the best thing is to take a shot with the camera, then adjust the exposure based on the histogram, without clipping any highlights. Then you know you have a good exposure. I hope to give up my meter when I ge my M8.

http://www.jefoto.com

[peterv]

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I second the recommendation for the Sekonic 758DR. Also it works with Pocket Wizards and can store 3 different camera profiles (including camera specific clipping points and dynamic ranges).

 

One caveat is the profiling for specific cameras. Sekonic has offered a few canned ones on their website (not the M8), but if you're going to do your own prepare to spend some time. Plus the profile card they make that is specific to that meter doesn't come with the meter. It's an extra $99. Still cheaper than the Kodak grayscale cards and it's not just a piece of cardboard.

 

The profiling is very time consuming. You can create four separate profiles for each camera flash (reflected and incident) and ambient (reflected and incident).

 

After doing some research, the Sekonic 758 seems a really nice light meter to accompany my M8 (and coming up MP)

 

Did anyone go through the trouble of making a profile for the M8 yet?

 

Was it as tiresome as expected?

 

Peter

[pklein]

I rarely use a spot meter, but when I need it, I am *very* glad I have one. Well, two actually. I have an old analog Pentax 1 degree spot meter, as well as the Minolta Spotmeter M, the predecessor to the Spotmeter F.

 

Most of the time, I only use a spotmeter for theater and concert work, where it is a lifesaver. Those bright pools of light against a dark background can really fool a conventional camera meter. Unless you have a DSLR with a good internal spot meter, you have to guess. Even the best guesser can be fooled. And SLRs are often too noisy for a play or concert.

 

The Minolta needs the ISO and a mode to be set whenever it is turned on. It has a highlight and shadow reading that can be useful at times. It displays either EV or f-stop.

 

The Pentax analog is big and heavy, but just as accurate as the Minolta. It will probably last longer than the Minolta! I wouldn't want carry it around, but it's fine for stage work.

 

Most of the time, for outdoor work, metering the grass in similar light to your subject, and you're usually OK. An incident meter, or taking substitute highlight an shadow readings with the camera meter works fine for contrasty light.

 

--Peter

[nzav]

After doing some research, the Sekonic 758 seems a really nice light meter to accompany my M8 (and coming up MP)

 

Did anyone go through the trouble of making a profile for the M8 yet?

 

Was it as tiresome as expected?

 

Peter

 

Peter,

 

I have profiled a few cameras with the L-758, but have not had time to do the M8 yet. It is not that tedious and will open your eyes to what your camera is truly capable of reproducing. You won't hear it discussed on any of the camera forums, but no two sensors are identical in response even from the same manfacturer, and beyond the sensor is a host of other areas where differences can emerge.This goes for Kodak (Leica), Canon, Nikon (Sony), or any one else's chips.

 

What calibration will accomplish is your meter will know exactly what your camera's sensor can, and cannot capture. The procedure can take as long as an afternoon if you are willing to be precise. What I mean is, you can quickly calibrate it for the base 160 ISO and have the meter's software extrapolate the rest of the ISO speeds from that. This works as well as can be expected from a single set of data and will certainly be more accurate than any internal meter, but in reality, the DR of a sensor also changes with the ISO setting.

 

With a slightly longer investment of time, you can shoot your test samples at the lowest and highest ISO settings and have the meter's software extrapolate the remaining ISO's from two ISO speeds for more accuracy. However, this is the only meter I know of that can adjust the data points for every ISO available individually. This takes more time and test shots, but the precision of your readings will match the camera's capabilities exactly across all ISO speeds, and you get a metering instrument finely tuned to what your camera can record.

 

The other item overlooked in some of the responses that suggest just taking a quick reading and "chimping" is using flash where you need a good reading or at least a starting point. Those who say you can nail it in just a couple of shots must not use flash or rely heavily on luck!

 

I highly recommend Sekonic's test target that they developed for this meter. It is very accurate by my tests on a densitometer, and cut the work down considerably. Instead of taking your test shots in 1/6, 1/3, or 1/2 stop increments as you would do with an 18% gray card, this test target has patches surrounding the 18% gray patch that are +/- 1/6, 1/3, and 1/2 stop increments. You only need to take one shot to get the full range of fractions for each bracket shot in the exposure series. Since the recommended test requires an 11-stop series (18% zone V and 5 stops under plus 5 stops over) of brackets per ISO at whatever increments your lens/shutter speeds are capable of, this can save a lot of time.

 

I don't wish to offend anyone here, but in my opinion this is much better spent time than trying to hand-code lenses and some of the other things people do here with their M8's. It will teach you more about light and how your camera responds to it than any point, shoot, chimp, shoot, chimp, shoot, etc. methodology. When you understand how to handle light without the hit-and-miss techniques, you will be able to shoot faster and waste less time peeking at the LCD, and isn't that what the Leica philosophy is all about?

 

The other question that begs for an answer is when you are using the highest quality lenses available that you want to extract the most detail out of, doesn't it make sense to be sure you are not throwing any of that quality away by over or under exposing?

[marknorton]

Another vote for Zone VI modified Pentax spotmeter. Just the job for metering into those shadows.

[dogberry]

I agree with one of the posters about the difficulty of using spot meters. I find that a good incident light meter is invaluable. I use 2 M6 TTLs and an M8 and I always carry my little Sekonic 308. It's a really wonderful little meter and it has the advantage over the photodiode type meters, that it also works well in low light when a lot of the battery-less meters give up. When the light its tricky, a good incident light meter can save your bacon. Buying a spot meter is kind of like buying the same kind of meter you already have in your camera again.

[rosuna]

This one is very interesting:

 

http://www.butzi.net/reviews/pocketspot.htm

 

But the company Metered Light has dissapeared and I cannot find any in the second hand market.

[gdewitt]

I have been using a Pentax for many, many years. It never fails.

 

BTW, the problem with incident meters is that you have to be able to get it into the same light as the subject. When you can it is great, but when you can't...

 

I have never failed with a spot meter to get a good exposure. Just meter for the hightlights and learn, mostly by trial and error, what setting yields the right results based on how bright you want the brightest part of the scene to look. Not difficult at all, just takes a little knowledge and practice, like everything else in photography.

 

Everyone has a bias, of course. Mine is that I shoot landscapes. If I shot people I might have a different perspective.

[peterv]

Peter,

 

I have profiled a few cameras with the L-758, but have not had time to do the M8 yet. It is not that tedious and will open your eyes to what your camera is truly capable of reproducing. You won't hear it discussed on any of the camera forums, but no two sensors are identical in response even from the same manfacturer, and beyond the sensor is a host of other areas where differences can emerge.This goes for Kodak (Leica), Canon, Nikon (Sony), or any one else's chips.

 

What calibration will accomplish is your meter will know exactly what your camera's sensor can, and cannot capture. The procedure can take as long as an afternoon if you are willing to be precise. What I mean is, you can quickly calibrate it for the base 160 ISO and have the meter's software extrapolate the rest of the ISO speeds from that. This works as well as can be expected from a single set of data and will certainly be more accurate than any internal meter, but in reality, the DR of a sensor also changes with the ISO setting.

 

With a slightly longer investment of time, you can shoot your test samples at the lowest and highest ISO settings and have the meter's software extrapolate the remaining ISO's from two ISO speeds for more accuracy. However, this is the only meter I know of that can adjust the data points for every ISO available individually. This takes more time and test shots, but the precision of your readings will match the camera's capabilities exactly across all ISO speeds, and you get a metering instrument finely tuned to what your camera can record.

 

The other item overlooked in some of the responses that suggest just taking a quick reading and "chimping" is using flash where you need a good reading or at least a starting point. Those who say you can nail it in just a couple of shots must not use flash or rely heavily on luck!

 

I highly recommend Sekonic's test target that they developed for this meter. It is very accurate by my tests on a densitometer, and cut the work down considerably. Instead of taking your test shots in 1/6, 1/3, or 1/2 stop increments as you would do with an 18% gray card, this test target has patches surrounding the 18% gray patch that are +/- 1/6, 1/3, and 1/2 stop increments. You only need to take one shot to get the full range of fractions for each bracket shot in the exposure series. Since the recommended test requires an 11-stop series (18% zone V and 5 stops under plus 5 stops over) of brackets per ISO at whatever increments your lens/shutter speeds are capable of, this can save a lot of time.

 

I don't wish to offend anyone here, but in my opinion this is much better spent time than trying to hand-code lenses and some of the other things people do here with their M8's. It will teach you more about light and how your camera responds to it than any point, shoot, chimp, shoot, chimp, shoot, etc. methodology. When you understand how to handle light without the hit-and-miss techniques, you will be able to shoot faster and waste less time peeking at the LCD, and isn't that what the Leica philosophy is all about?

 

The other question that begs for an answer is when you are using the highest quality lenses available that you want to extract the most detail out of, doesn't it make sense to be sure you are not throwing any of that quality away by over or under exposing?

 

Nick,

 

thanks for the intersting and elaborate answer to my question.

 

I think you are right that using this lightmeter calibrated for our camera's and films could save us a lot of trial and error time...

 

I'm seriously considering this versatile meter, altough I think profiling it for the M8 might be a lot of work...

 

Did you make -other- profiles yet?

 

Do you know where we can download the ready-made profiles?

 

Thanks again,

 

Peter

[ChrisC]

I've come over all warm and fuzzy and bursting with love now I realise I'm amongst so many fellow view-camera refugees. But if I really have to go back to meticulously metering exposures for the M8 with a handheld meter, I fear the choice might be between buying a throat slitter, or heaving the miscreant camera from the nearest bridge. Dusting off my Minolta meter would take all the joy out of my downsizing exercise in moving to the M8.

 

.................Chris

[nzav]

Nick,

 

thanks for the intersting and elaborate answer to my question.

 

I think you are right that using this lightmeter calibrated for our camera's and films could save us a lot of trial and error time...

 

I'm seriously considering this versatile meter, altough I think profiling it for the M8 might be a lot of work...

 

Did you make -other- profiles yet?

 

Do you know where we can download the ready-made profiles?

 

Thanks again,

 

Peter

 

Peter,

 

The L-578 is a relatively new spot/incident meter, and Sekonic has plans to make profiles available for download. When they do post any, they will be on their website; you may want to check it occasionally.

 

The point I tried to emphasize however, is a generic profile made from a single camera body can not match the accuracy of one made specifically for your camera body. Furthermore, your camera's own meter will not be as accurate as a calibrated meter because it is adjusted to a theoretical standard, and as such it is accurate, but it is not calibrated to the individual sensor's response in your camera.

 

Camera sensors are similar to professional films in some ways; each emulsion batch had to be tested, and your meters adjusted to compensate for any differences. While not as extreme; individual sensors and the supporting components do vary at manufacture and with age.

 

Since the first standards were set in the photographic industry, the acceptable tolerance has been +/- 1/3 of a stop per component. That means +/- 1/3 stop on the lens aperture, +/- 1/3 stop in the shutter speed, +/- 1/3 stop for the ISO (ASA/DIN back then), and +/- 1/3 stop for processing error. The theory was that the + and - errors would cancel each other out, but when they grouped into either + or -, then the error could be a full stop or more. Todays digital sensors are much less forgiving of exposure errors than the films were and you need tolerances of 1/6 of a stop or better. If you want that kind of precision in your exposures, then calibration is the only answer.

 

I can tell you one thing for sure; those clipping areas (red flashing areas) that you see on the camera's LCD are only for JPEGs and are too consevative for DNG files. If you shoot DNG using the red warning areas and/or the camera's histogram as an exposure guide, you are throwing away a lot of useful image information! Of course, if you only shoot JPEGs you are not getting the full DR from your camera's sensor, only a RAW (DNG) file can deliver that.

 

I will not tell you that the calibration is easy (nor is the Zone System), but it is manageable and the time spent doing it will reward you with more accurate exposures and the resulting richer files. A side benefit is the procedure will teach you what it takes to get rich files and you will approach your shots differently, looking at tones and nuances that the spot meter can quantify. To me, it is an investment in the system.

 

I currently have an overload of projects to work through with deadlines, but when things get caught up, I will definitely calibrate my M8.

 

I must apologize for the length of my responses; they tend to be far too long and are turning into seminars!

[Philinflash]

This thread raises a question in my mind about how much versatility we can expect out of a RAW file.

 

I haven't thrown my spot meter away yet, but I would like too. It was useful when shooting onto film because of the limitations of exposure ranges that each respective film has (had?).

 

But, if one uses the full range of exposure adjustments available on a RAW file, how many Zones are you covering? In other words, if you use the center-weighted M8 meter to approximate an average exposure for the frame and then adjust in post using software like Adobe Bridge, perhaps zooming in on spots of interest. But how many Zones up and down to you effectively "get"? Has anyone attempted this sort of calibration?

 

Philip Kozloff

[lars_bergquist]

I notice that the people who believe in spot meters also tend to believe in the Zone System; the spot meter is of course the main liturgical object of the cult. The Zone System however is nonsense. This is not a matter of opinion, or of practicality. It is a scientific fact, and a pretty basic one too. Ansel and Edward were talking through their ten gallon hats.

 

To see this it is enough to compute the corresponding reflectance values of the supposed zones, and the fact stares you in the face. If there is anybody who after that exercise does not comprehend this, then I will say that there are photographic Taleban too ...

 

Mr Kozloff however seems to suspect that there is something fishy about the Zone System. He is right.

 

The old man from the Age of the Three Rs

[jaapv]

Philip, don't let the Old Man lead you astray. As another old man from the age of oil spot exposure meters, I can tell you that the Zone System was a "scientific" attempt to standarize (calibrate if you will) the exposure and gradation of the photographic process from capture to print and as such was and is highly successful We only need to look at Ansel's prints to see that. That does not take away that Lars is totally right that the whole idea is not without its detractors, particularly with the more "artistic" photographers of the time. He is wrong about the ten-gallon hat though. Ansel's hat was more of the Tilley Hat type...

All in all it is a practical protocol for good black and white prints in my experience, nothing less but nothing more either, certainly not a cult..

Having put that out of the way:

The M8 has a dynamic range of about ten stops. That means you can recover all ten zones from raw, without drowning in noise.

Compare that to slide film with a dynamic range of five stops, black and white printing paper with eight and the best B&W film with twelve.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Philinflash]

That does not take away that Lars is totally right that the whole idea is not without its detractors, particularly with the more "artistic" photographers of the time.

 

The M8 has a dynamic range of about ten stops. That means you can recover all ten zones from raw, without drowning in noise.

 

Compare that to slide film with a dynamic range of five stops, black and white printing paper with eight and the best B&W film with twelve.

 

Lars and Jaap, I am enjoying your mutual jibes but I doubt that either of you has an age edge on me. I seem to remember when spot meters were invented! I was tempted to state my question in terms of f-stops, as you do Jaap, which tends to attract less emotional baggage than does the Zone System. I regard the Zone System, btw, as Ansel's attempt to cover science with a language of Art, rather than the other way around.

 

Taking your assertion that the M8 has a range of 10 stops for a starting point, I still wonder how much we have to worry about high and low "spots" given the software post-production tools that are available to us in the digital age. Input appreciated.

 

Philip Kozloff