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Good Spot Meter to go with M8?


DaveEP

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

 

Same here Nick...

 

If only there were 48 hours in a day :mad:

 

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

 

Please don't!

 

I wouldn't mind attending a seminar on this subject... :)

 

Please let me know when you start calibrating the M8. I plan to do the same. It would be interesting to compare results.

 

Knd Rgrds,

 

Peter

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Please make sure you copy me on your results too. for the next few weeks I am going to be too busy shooting to look at a new meter, but after that I am looking seriously at a spot meter.... and profiling 'seems' like it would be useful, but at this point I am still open minded.

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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

 

Philip, if you overexpose, and the red clipping appears, then those sensor cells have been overloaded and they can no longer register any detail. No amount of post processing, short of actual 'painting' of false detail in Photoshop, can restore detail to those areas. In that respect it all works like reversal film. Whatever exposure latitude exists, is to be found on the shadow side, i.e. moderate underexposures can be saved.

 

The old man from he Age of the Contact Print

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Peter,

--------------

 

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!

 

-----------------

 

Luck?

 

The picture posted below (I hope) was taken with the aid of a small (ISO 100 GN 24) 'stupid' flash on manual, held aimed at the ceiling (height somewhat less than 3 m) and coupled to the M8 with a shoe-to-foot cord scrounged from my old OM system. I made one test exposure when I entered the room. The preview and the histogram told me immediately what compensation I needed. This is the second in a series of exposures, all at f:4.

 

The old man from the Age of Flashpowder

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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

 

Lars,

 

You seem to be posing as some kind of guru with your "The old man from whatever" byline, but the fact is you not only misunderstand film technology, but seem to be ill-informed about digital technology as well.

 

Your statement "The Zone System however is nonsense" is in itself utter nonsense. Perhaps if your prints were displayed in famous museums, found in highly regarded collections, and sold for tens of thousands of dollars, I might respect your opinion. I can only assume you came to your conclusions in some way other than through making a study of the Zone System and actually attempting to apply it; if you did study and apply it, then your conclusion might be otherwise.

 

I say "otherwise" because not every photographer that tried learning the Zone System has been able to comprehend the methodology. There is nothing wrong with that, but dismissing something you do not understand as "nonsense" is simply wrong. Those that learned and applied the system (John Sexton comes to mind) have their photos hanging in museums and in collections also. Maybe they don't know what they are doing either! By the way, how many of your images are in collections or museums Lars?

 

You also make some silly statements about the red warning areas on the LCD as being completely washed out; again, utter nonsense. But if you were truly "The old man from the age of digital," you would already know that that the red areas only apply to clipping in JPEG files and not RAW files. You do understand the difference between RAW and JPEG, don't you? That was a rhetorical question, please don't respond.

 

If the image taken with bounce light that you posted later in this thread is supposed to reinforce your argument, then it speaks for itself. I would think you would have presented a more challenging situation, but if that is all you shoot, why bother with a Leica?

 

I am not interested in idle banter with self-proclaimed experts on this subject because after over 30 years as an advertising/commercial photographer shooting everything from automobiles to watches and microchips, using every film format from 8x10 to 35mm, and operating my own in-studio lab running E6 daily, I believe I can spot a certain lack of knowledge in a post.

 

Although I have been shooting digital for over a decade, and consult with a number of camera manufacturers, you do not see any of this as some sort of a byline under my post in an attempt to grab some credibility. One reason I do not post as regularly as some on this or other forums is I prefer not to waste valuable time on responses such as this, but sometimes, self-proclaimed experts make statements that will mislead people genuinely interested in the art and science of photography. So please Lars, with all due respect, if you must respond to someone on this forum, don't drag me into it by quoting me again; at least not until you make some sense!

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Lars,

 

...

 

You also make some silly statements about the red warning areas on the LCD as being completely washed out; again, utter nonsense. But if you were truly "The old man from the age of digital," you would already know that that the red areas only apply to clipping in JPEG files and not RAW files.

 

Nick, with all due respect to your substantial background, I must take exception to your statement quoted above. There is a possibility that you may not be entirely correct in your assertion.

 

It could depend on the software one uses to read the RAW file and furthermore it could depend on how user is using that software. For instance, I am using Adobe Bridge and, if I set the shadow clippping and highlight clipping alerts on, I will get blue and red warning coloration in the respective areas in both JPEG and DNG. If the clipping alerts are toggled off, I do not get the alerts, obviously. Nick, perhaps you always have the alerts on your software, whatever it is, off or perhaps your software does not alert highs and lows for DNG files.

 

Whatever the explanation, it might be a good idea to cut Lars a little slack on the premise that you may have not considered all possibilities. He seems like a decent enough guy to me.

 

Philip Kozloff

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Nick, I will let the invective pass by.

 

There is of course flash – and flash. There are units you can easily keep in your small bag as a backup for unusually low light. There is the full studio kit. In between, there are the intermediate units with more power, and various options. I do own such a unit too, but it cannot be part of anyone's basic equipment (unless of course he is a news photographer).

 

I do fully know that you could do a more glamorous job in your studio, or with a flash unit twice the size of an M8. My only intention was to show that if you keep your wits about you, and do some preliminary homework in order to obtain a 'ballpark' setting (and doing homework is fast and inexpensive in digital) then you can get an acceptable result with very simple equipment, and without trusting to luck. In this specific case, I knew that bounce with that unit, in a modern room with a white ceiling, would need about f:4–5.6 at ISO 320. Here, in a town house from before the war (WW I) it took f:4 because of the higher ceiling. Knowing this, that single test exposure was enough.

 

In other words, do not compare apples to bananas ... We suit equipment and methods to the situation, but to my mind, the M way is the minimalist way. Even so, being a mini-fundamentalist would be as bad as being a maxi-one. Once Gene Smith was asked by an admirer, "do you always use available light?" –"Yes, all the light that's available."

 

The important thing is to remember that there is never just ONE way. And the best way is that which gives you the result you're after. As in this case.

 

As for that 'old man' stuff – when you are seventy, you have to allow yourself a bit of self-irony, or you would be insufferable.

 

Best regards, Lars Bergquist

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BTW, I seem to have trod on a toe or two by suggesting that the trouble with the Zone System is not just a matter of the opinions of a few 'detractors', but appears to be some serious errors of reasoning by its creators. As I wrote above, this should be evident to anyone with a pocket calculator. Explaining it all fully in small easy steps would take some space, and some explanation of the historical situation in which the System was created, would require quite a bit of space, and seems to be beside the purpose of this thread. If a number of people still want to know about my reasoning, then please say so, and I may well start a specialized thread (in the Customer Forum, maybe).

 

The old man from the Age of Selenium Meters

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Lars, Nick, I think the time to get into a heated argument about the zone system is a considerable number of decades behind us.;) At the time of its conception it was a brilliant scientific framework to optimize the whole photographic process from exposure to print, which up to then had been totally hit or miss. The true value of the system is that it still is an excellent protocol to get museum-quality prints and a fine learning tool to understand concepts like exposure latitude, gradation curves etc. That being the case a discussion about the merits or faults of the underlying theory is moot and not worth getting hot under the collar about.

An ancient fogey from the age of untwisting knickers:D

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The old man from the Age of Selenium Meters

 

Let us venerate Selenium Meters. I still have a Weston Master IV in perfect working order (requires no batteries) and my father's Weston Master, circa 1940 and pre-Roman Numeral suffixes, works, too!

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Nick, with all due respect to your substantial background, I must take exception to your statement quoted above. There is a possibility that you may not be entirely correct in your assertion.

 

It could depend on the software one uses to read the RAW file and furthermore it could depend on how user is using that software. For instance, I am using Adobe Bridge and, if I set the shadow clippping and highlight clipping alerts on, I will get blue and red warning coloration in the respective areas in both JPEG and DNG. If the clipping alerts are toggled off, I do not get the alerts, obviously. Nick, perhaps you always have the alerts on your software, whatever it is, off or perhaps your software does not alert highs and lows for DNG files.

 

Whatever the explanation, it might be a good idea to cut Lars a little slack on the premise that you may have not considered all possibilities. He seems like a decent enough guy to me.

 

Philip Kozloff

 

Philip,

 

With all due respect, you are entitled to take exception with my statements, but please make sure you have read what I stated before correcting me.

 

I was not talking about highlight/shadow warnings in ACR or C1 Pro (or any RAW converter for that matter), I was responding to Lars' comment about using the camera's LCD to assess his exposure through "chimping." That display on the camera's back only shows a histogram and clipping warnings for a JPEG thumbnail and not the full range of a RAW file. If he wants to use the camera's clipping warning or histogram for exposure assessment, then I have nothing further to say to him except good luck!

 

The DNG does indeed have more highlight detail than the camera's LCD would indicate, which can be extracted in any decent RAW converter. This was the main topic of this thread and the reason I responded to the OP suggesting calibration of a handheld meter to the camera sensor's true DR.

 

I evaluate RAW converters sent to me by most major publishers like Phase One, Adobe, Bibble, etc. with many pro-level cameras, not just the M8. I have also used Photoshop since version 2 (I used Aldous PhotoStyler before that), so this is not a subject I am unfamiliar with. Most of these evaluations are covered by NDA's so I cannot really discuss them in detail.

 

I really don't understand your comment on cutting Lars some slack. When he makes ridiculous statements about photographers who defined and shaped the course of photography, then he should be prepared to be corrected. In light of his comments, I believe my question about how many of his images hang in museums was valid and to the point. I did not resort to name-calling or making derogatory remarks, although some of my questions may have left him slightly uncomfortable.

 

He also made some cavalier statements about photographic techniques that he doesn't fully comprehend, and again, he should be prepared to be corrected.

 

I have no personal animosity toward Lars or anyone on this forum, and in my posts, I only try to help clarify misunderstood photographic concepts because I take photography very seriously; not as a casual hobby. Rather than respond to people who wish to argue, I give one response to explain my point, If it is not accepted, then I move on. If the person genuinely wants to understand further rather than argue, then I will add to my explanation. Life is too short however to banter endlessly.

 

Of course, Lars is a decent guy, and I made no comments on his character, only his misconceptions. I made strong statements, but they were in rebuttal to some outlandish statements made by him.

 

Nick

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I would like to point out that the camera LCD first gives the overexposed areas in DNG and only jumps to the JPG situation (which seems to be about one stop less latitude )after half a second, when the camera processor has finished doing the Jpeg transformation. This is when one changes frames in the "info" mode, whilst holding the "play"button. So it is possible to judge the DNG-s in the camera.

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I have tried to understand and use the Zone system since the 60's, with difficulty.

 

I use 35mm, so that limits things considerably since part of Adams' work involved recording readings for an exposure and developing the negative so as to end up with 8 zones of printable b/w.

 

I have read Adams books many times, learning more each time. They look positively simple compared to Minor White's explanations of the same material.

 

Only since getting to diginegs have I come to the realization that Adams 'visualization," intended to get to a negative with a specific dynamic range, has nothing to do with Not Messing With the Pic.

 

All these guys beat the hell out of the image. If you look at Adams descriptions of the printing instructions for his published prints, you would think that the simple manipulation we do in PS or other sw is naive.

 

How I love his images. I am learning to make ones that I like. A few more years .....

 

Now, a question ot two: If one takes only a dng with the M8, what is being displayed on the viewing screen? Is there always an embedded thumbnail or baby jpg? And why does it put of a crummy image and then make it more clear?

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Lars, Nick, I think the time to get into a heated argument about the zone system is a considerable number of decades behind us.;) At the time of its conception it was a brilliant scientific framework to optimize the whole photographic process from exposure to print, which up to then had been totally hit or miss. The true value of the system is that it still is an excellent protocol to get museum-quality prints and a fine learning tool to understand concepts like exposure latitude, gradation curves etc. That being the case a discussion about the merits or faults of the underlying theory is moot and not worth getting hot under the collar about.

An ancient fogey from the age of untwisting knickers:D

 

jaap,

 

I regret that this is perceived as a heated argument; I certainly do not see it as such, because I had no intention of arguing, simply presenting some facts. The dismissal of the Zone System as "nonsense" was in itself nonsense, and I stated so in no uncertain terms.

 

While I am not a fanatic defender of Ansel Adams, statements like "Ansel and Edward were talking through their ten gallon hats" about two of the most famous photographers of the last century are unjustified by any standards. The man spent his life in pursuit of photographic perfection and does not deserve to be dismissed in such a manner. To this day, his images inspire and encourage others to achieve better images.

 

Indeed, I studied the Zone System, made all the film tests, transitioned it to color transparency work, and finally, adapted the concepts to digital shooting.

 

The Zone System was always intended by Ansel Adams to be an evolving technique, and photography's fundamentals are still with us in the form of EV, f-stops, and shutter speeds; in other words, exposure. Even most of today's professional digital cameras are quite similar to to their film predecessors, except the film was replaced by an electronic chip. So digital is still photography with all of its principles, only the recording medium has changed.

 

When the Zone System was developed, films had to be tested with different processing times to expand and contract the tonal scale (DR). We calibrated our spot meters with our film processing and ISO to achieve the desired results. With digital, we are still doing exactly that with our digital negatives called RAW files in Photoshop.

 

The problem today with many photographers is they do not understand what their digital cameras are capable of. They don't know the true DR of the sensor, or what linear capture is, or how the camera applies a gamma curve to the linear capture to produce a histogram, or the importance of bit-depth, or... well I could go on but let's cut to the chase.

 

If you apply a modified Zone System approach to your shooting style, calibrate the camera sensor to an accurate (preferably spot) meter, then you will know exactly how many stops your sensor will capture.

 

That knowledge is crucial since a digital sensor is far less forgiving than any film when it comes to exposure error. If you are aware that the last stop (highlight) contains one half of the total data of you image file with the rest cut in half with every stop further down, you understand how critical accurate exposure is.

 

So my point is the Zone System is far from a dead relic of the past, and those that invest the time and effort to understand how it can alter their digital shooting, will be rewarded with vastly superior quality image files. And to those that say the camera's LCD gives them accurate information about their RAW capture, I say good luck!

 

Nick

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I have tried to understand and use the Zone system since the 60's, with difficulty.

 

I use 35mm, so that limits things considerably since part of Adams' work involved recording readings for an exposure and developing the negative so as to end up with 8 zones of printable b/w.

 

I have read Adams books many times, learning more each time. They look positively simple compared to Minor White's explanations of the same material.

 

Only since getting to diginegs have I come to the realization that Adams 'visualization," intended to get to a negative with a specific dynamic range, has nothing to do with Not Messing With the Pic.

 

All these guys beat the hell out of the image. If you look at Adams descriptions of the printing instructions for his published prints, you would think that the simple manipulation we do in PS or other sw is naive.

 

How I love his images. I am learning to make ones that I like. A few more years .....

 

Now, a question ot two: If one takes only a dng with the M8, what is being displayed on the viewing screen? Is there always an embedded thumbnail or baby jpg? And why does it put of a crummy image and then make it more clear?

 

Bill,

 

I am not privy to Leica's exact method of creating a display thumbnail for the LCD on the back, but I can assure you it is not the RAW file. The JPEG is embedded in the DNG, you would not be able to view a DNG without it.

 

A RAW file is the info that comes off the sensor, passes through the A/D converter and becomes a digital file. This is a linear gamma file that if opened in a RAW converter in its native form would look dark and extremely underexposed.

 

My best guess is the JPEG is being produced as a "progressive" JPEG that goes through stages as it is processed to its final view. You can make such JPEGs for use on websites in Photoshop.

 

Here is a simple test if you want to convince yourself that the JPEG histograms on the LCD are inaccurate:

 

1. Take some DNG shots of any subject and without going crazy, overexpose until you just start seeing the red areas on the LCD.

2. Download them to your computer and run up Photoshop.

3. Replace the SD card into the M8 - do not delete the files.

4. Open the series of DNG files you downloaded in ACR - observe the H/S clipping areas and histogram in ACR for each image.

5. If using CS3, adjust the highlight recovery slider (or if using CS2 the exposure and brightness sliders) and you will see the red clipped areas scale back and even disappear.

6. While doing this, have the M8 nearby with the display showing the same image files for comparison.

 

That should quickly demonstrate what you would have discarded if you exposed the DNG as a JPEG following the LCD recommendations to avoid overexposure. Those areas you thought were hopelessly lost when you were "chimping" miraculously reappeared.

 

Regarding your comment on the amount of manipulation that Adams, Weston, and others applied to their images, you are absolutely correct. Adams always said the negative was only a starting point and would print a single negative for days before he was satisfied with some images. And yes, he used hot print developer to bring out areas, bleach, spotting and more, after he did his dodging and burning during the print exposure. Over the years he would go back and reprint many negatives because of newer papers/chemicals/techniques that he thought would improve them. The Zone System allowed him to make negatives that could stand that much manipulation.

Gene Smith spent weeks working on individual images. Incidentally, Ansel also shot in 35mm.

 

We have the same options with RAW files today, and like Adams, will be able to reprint our RAW files in the future with better RAW converters. I have reprinted RAW image files shot years ago that substantially improved due to better conversions with less noise and improved color.

 

Nick

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The Jpeg enbedded in the DNG is quite small, nowhere near full-sized. By itself it wouldn't support zooming down to pixel level, which is what I believe the camera allows. So I think there may be some rendering of the RAW file at some point.

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jaap,

 

 

...If you apply a modified Zone System approach to your shooting style, calibrate the camera sensor to an accurate (preferably spot) meter, then you will know exactly how many stops your sensor will capture.

 

That knowledge is crucial since a digital sensor is far less forgiving than any film when it comes to exposure error. If you are aware that the last stop (highlight) contains one half of the total data of you image file with the rest cut in half with every stop further down, you understand how critical accurate exposure is...

 

Nick

 

Nick,

 

I feel sorry about all the fuzz that occured during the last two pages of this thread. I'm the one that brought this thread back to live after precisely two months, and I feel somewhat responsible for the commotion. Of course I'm not responsible, I know, but I like to think that I can do my bit to help everyone to stay in a good mood...:)

 

Especially since this is such an interesting and important subject.

 

I contacted Sekonic (Mamiya) and got a very polite reply to my e-mail saying that "Due to the variances found among different cameras of the same make and model (sometimes up to half a stop), Sekonic felt it was best not to post "pre-made" profiles for these cameras. With digital photography, a discrepancy of half a stop could skew the profile too much to be acceptable."

This answer from Sekonic is, I think, much in accordance with the comments that you have been making in this thread.

 

After reading the manuals for both the meter itself and the calibrating software, I can say it's not an easy task to make a camera profile if you're not experienced, but it seems worthwhile...

 

BTW, what books on the subject of digital exposure do you recommend?

 

Thanks,

 

looking forward to your next seminar :cool:

 

Peter

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Philip,

 

With all due respect, you are entitled to take exception with my statements, but please make sure you have read what I stated before correcting me.

 

I was not talking about highlight/shadow warnings in ACR or C1 Pro (or any RAW converter for that matter), I was responding to Lars' comment about using the camera's LCD to assess his exposure through "chimping." That display on the camera's back only shows a histogram and clipping warnings for a JPEG thumbnail and not the full range of a RAW file. If he wants to use the camera's clipping warning or histogram for exposure assessment, then I have nothing further to say to him except good luck!

...

 

Nick

 

Thanks for clearing that up for me, Nick.

 

I must admit that I hadn't understood that the thread was trying to deal with the in-camera LCD exposure information. Perhaps that is because I do not give it too much credence and I usually do not have time to digest the in-camera information, except in the grossest terms. I find it quicker and better to bracket around my initial exposure (if I have even time to do that) and to deal with the fine-tuning of exposure and balance in post. Perhaps you and I are not a million miles apart on this.

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Nick,

 

I feel sorry about all the fuzz that occured during the last two pages of this thread. I'm the one that brought this thread back to live after precisely two months, and I feel somewhat responsible for the commotion. Of course I'm not responsible, I know, but I like to think that I can do my bit to help everyone to stay in a good mood...:)

 

Especially since this is such an interesting and important subject.

 

I contacted Sekonic (Mamiya) and got a very polite reply to my e-mail saying that "Due to the variances found among different cameras of the same make and model (sometimes up to half a stop), Sekonic felt it was best not to post "pre-made" profiles for these cameras. With digital photography, a discrepancy of half a stop could skew the profile too much to be acceptable."

This answer from Sekonic is, I think, much in accordance with the comments that you have been making in this thread.

 

After reading the manuals for both the meter itself and the calibrating software, I can say it's not an easy task to make a camera profile if you're not experienced, but it seems worthwhile...

 

BTW, what books on the subject of digital exposure do you recommend?

 

Thanks,

 

looking forward to your next seminar :cool:

 

Peter

 

Peter,

 

No need to apologize; I don't believe anyone has been wronged here. Perhaps a more diplomatic response from me would have been easier for everyone to digest. I try not to wrap technical discussions with rhetoric, but give information that is useful and based on my experience rather than repeated like some urban legend.

 

I am working on a number of projects as I stated before, and some are tied in with much of what has been discussed in this thread. Unfortunately, I can not talk about most of what I am doing due to signed NDA's, but I can say your approach of studying the L-578 manual is an excellent way to understand more about calibration. The concept is not new, and has proven to produce a greater percentage of perfect exposures.

 

At this moment, I know of no books on any shelf that do more than cover the subject in a casual manner. That may change in the future, but I can not really say more than that right now.

 

In my honest opinion, the L-758 and the detailed approach Sekonic took to achieving accurate exposure, is perhaps the best tool to correct the issues plaguing many digital images today.

 

Once you get through the calibration procedure, you will understand completely what your camera can and cannot capture. Knowing those limits allows you to work within the boundaries (rather than hoping you did not exceed them) is a liberating feeling.

 

Nick

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Thanks for clearing that up for me, Nick.

 

I must admit that I hadn't understood that the thread was trying to deal with the in-camera LCD exposure information. Perhaps that is because I do not give it too much credence and I usually do not have time to digest the in-camera information, except in the grossest terms. I find it quicker and better to bracket around my initial exposure (if I have even time to do that) and to deal with the fine-tuning of exposure and balance in post. Perhaps you and I are not a million miles apart on this.

 

Philip,

 

No problem, I am glad we are on the same page... or at the very least in the same book!

 

Nick

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