How many of you use a light meter?

[lars_bergquist]

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Ascertaining the contrast range of the subject may be interesting, but does not get us very far, because the contrast ranges of most subjects are far larger than the dynamic range of any sensor or emulsion. The pertinent question is instead, where in this subject range do I place my exposure?

 

An incident light value solves immediately three problems:

 

(1) It gives us directly the maximum exposure that retains detail in a maximum diffuse highlight (which by definition cannot reflect more than 100% of the incident light; the actual maximum – new snow, white coated paper – is typically 80–85%). Therefore it prevents highlight burnout. Specular highlights are either light sources or reflections of them, and have always been allowed to print paper white.

 

(2) It gives us immediately the maximum shadow exposure, and therefore the maximum shadow detail, that is possible without highlight burnout.

 

(3) Given this, the mid-tones take care of themselves.

 

The only valid use of a spot meter is either to meter a 18% grey card (the mythical Zone V) and use this exposure, or to meter a maximum white diffuse target, c. 90%, and expose 4x or +2 f-stops. Both are really only less convenient ways of doing what an incident meter does in one step, without any accessories and without any search for Zone V.

 

An ExpoDisc held in front of the lens does in effect convert your camera meter into an incident meter. No extra battery, and it can travel in your shirt pocket. A photographer should never buy a shirt without a pocket.

 

The old man from the Age of Selenium and Kodachrome

[Michael Hiles]

David,

 

I suggest spending 1-2 hours on learning about exposure. It is not difficult, need not be very technical, and can be stored in the back of your mind for easy reference.

 

Then spend the rest of your photographic life thinking about where to point the camera. That's the trick. If you pictures are memorable mainly because they are well exposed, consider shuffleboard.

[bocaburger]

 

An incident light value solves immediately three problems:

 

(1) It gives us directly the maximum exposure that retains detail in a maximum diffuse highlight (which by definition cannot reflect more than 100% of the incident light; the actual maximum – new snow, white coated paper – is typically 80–85%). Therefore it prevents highlight burnout. Specular highlights are either light sources or reflections of them, and have always been allowed to print paper white.

 

(2) It gives us immediately the maximum shadow exposure, and therefore the maximum shadow detail, that is possible without highlight burnout.

 

(3) Given this, the mid-tones take care of themselves.

 

The only valid use of a spot meter is either to meter a 18% grey card (the mythical Zone V) and use this exposure, or to meter a maximum white diffuse target, c. 90%, and expose 4x or +2 f-stops. Both are really only less convenient ways of doing what an incident meter does in one step, without any accessories and without any search for Zone V.

 

An ExpoDisc held in front of the lens does in effect convert your camera meter into an incident meter. No extra battery, and it can travel in your shirt pocket. A photographer should never buy a shirt without a pocket.

 

 

1.An incident meter is useful only if the same light is falling on the meter that is falling on the subject. For example, standing on the shady side of a busy street shooting across as the sunny side (or the reverse), or standing in a shaded woods shooting across at a sunlit hillside (or vice-versa), an incident meter will give an erroneous result unless the photographer makes compensation by experience and judgment.

 

2. A spot meter can be used to meter anything the photographer, through experience, can judge the tone of. However I would agree with your assessment of spot metering for a photographer who lacks such experience.

 

3. An ExpoDisc is completely unnecessary to obtain a de-facto incident reading. All that is necessary is for the photographer to determine by trial-and-error how many stops (typically 1 to 2) the palm of his hand deviates from mid-tone (18%), make sure the lens is set on infinity, that he isn't shading his hand with his body, and that his hand fills the frame. The camera meter can be left pre-set to that compensated value so that readings are quick. Experienced photographers have been using that technique for ages, long before there was such a thing as ExpoDisc.

 

4. For examples of The Mythical Zone V, please refer to the thousands of mythical photographs by the mythical Ansel Adams

[giordano]

An incident light value solves immediately three problems:

 

(1) It gives us directly the maximum exposure that retains detail in a maximum diffuse highlight (which by definition cannot reflect more than 100% of the incident light; the actual maximum – new snow, white coated paper – is typically 80–85%). Therefore it prevents highlight burnout. Specular highlights are either light sources or reflections of them, and have always been allowed to print paper white.

 

(2) It gives us immediately the maximum shadow exposure, and therefore the maximum shadow detail, that is possible without highlight burnout.

 

(3) Given this, the mid-tones take care of themselves.

 

Agree 100%.

 

The only valid use of a spot meter is either to meter a 18% grey card (the mythical Zone V) and use this exposure, or to meter a maximum white diffuse target, c. 90%, and expose 4x or +2 f-stops.

 

Not so fast. A spot meter is the best tool in situations where it does help to know the contrast ratio, i.e. when it's a matter of matching the highlights and shadows of the subject and the range of the film or sensor. The Zone system as preached by Adams was one example, using choice of emulsion and development to adapt the "sensor" to the subject. But it works the other way too: often it's possible to adapt the lighting to the sensor - in the studio by manipulating lights, in the field by using reflectors, diffusers or lights.

 

I imagine that for most Leica users these situations are very rare. I have a Kenko spot/incident meter and have very seldom needed the spot metering.

[AlanJW]

I have a meter -- somewhere -- but I tend to use the M9 meter as a reference for exposure. It is not a true spot but small enough so you can take readings from different areas. I will also often simply dial in what I think the scene needs and then make adjustments after examining the image on the screen.

 

I don't want to rekindle the exposure to the right debate, but do meters designed for analog actually give you what you need for digital where you might want to move the curve differently? Maybe. My point is even a good handheld meter needs human interpretation and in that sense is not any "smarter" than the M9 meter. They're both dumb.

[lars_bergquist]

1.An incident meter is useful only if the same light is falling on the meter that is falling on the subject. For example, standing on the shady side of a busy street shooting across as the sunny side (or the reverse), or standing in a shaded woods shooting across at a sunlit hillside (or vice-versa), an incident meter will give an erroneous result unless the photographer makes compensation by experience and judgment.

 

True. If you want to meter the light that falls on the subject, then you must meter the light that falls on the subject, and not some other light. In the old days, we didn't meter every single exposure. We got the measure of the light, and then applied experience and judgment to the individual exposure. It is proponents of the in-camera reflected-light meter that often try to make some kind of gadget 'think for us'. A bloke with an incident meter is nearly by definition a thinking bloke.

 

2. A spot meter can be used to meter anything the photographer, through experience, can judge the tone of However I would agree with your assessment of spot metering for a photographer who lacks such experience.

 

I do not lack experience. And I have experimented with spot meters and found them deeply impractical. Why should I do all sorts of mental and arithmetical gymnastics when I can obtain a direct value at once? Also, palms do not only vary in reflectivity between people. Mine do it between seasons, too!

 

3. An ExpoDisc is completely unnecessary to obtain a de-facto incident reading. All that is necessary is for the photographer to determine by trial-and-error how many stops (typically 1 to 2) the palm of his hand deviates from mid-tone (18%), make sure the lens is set on infinity, that he isn't shading his hand with his body, and that his hand fills the frame. The camera meter can be left pre-set to that compensated value so that readings are quick. Experienced photographers have been using that technique for ages, long before there was such a thing as ExpoDisc.

 

See above about palms. And a corrected reflective reading is not the same thing as 'de facto' incident reading. You seem to prefer, as a matter of principle, fuss, delay and uncertainty to certainty and convenience.

 

4. For examples of The Mythical Zone V, please refer to the thousands of mythical photographs by the mythical Ansel Adams

 

Adam's techniques were a relic of the age when large negatives were printed contact on ungraded paper, so that you had to adjust the contrast of the negative to the paper. He took that mindset into an era when small negatives were enlarged on a range of graded bromide papers. His understanding of the physics was deficient. This is not the place for a dissertaion on the Zone Religion, but rest assured that it can be demolished until nothing is left of it. Not even the notion of a 'zone' would stand.

 

Adams got his images not because of, but in spite of this mumbo-jumbo. But I repeat, this forum is not the place.

 

The old man from the Adamsian Age

[250swb]

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(3) Given this, the mid-tones take care of themselves.

 

The only valid use of a spot meter is either to meter a 18% grey card (the mythical Zone V) and use this exposure, or to meter a maximum white diffuse target, c. 90%, and expose 4x or +2 f-stops. Both are really only less convenient ways of doing what an incident meter does in one step, without any accessories and without any search for Zone V.

 

Making a reflectance reading seem complicated is I suppose one way to labour your point. But it is a simple concept to expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights, unless you are using colour, or have an annual holiday at each end of the same film. A reflectance reading gives quantifiable information the photographer can use, an incident reading only provides information the photograper can follow. Many years ago I was taught from the outset to use all available information to make a creative choice of my own with light readings, I guess that is where we differ.

 

Steve

[Richardgb]

<snip>

 

4. For examples of The Mythical Zone V, please refer to the thousands of mythical photographs by the mythical Ansel Adams

 

Ansel Adams is rightly admired not because of his Zone system but because he understood and used sensitometry to full and best effect, i.e. knowing his film type(s), understanding the effects of light, shade, and contrast, knowing how to meter (although some of his shots he said were done without - but that was with a lot of experience), and knowing his developer, to get the desired negative.

 

His Zone system is his way of explaining the above, his way of doing things; he has a following but what he did was not miraculous or mysterious or could not be explained in other ways.

[giordano]

Making a reflectance reading seem complicated is I suppose one way to labour your point. But it is a simple concept to expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights, unless you are using colour, or have an annual holiday at each end of the same film. A reflectance reading gives quantifiable information the photographer can use, an incident reading only provides information the photograper can follow. Many years ago I was taught from the outset to use all available information to make a creative choice of my own with light readings, I guess that is where we differ.

 

"Expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights" is a simple concept for an expert photographer using B&W sheet film negatives. It's not so simple in practice, especially for the non-expert; it's compromised if you use roll film and breaks down if you don't develop the film yourself or send it to a scrupulous pro lab. And it doesn't apply to colour, B&W reversal or digital.

 

Your distinction between information one "can use" and information one can only "follow" doesn't make sense.

 

If you believe in using "all available information" with light readings, I take it you always use both a spot meter and an incident meter; the latter to understand the general lighting level and the former to explore individual highlights and shadows in great detail. TTL meters wouldn't come into it except for extreme telephoto work where a one degree spot meter is too coarse.

[swamiji]

I have three meters. A Sekonic 758DR for studio flash. A Gossen Digisix, recently retired due to battery issues, and a newly acquired Weston Master V, for general use.

 

While I often use the internal meter of my M7/9. I want consistency when I use my M4-2 and IIIf. So I primarily use my Weston.

[philipus]

For my II and M4 I sometimes use an iphone app for gauging the light, if I find it difficult. But whether I do also depends on the film I'm using. For instance, I rarely meter for BW and negative colour film (except for Ektar), but for transparency film I usually do meter because it has a narrower exposure latitude (if that's the correct term).

 

For my TTL, however, I don't use a separate light meter but am perfectly happy with the built-in one. As long as one is careful about strong light sources or bright backgrounds within the metering field, it is usually ok. One just have to imagine before pressing the shutter how one wants the final image to look.

 

Here I measured off the right-hand 2/3 of the image to avoid the bright window.

 

 

Likewise, here I measured to the left to avoid the bright light to the right.

 

 

Sometimes it fails. For instance, here I included too much of the very bright windows behind. As is clearly visible I had to fix this in Photoshop (and ColorPerfect) when developing the scan. But it came out OK, I think.

 

 

All three images with the M6TTL and the 50 Asph. The TTL's manual (and the manuals of all other Leicas with built-in meters) gives good examples, here are two of them.

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[AlanJW]

For my II and M4 I sometimes use an iphone app for gauging the light. . .

 

Can you recommend an iPhone app? There are several out there.

[lars_bergquist]

Making a reflectance reading seem complicated is I suppose one way to labour your point. But it is a simple concept to expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights, unless you are using colour [ … ]

Steve

 

… or unless you are using a digital camera.

 

Or, in the old days, unless you were using slide film. Exposing for the shadows was all right with negative film, black-and-white or colour, which had a considerable tolerance for more-than-minimum exposure ('exposure latitude').

 

This was because the exposed film was just a half-finished product. You then printed it under the enlarger, and the lost highlight detail was usually there somewhere on the long 'shoulder' of the characteristic curve. So you could retain full shadow density and still recover highlight detail, either by using a different grade of paper, or by some adroit 'burning-in'. (Adjusting the development to suit the exposure was fine if you used cut film, or glass plate negs, because they could be developed individually, and if the emulsion was orthochromatic, you could even look while you did it. But roll film, with several exposures of different subjects in different lighting on the same strip of celluloid, ended that.)

 

And with Kodachrome, you had to expose the highlights right, or they burned out irreparably, and you wuz screwed. And it is just the same with digital. With digital, forget film. Especially, forget negative film.

 

The old man from the Kodachrome Age

[philipus]

Can you recommend an iPhone app? There are several out there.

 

Hi Alan

I'm using mainly Light Meter Free and Pocket Light Meter. Both work reasonably well most of the time. There's also one called Fotometer Pro which I don't like. It's cluttered trying to resemble a classic handheld meter and not easy to use.

 

For Sunny 16 diehards there's the excellent Expositor app, which is basically just a list of f stops, shutter times and ISOs. But it has good descriptions for each EV and is good for jogging one's memory before going commando without a meter.

[AlanJW]

… or unless you are using a digital camera.

 

Or, in the old days, unless you were using slide film. Exposing for the shadows was all right with negative film, black-and-white or colour, which had a considerable tolerance for more-than-minimum exposure ('exposure latitude').

 

This was because the exposed film was just a half-finished product. You then printed it under the enlarger, and the lost highlight detail was usually there somewhere on the long 'shoulder' of the characteristic curve. So you could retain full shadow density and still recover highlight detail, either by using a different grade of paper, or by some adroit 'burning-in'. (Adjusting the development to suit the exposure was fine if you used cut film, or glass plate negs, because they could be developed individually, and if the emulsion was orthochromatic, you could even look while you did it. But roll film, with several exposures of different subjects in different lighting on the same strip of celluloid, ended that.)

 

And with Kodachrome, you had to expose the highlights right, or they burned out irreparably, and you wuz screwed. And it is just the same with digital. With digital, forget film. Especially, forget negative film.

 

The old man from the Kodachrome Age

 

What I was trying to say about the digital curve not the same as analog, Lars said better. And why a meter has to be considered dumb. Not dumb to use. Just a tool that does not have a mind of its own. And I too am from the Kodachrome age - from when it had a speed rating I think of 10.

[bocaburger]

Well I'm only from the ASA 25 Kodachrome era but I used a reflected narrow-angle or spotmeters with slide film for 40+ years, accurately, easily, quickly and without fuss. With digital it is no different in terms of that it's a narrower DR than color neg film and thus less forgiving of inexperience. The evaluative metering of my 5D is amazingly trustable, so I rarely use the spotmeter. The M9 however is more like a 1960's centerweighted meter, and as such I find it easier to meter my hand if I'm in the same light as the subject. Unlike Lars, the tone of my palm has remained a +1.5 stop for the past 45 years, 365 days/yr.

[250swb]

Your distinction between information one "can use" and information one can only "follow" doesn't make sense.

 

It should make sense to an experienced photographer. Take a reflective reading of the mid tones the highlights and the shadows and you have enough information to develop a plan on where you want to place your exposure and if you are doing your own developing how you want to develop it (you can even instruct the lab with + or - instructions). It can be done with a roll of 35mm or 120, unless as I said, you are so slow at shooting a roll its summer in one frame and winter in the next. But take an incident reading and you have one conglomerate light reading that tells you very little, other than to follow it like a sheep.

 

And no, I don't 'always use a spot meter and an incident meter', that is you getting silly. But my comments are aimed at the creative use of the light, not necessarily the straight recording of the light in a scene, so not many people would understand it unless they grew up in the fine art school of photography. But it means the light meter is not only a tool that can be followed, but a tool that can be used just as creatively as choosing how to frame the picture, where to focus or what f/stop to use. It would be worth reading the Adams books if you don't understand the background ideas, and by no means do you need to employ the full Zone System to see the possibilities.

 

But a good light meter is a wonderful thing, and it seems to me that Lars, etc. only use it to the minimum of its capabilities, and then have the gall to object if somebody points out it can do more.

 

Steve

[wattsy]

my comments are aimed at the creative use of the light, not necessarily the straight recording of the light in a scene

 

I agree with this. I like an incident meter as much as the next man (though perhaps not as much as Lars) – it couldn't be easier to use – but the 'objectivity' you get from such a reading tells you nothing about how the light is interacting with the subject.

[honcho]

?............

The only valid use of a spot meter is either to meter a 18% grey card (the mythical Zone V) and use this exposure, or to meter a maximum white diffuse target, c. 90%, and expose 4x or +2 f-stops. Both are really only less convenient ways of doing what an incident meter does in one step, without any accessories and without any search for Zone ..........

 

If anyone wishes to apply that piece of nonsense to a roll or sheet of Velvia or a digital sensor, they will very quickly discover the folly of absorbing misinformation.

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[giordano]

It should make sense to an experienced photographer. Take a reflective reading of the mid tones the highlights and the shadows and you have enough information to develop a plan on where you want to place your exposure <snip>. But take an incident reading and you have one conglomerate light reading that tells you very little, other than to follow it like a sheep.

 

An incident reading tells me a lot, namely the exposure to use in order to peg the brightest non-specular highlights at just the right spot on the characteristic curve. For everything except b&w negative film, that's all I need to know nine tenths of the time. For most of the rest of the time, experience comes in. For example, on misty day with no bright highlights, it's safe to give a longer exposure than the incident light meter says in order to reach deeper into dark shadows (if there are any) with digital or negative colour. Only rarely - with a long-range subject in difficult light - is it really useful to make detailed shadow and highlight readings; and when that happens a 1° spot meter is a much better tool than an ordinary or TTL reflected meter.

 

In your terms, I reckon that I "use" the incident meter rather than "follow" it.

 

With b&w neg film, on the other hand, there's no benefit in "pegging" the highlights, so incident light metering has no advantage and intelligent use of a reflected-light meter is the way to go. I suspect that you think primarily in terms of b&w neg, while I have used colour (film or digital) almost exclusively for a very long time; this probably explains our different viewpoints.

 

And no, I don't 'always use a spot meter and an incident meter', that is you getting silly.

Yes - but you did say you were taught to use all available information. Clearly what you actually do - as do I - is collect enough information to decide on the exposure.

 

But my comments are aimed at the creative use of the light, not necessarily the straight recording of the light in a scene, so not many people would understand it unless they grew up in the fine art school of photography. But it means the light meter is not only a tool that can be followed, but a tool that can be used just as creatively as choosing how to frame the picture, where to focus or what f/stop to use. It would be worth reading the Adams books if you don't understand the background ideas, and by no means do you need to employ the full Zone System to see the possibilities.

 

Yes, and I read them long ago - and Adams was a b&w neg man if ever there was one.

 

But a good light meter is a wonderful thing, and it seems to me that Lars, etc. only use it to the minimum of its capabilities, and then have the gall to object if somebody points out it can do more.

 

I think Lars's fundamental point is that in most circumstances (especially with colour and digital), straightforward use of an incident light meter gives results at least as good as informed use of a reflected light meter, and that being so there's no point using a reflected light meter except in the limited circumstances where it has the advantage (such as - IMHO - b&w fine art).

 

What about the few guys here who seem to think that light meters are for wimps and real men can estimate any exposure from experience and sunny-16?