External spot meters - Pentax, Sekonic?

[Jon Warwick]

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I need an external spot meter for my (5x4 large format) and Leica M7.

 

I have prior experience of the Pentax digital spotmeter - very useful for B&W by simply putting the “dark shadows with texture” into zone 3, and leaving the highlights to do their own thing.

 

But for E6 slide, where protecting highlights is key and exposure latitude is small, I’m wondering if the digital Sekonic spotmeters (that “average” a number of readings) might be more accurate?

 

Any experiences and preferences between the two?

 

And any good pointers for using either / or?

 

For example, imagine a distant mountain scene with snow glaciers and sunny highlights at the top, grey rocks in the middle of the image, and dark green forest at the bottom .....advice on how best you accurately measure the right exposure for that contrasty scene (with E6 slide film) would be hugely appreciated!

[Jeff S]

I used to have a calibrated Pentax spot meter for LF work. But, unlike you , I followed the Fred Picker (Zone VI workshop) approach and made sure that any highlights where I wanted to retain detail were placed on Zone VIII. Of course lighting conditions and desired renderings vary, so this was not etched in stone, but it worked when incorporated into a larger disciplined print workflow (including tested film speed, development times, proper print proofs, etc.)

 

Jeff

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Jon,

 

Slide film is pretty much the other way around from negative film.

 

With negative films you often expose for the Shadows & let the Hi-Lites take care of themselves.

 

With slide films it is usually better to expose for the Hi-Lites (ie: Zone 7) & let the Shadows fall where they may.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[Jeff S]

I generally exposed negative film for the highlights , contrary to common belief. Within a disciplined camera to print workflow, it worked well.

 

Jeff

[Steve Ricoh]

I use a Sekonic L-758 having both spot and incident measurement options.

In spot mode there's an option to take several readings and the meter will calculate the average.

[250swb]

For example, imagine a distant mountain scene with snow glaciers and sunny highlights at the top, grey rocks in the middle of the image, and dark green forest at the bottom .....advice on how best you accurately measure the right exposure for that contrasty scene (with E6 slide film) would be hugely appreciated!

 

I wouldn't worry about that, according to 'sod's law' as soon as you buy a spot meter you won't see another tricky scene from one year to the next.

 

For the 'mountain' scenario a spot meter is possibly the best thing to have, but otherwise you could walk around your local area metering from things that have a similar reflectance. If you are an avid film user and carry a 35mm camera alongside your 4x5 then buy a cheap Olympus OM-4, this can take eight spot readings and average them. The Olympus meter goes from -5EV to +19EV so it's not shabby. Myself I have a Pentax Spotmeter V. But still find a normal meter just as good even for distant scenes mainly because I'm looking for those subtle and often very fast changes in light that 'make' the scene, and you can't say 'hang on a minute, I need to use my spot meter', there has to be an element of using experience above the facts. So with E6 I'd keep a notebook and bracket a couple of shots, after you've perhaps wasted three or four sheets bracketing it concentrates the mind and it auto compensates for using a bog standard meter.

[Michael Geschlecht]

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Hello Jon,

 

Metering is as easy when you measure Hi-Lites for slide films as it is when you measure Shadows for negative films:

 

When you measure a texture in a Reasonable Shadow you just read it & then UNDER expose by 2 stops.

 

When you see something nice in a Reasonable Snow Drift you just read it & OVER expose by 2 stops.

 

Metering is simple once you understand what the different Zones are when you look at a scene.

 

That technique does not change when using slide films instead of negative films: What changes is which subject, Hi-Lite or Shadow, that you measure.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[tobey bilek]

The "trick" with spot meters is not a machine average.  It is knowing your subjects and how they should be rendered.  Tree trunks where I live are middle grey or some one stop under.  The bottoms of cumulus clouds are often middle grey.  Spring grass is grey.  Summer and fall, same grass goes higher reflectivity.  Cross lit snow is 1.5 stops over middle.  If you blindly average,  just use a wide angle reflected meter.

 

Another technique i use is find the brightest and darkest readings still with detail,  then fit them +3 to -2 zones.   Sacrifice as required or under develope film to hold highlight density down.

 

You instruction book for Pentax will tell where to place each color because even if you measure each color in the same light,   they do not read the same.  At one time,  the meter could be modified with filters so as to render all colors to fit the zone system more accurately.  Same reason why you can not read accurately through deep yellow to deep red filter over the lens.  Take a reading, mount filter, apply filter factor.   Only way to do it properly.  Even fudge factors are not always 100%

[Doug A]

The best - as in producing the best results - exposure meter in our house is my wife's Nikon F6. If I use her settings for the same scene with my LTM Leicas my success rate is very very good. My own exposure meters are a Zone VI modified digital spot meter, a Gossen Digisix and a Weston Master IV rebuilt by Ian Partridge. I have compared all three meters with the F6, using the Pentax with both the expose-for-the-highlights and expose-for-the-shadows methods and the Gossen and Weston in both reflected and incident modes. The winner - as in producing the best B&W prints - was the Weston in incident mode. If I look at my 35mm proof sheets I can't honestly tell which were shot using my wife's F6 readings and which were shot with my Weston incident readings. (And when I get lazy and try using Sunny 16 instead I can very definitely tell the difference. The results are wildly inconsistent.)

 

I should add that I rigorously follow the measurement methods in the Weston instruction manual.

[chris_livsey]

I find the concept of using a spot meter then averaging counter intuitive. To meter, with accuracy, the spot you decide use as the reference for the exposure of the scene is perfectly logical as is using a meter with wider acceptance angle, or incident, to produce an average exposure to suit the scene. To mix the two seems to me to introduce uncertainty from the mind of the photographer who isn't sure what they are trying to achieve in the exposure. To look at several areas and meter them will aid decisions but averaging those, unless they are close in value, is just IMHO a waste of a spot meter. I would also contend that, unless not performing to specification, all suitably calibrated decent meters are accurate, one not more than others, how they are used is what matters.

When I want a spot meter I have found the Minolta to perform as expected with enough bells and whistles to keep me busy whilst the light changes 

I appreciate that with 5x4 bracketing is not an easy, or cheap, option but dare I suggest a small digital camera with a histogram readout and bracketing will quickly reveal how the scene will be rendered and what exposure will be needed to preserve the highlights? For your proposed extreme example where you will certainly face loosing detail it is traditional to loose the shadows as on E6 blown highlights and wishy washer colour where nearly overexposed is rarely a good look wheras shadows that are deep with no detail but the rest of the scene contains that wonderfully deep and rich colour E6 can produce is very acceptable. In the scene you propose the question in 4x5 is why are you using E6 unless the end result is to be a light box display? C41 will allow you to capture much, very much, more of your scene and allow decisions in printing of how to present the final result. You would think E6 was sent from the devil to test us in exposure until you projected then it was/is a gift from above.

Forgive the ramble, if not helpful then perhaps it amused.

[Chuck Albertson]

I think it's simpler to use incident metering for slide film.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Chuck,

 

I think, that is because Incident Meters are often easier to use, to determine exposure to the same degree of accuracy, whether a person is using Slide film or Negative film.

 

And errors in determining exposure are more likely to be evident in slide films because of the narrower tolerance for exposure error in slide films when compared to negative films of the same ISO.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[Jon Warwick]

OP here, thanks to all for your helpful comments. To report back, I bought a Sekonic spotmeter, and find it fantastic to use. I prefer it to my former Pentax digital spotmeter, in fact. The Sekonic can obviously be used just like the Pentax for placing what you want in terms of zones (shadows in 3, for example), but in addition, I do really like the option to average up to around 9 meter readings and then see how many EVs that the highlights / shadows fall around that chosen reading. Plus the Sekonic obviously had a built in incident meter.

I’m using it for 5x4 work at the moment, but with this Sekonic, I can actually imagine using it a lot too with digital cameras for things like landscapes. I’d rather consider the exposure and get it perfect at the time of capture when doing landscapes, rather than have a stack of exposure variations to have to then scrutinise on the iMac screen ....when I look at some of my Leica exposures now, many look quite subpar in fact, and I know that this spotmeter will allow me to make them much more accurate “in camera”. The Sekonic I have bought can also be calibrated under a custom setting to match the dynamic range of one’s specific digital sensor - haven’t tried it yet, but sounds interesting.