The histogram is a really neat tool, if you care to use it (which I really don't).
A camera's histogram is not dependent upon the reflectivity in the same way that a camera's meter is. The graph of the histogram is showing you the tonal values of the image data you recorded. The left of the graph represents black and the right white with all the middle tones in the middle. A "correctly exposed" photograph with a predominately white subject will show a histogram with a spike of data towards the right edge of the graph. A mostly dark subject will show the spike towards the left. A "correctly exposed" photo of an 18% grey card will show a spike smack in the middle. Being that during 5 years of shooting Canon I only ever had one camera that I felt I could trust the meter, I learned to read that histogram. But then again maybe I never learned how to read the meter because I was too busy fiddling around looking at the back of my camera. ;) I see you're from Panama City, I lived in Niceville/Destin for many years. My wife and I's family still live down there, and we really ought to go down for a visit sometime. ~Nick David Wright http://pedalingprose.wordpress.com/ ----- Original Message ---- > From: Cesar Matamoros II <[email protected]> > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 8:35:54 PM > Subject: Re: light meters > > Larry Colen wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 03:30:57PM -0800, Nick David Wright wrote: > > # # I think that I'd like to purchase a hand-held meter sometime in the > > near > future. But I'm not really sure which one I'd like to go with. Just looking > to > meter ambient light. I'd like something small and simple. What do you all > recommend? > > > > I recommend waiting until you get your K10. In the length of time that > > it takes to use a hand held light meter, you can fire a test shot, > > look at the histogram and make corrections accordingly. > +++ > I never learned to use histograms to judge exposure - is it not dependent on > the > reflectivity of the scene? I just rely on my meter. > I frequently use a hand-held meter when using my *ist D. It is true that > quite > often the difference in exposure from the camera's meter is but a stop, but I > believe in getting it right from the start. I guess it comes from my > film-shooting days when I always exposed as if I were shooting slide film. > And > nowadays I don't really want to spend time 'tweaking' my shots. > As some of you may have noted, a lot of my recent PESOs have been shot along > the > water. I use incident metering since sand and water reflectivity can fool a > camera quite readily. > I have used a Sekonic Studio Deluxe L-398 [no battery, heavy, small], Sekonic > L-358 [flash meter too], Minolta Flashmeter III. All three have been > mentioned > in this thread. > > # # Thanks. > > # # ~Nick David Wright > > # http://pedalingprose.wordpress.com/ > > > César > Panama City, Florida > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
