For all but the most difficult subjects, you can use the spotmeter on
a Pentax digital to determine zone exposure, although that's necessary
only on rare occasions.
I have a Vivitar 230XL meter that does incident and flash metering in
addition to other modes. I never use it when shooting digital with
ambient light or on-camera flash. The camera meters and histogram are
fine for that. I do use the incident flash meter in the studio to
calculate lighting ratios from multiple sources.
When shooting digital, I shoot only RAW and go for the good histogram.
It doesn't get any better than that no matter how many meters one
might use.
Paul
On Feb 25, 2009, at 10:26 PM, Nick David Wright wrote:
Chimping is looking at the picture you just shot on the back of your
camera. I am intimately acquainted with the process, I assure you I
have missed many pictures because of it. I don't think it matters if
you're "exposing to the right" or just saying "ooo pretty." ;;)
The 18% reflectance thing is why folks invented the zone system. And
the system works just fine with digital too if you have a meter that
is reliable and you take the time to learn it. Then you can
instantly choose the exposure you want without taking your eye from
the finder.
But then we are talking about hand-held meters here which definitely
require a look away from the finder. ;)
~Nick David Wright
http://pedalingprose.wordpress.com/
----- Original Message ----
From: Bob W <[email protected]>
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 9:18:06 PM
Subject: RE: light meters
Shooting digitally (more accurately, shooting raw) changes the way
you
meter.
Whenever you use a reflected meter you have to deal with the fact
that not
all scenes are 18% reflective. One of the benefits of an incident
meter is
that you don't have to worry about that. All you have to worry
about is
metering the same light that's falling on your subject.
However, because of the 'expose to the right' principle that
applies when
you shoot raw, the incident reading may not always give you the best
settings for obtaining maximum detail in the raw fail. I find that
using an
incident meter tends to leave one or 2 stops of additional exposure
available. So it is still worthwhile checking the histogram and
adjusting if
you have the time. This is not the same as chimping.
Bob
--
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.
--
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.
