Doh? I would like to make a little wager.
I would wager that 90% of the members on this list would get consistently better exposures with an incident meter after five minutes instruction than they would get with a spot meter after taking a weekend course. A spot meter is a valuable tool, if you are doing precision photometrics, for general photography it is a pain in the ass. The TTL meter in most SLR are great for telephoto and macro work, but once again I say that for general photography 90% of the people on this list would get far more consistent exposures with an incident meter after that five minutes of instruction. Ciao, graywolf [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: Shel Belinkoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 12:30 AM Subject: Re: Metering > Thank you, David, for putting that so succinctly and clearly. I've > been arguing that point here for quite a while. You've said it better > than I ever did. > > J. C. O'Connell wrote: > > > > Only an INCIDENCE hand held meter which > > > measures light FALLING on the subject will > > > give a correct reading. Incident metering > > > techniques are far more accurate than > > > reflectance techniques which all in camera > > > meters use. > > And David Mann correctly countered: > > > The incident meter will give you the correct "overall" > > midtone reading but you will still need to alter your > > exposure to keep detail where you want it. Film has > > a limited tonal range so if you shoot your inicident > > meter reading you might find that the white car is > > totally washed out, and the black car is just a big dark > > blob. Your film contrast will determine the outcome, > > and even if you know the film characteristics there is > > no way of knowing how it will be rendered as you > > don't know how much light each subject is reflecting, > > relative to your 18%-grey reading. > > [a little snip here] > > > By using my spot meter I get a full tonal scale of what's in > > my picture, then adjust my "midtone" (ie exposure settings) to > > achieve the results I'm looking for based on the capabilities of > > the film. > > [another snip] > > > No matter what kind of meter you're using you still need > > to apply a little brain-power to get good results every time. > > You need to know how your meter works, and what its limitations > > are. Knowing your film tends to help as well, and so does a good > > "feel" for what you like (or what your client likes). Some > > people like to keep shadow detail at the expense of highlights, > > others like their shadows black... and so on. > > -- > Shel Belinkoff > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://home.earthlink.net/~belinkoff/ > - > This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, > go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to > visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org . - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
