One day, honest injun, swear to God, I am going to write a book about metering.
The fact is, there is NO foolproof method of metering. Incident metering is NOT foolproof--just imagine yourself standing under cloudcover taking a photograph of a distant sunlit scene, or vice versa. Gray card readings are not automatically accurate because they don't take into account how the subject brightness range matches to the range of the film. The Zone System is not technically accurate because its definitions contain double variables in a number of incidences. Spotmeters are not always accurate because they are actually small-area averaging meters and because they are all susceptible to flare. The best published metering scheme for black-and-white is Phil Davis's _Beyond The Zone System_, now in its fourth edition, recommended for those who want to learn more about metering, developing film, and paper contrast. The best unpublished scheme is one by a guy from Oregon whose name escapes me just at this moment, who I hope is currently writing a book (I've encouraged him to do so several times). Truly a technically elegant system, very rigorous scientifically but also easy to use for those who understand it. The nice thing about metering is that approximations usually work okay. If metering were as hard to SUCCEED at as it is to understand, there would be far, far fewer photographs in the world. --Mike J. "The 37th Frame," a newsletter for photographers www.37thframe.com - 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 .
