There's no argument from me on this point. While a spot meter works for me most of the time, and using one has helped me better understand how light, film, and developing all work together, I also use other metering formats.
Mike Johnston wrote: > > 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 The best unpublished scheme is one by a guy from Oregon whose name escapes 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. -- 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 .
