Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/20

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Subject: Re: [Leica] incident metering techniques
From: Godfrey DiGiorgi <ramarren@bayarea.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 00:16:03 -0700

>> Nikon F5 Spot pattern
>According to the manual, it is indeed 4 mm in diameter, but this represents
>about 1.5% of the image.

Thank you. Math error on my part.
So they went with a 75/25 split on the F5 CW pattern? Interesting. The 
traditional Nikon CW pattern is 60/40, the F3 is 85/15, the EM (and maybe 
the FG, although I'm not sure) is a weird 40/60 split. If that's true for 
the FG, it might explain the discrepancy in your readings with the FG 
compared to the spot meter. 

>The tower is a very delicate iron lattice and at a distance there
>is significant daylight shining through even for a spot meter.
>It can be hard to gauge exactly how much is influencing the
>meter, though.  I have learned from experience to overexpose by
>1-2 EV, except with the F5, which correctly exposes without any
>compensation.

I've shot the Eiffel Tower on numerous occasions. Incident meter readings 
are generally right on the money, reflected light readings are rarely a 
problem with standard Nikon center-weighted metering or the Leica M6's 
selective area meter (that's what you call the large-spot type meter). It 
is about -.5EV from the 18% reflectance gray; I tend to add a half stop 
of exposure to ensure more shadow detail on negative films and print it 
down a bit. The hardest meter to use is the narrow angle spot meter for 
exactly the reason you cite. 

Godfrey