Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/07/17

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Subject: [Leica] Light Meters
From: Michael Waldron <Michael@cadogan.net>
Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 12:41:04 -0400

I have read the recent light meter discussion.  I use an M2 and MF and LF 
cameras and have used many meters.  I currently use a small gossen scout, a 
pentax digital spot meter and a sekonic incident/flash meter (#358).  For 
MF/LF, I used to always use the spot meter.  Then, I read the book Beyond 
the Zone System, which has very interesting chapter on metering with both 
incident, spot, and broad reflective.  This really changed and liberated 
the way I think about light and metering it and I highly recommend the 
book.  This especially taught me how to use an incident meter.  I now use 
it often and have good results.

I found that with the spot, it was hard to determine what fell where due to 
colors being more or less bright on film than I perceived them 
subjectively.  This is not a problem with incident.

The basic idea is that natural things have a 5 stop reflectance 
range.  Open shadow outdoors is often 2 stops darker than open sun.  Thus, 
something with sun and shadow has a 7 stop range.  Obviously specular 
highlights and deep shadow are beyond this.  However, an interesting point 
is that most meters are calibrated to the midpoint of a 7 stop range to 
accommodate the sunny/shady parts of a scene.  If you meter in open sun, 
you will be 1 stop under.  Metering in shadows will be 1 stop over. I have 
found this to be fairly consistent with my incident meter.  This can help 
me understand what the brightness range of a scene is and thus I can decide 
where I want to lose detail, either in highlight or shadow (if made 
necessary by scene brightness range).  In the MF/LF I adjust, in the Leica, 
I choose what to lose.

My synopsis does not do the book justice.  However, I highly recommend this 
book even if you don't do zone system just for the metering ideas.

Michael Waldron
Michael@cadogan.net