Hi,

I already have some nice shot's and I 'm verry happy about them, though, I never realy know the extra's about it. maybe someone could tel me the obvious things concerning metering again, ;o)

I was playing with the idee of putting my licht meter inside the camera (old wooden field camera) and meter the light falling trough the lens. how many times do you normaly shoot a shot, (braketing) does it happens much? or never? concerning landscape shooting, I try this tric with putting the meter straight to the sky, and it helps a bit, but I have the impression it always over estimates the light, so it comes down 1 stop on my film. thanks for giving e some advice

-- Stijn (s.Saelens@email.com), June 28, 2001

Answers

There are a few ways to meter correctly. Incident (dome over sensor pointing towards the camera), reflected (no dome but sensor pointing towards subject), and spot (spot meters are usually 1 degree and are pointed toward the subject). Each has it's pluses and minuses. The thing about metering is knowing what to do with the readings. A spot on a person will make it 18% grey. If you want a caucasian person to look right... open a stop. Incident is probably your easiest because it averages everything. You can get an adapter for some meters to meter off the ground glass but not inside the camera. Doing it this way is good because it takes in consideration your filter pack and your bellows extension. Everyone has their own way of metering but the old saying still stands true with B/W... meter for the shadows and develop for the highlights.

-- Scott Walton (f64sw@hotmail.com), June 28, 2001.

There was a Sinar meter, the Sinarsix (probably still is) that measured from the film plane. It was a modified Gossen Lunasix with the sensor on the end of a lollipop stick that was poked down behind the GG. I used one once, but in the studio it showed no real advantage over walking up to the subject and taking a reading. I prefer to use an incident reading anyway.
Stijn, when metering using incident light, the meter should (ideally) be pointed back at the camera from the subject position, not pointed up at the sky. There is no recognised 'sky reading' metering method.;^)

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), June 29, 2001.