Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

The camera's meter DOES assume, among other assumptions, that the subject is 18% gray in reflectance. For that reason it will underexpose a light-skinned honky girl, and vastly over-expose a very dark-skinned Sri-Lankan. In various euphemistically-termed "intelligent" metering modes, the camera tries to guess what is is looking at.[/quote]

Meter is not an intelligent being, it is a tool. It assumes nothing. It is calibrated to equate what it reads to 12% reflectance not 18% as is commonly thought.

http://www.bythom.com/graycards.htm

And only an inexperienced photographer could or would make the mistake of not adjusting the camera correctly once the reading is taken, making the assumption that the meter reading is correct for all subject matter.

I do understand what you are trying to say, and you are correct in saying that if the photographer accepts the reading from a reflected meter, it can be wrong, and the chance for being wrong is minimized when you use an incident meter - I don't disagree with that at all. But when you say that the meter assumes anything, and that it is assuming an 18% reflectance for all subjects, well that is a known "fact," and with that knowledge it is up to the photographer to interpret the reading correctly.

BTW, how would you meter a scene where you are trying for a high key or low key effect with a handheld meter, or incident meter? Either way you'd have to make an adjustment to the meter's reading.

BebuLamar

Read next post.

BebuLamar

You must know how the meter works. For example my KM Flashmeter VI in spot mode calibrated to a K14 that is it would indicates EV0@ISO100 if the average luminance within the 1 degree spot is 0.14 Cd/m^2.
In incident mode and with the flat diffuser it's calibrated to a C250 which means when an illuminance of 2.5 Lux falls upon it, it will indicates EV0@ISO100. With the dome diffuser it's calibrated to read 3.3 Lux as EV0@ISO100. If that isn't true then the meter is out of calibration. If it's true you would determine exposure based on that.

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

Have you ever used a light meter for landscaping?

Los-Angeles-Shooter Loc: Los Angeles

The above misunderstands the nature of the reflective meter in the camera, and of reflected light handheld meters. Because reflective meters cannot adjust for the brightness of the subject, they will be fooled by a subject that is lighter or darker than 18% gray. As a colleague pointed out, a camera meter will be fooled by walls of white or dark tone, while an incident meter will give the same (correct) exposure regardless of the lightness or darkness of the wall.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Meter does not get fooled. You really would do well to read everything you can about the Zone System of Exposure. It will be "enlightening."

The meter is doing EXACTLY what it is designed to do, and you as the photographer, equipped with the knowledge of what the meter is doing, can have total control over the outcome. It is as simple as that. The only meter than cannot provide accurate information is one that is off calibration.

The photographer interprets the information - that is not the job of the meter. And a reflected light meter is more versatile as it can be used in more situations than an incident meter. And there are situations were neither will work, and you must use your experience and knowledge to arrive at the correct exposure.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Except that the resulting "adjusted by eye" metering job by the "experienced" photog is just a guess.

could be good guess or a poor guess but it's a guess none-the-less.


Only an incident meter spits out a number.

BebuLamar

With the reflected light meter one can decide to render the tone mid tone, light or dark. There is a requirement for the incident meter to work well is that the entire subject must be evenly illuminated. The subject must not emitt its own light (like a video monitor) or having a mirror like reflection. Part of the subject must not be in the shadow and part not.

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

You got it right.

The first thing to do whether or not you use a meter is to do an analysis of the frame. That includes identifying the shadows and highlights of the image. I don't think many of us do that. The camera meter is good but not as good as a 1% measurement of the reflective light (highlights and shadows). I always push to get details out of the highlights. I find that I can recover detail from the shadows but if detail is lost from the highlights, it can not be recovered.. I never shoot dead center on the camera meter. I shoot visualizing what I want the camera to capture and what I will do with it in post. It is all one motion for me.

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Not necessarily.

I might want to meter correctly for the illuminated part and leave the rest in shadow for a dramatic effect or if not, (just like any photography situation) I might decide to put some light into the shadow areas.

JohnCl Loc: Central Arizona

I try to expose the highest value in the image to be just on the edge of blowing out to blank white. This is ETTR at the extreme. To do this, I have calibrated my hand held one degree spot meter with my camera to give an exposure compensation (+3.7 stops in my case) that will prevent over exposure but will also give adequate exposure to the low values (usually.)

I have been experimenting with my in-camera spot meter to do the same thing. So far so good, but there is a difference. The hand held meter is always one degree, but the angle of the in-camera spot varies depending on the attached lens. I may have to back down to +3.3 stops when using the in-camera meter because the highest value might be averaged with lower values in the larger spot area. Think bright edge of cloud next to not so bright.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

R - you just can't wrap your head around this, can you? Granted, it's not easy or intuitive, and it does require a deep understanding of exposure values (EV) and how they relate to scene brightness and contrast. Once you make the connection in your brain the rest is quite easy and intuitive and extremely fast - but most important, it provides the photographer with a tool that can be used creatively.

None of the incident meter people have responded to my question about how to meter a high key or low key image - is it possible that you (they) are not familiar with the terms, or just that you (they) are struggling for an answer.

It's a rhetorical question. Because when you do either a high or low key image, you deliberately over and under expose the image. In ZoneSystemSpeak, you take the Zone6 (average Caucasian skin tone) or Zone 4 (average Black or Indian skin tone) and assign it to zone 8 or 9 for high key, or zone 2 or 3 for low key.

You're the photographer, its your choice. And BTW, you will also pick backdrop, clothing and props that have similar (1/2 to1 stop higher or lower) EV so that the entire scene has a reduced contrast range and that range ends up moving as a block to a higher or lower zone, so as to render it in relatively low contrast as white or black. You CAN do this in post processing if you shoot raw AND the contrast range of the subject is narrow.

This is one situation where you cannot really use the incident meter reading, and would be best handled by either an in camera meter or a spot meter - you will need to read the different values of the elements of the scene, as lit, to ensure the narrow contrast range, and then assign the entire scene, or the principal element in the scene to the zone of your choice.

But you have to fully understand the relationships of the meter, EV, brightness, and zones to make this all work smoothly. Those of us who come from the film days, particularly if large format is part of the background, have this level of understanding.

JohnCl Loc: Central Arizona

Gene51, I understand the difficulty of explaining the Zone System in a forum like this. When I bought my first 4x5, a used Kodak view camera, in the early 60s, I also bought a skinny little, 100 page or so book titled "The Negative" to learn what a properly exposed negative looked like and how to get them consistently.

It took a lot of head scratching and experimenting to understand what Ansel was teaching, but it was well worth the effort then and still applies in spades.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

OH Yeah, I still have my copy, along with The Print, and Fred Picker's Zone VI Manual. All seminal works on exposure that are even by today's standards, light years ahead of most of the stuff being published today.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

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