Meter or Digital Camera?

I have being shooting with a very cheap 4x5 monorail for a few years trying to

learn as much as possible about landscape photography. To save money I used a

cheap point and shoot digital camera for exposure metering. I am now buying

a "real" camera and equipment :) (light weight field camera etc). I have

usually gotten the exposure pretty close (with some effort) if not right on,

using the digital as well as being able to see overall composition, saturation

etc. The drawbacks are the digital only goes to f8 so I have to convert usually

4 to 5 stops in my head as precious light is fading, it is sometimes hard to

tell exposure on the lcd screen (but I can see the histogram), and the iso on

the camera probobly isn't all that accurate. So, I have never used a light

meter and am wondering what the real world advantages are over a digital

camera. I could buy a pentax spot meter for $450, a Sekonic 758DR for $500 or a

Digital Rebel with lens for $700. Pros and Cons would be great. Thanks in

advance for any help.

You must learn to read and understand the light.

 

I normally juggle a Sekonic that does wide-angle reflective or incident metering, a dSLR in manual+spot (and thus it *stays* despite all this optional "matrix metering" baloney), and Sunny-16.

 

What matters is that you know what each of these things achieves (average of light coming from a scene; average light falling *on* the scene; ability to measure contrast between brightest highlight and darkest shadow, respectively, above) and can then place tones where you want them. Why is there a discrepancy between reflective off the back of your hand and incident metering of the light hitting it?

 

I'm not sure I could do without any of the above; sometimes the dSLR with its spot-metering is easiest to work with, sometimes the incident metering. A hand-held meter that combines both spot and incident would be ideal.

Andrew,

 

I too shoot LF and use the histogram on my DSLR or Canon G7 to judge the expsoure - I actually think this approach works better than a regular light meter because you can easily see the clippings on both sides - at least for color (and esp. for slides). Purists will tell you that this approach is inferiour to a light meter, but it sure works for me.

I love using the Pentax Digital spot meter. I wish the meters on my DSLR worked as easily. I still can't figure out how to use the built in spot meter efficiently on the Nikon (yes, I know how to use it, but it is not efficient at all). The Pentax metering is effortless to me, as it perfectly matches how I think about exposure in both positive and negative films. Plus it is lighter than the DSLR. The key to the Pentax is the reading in EV and the simple rotating wheel calculator on the front. I don't like meters that output a shutter speed/aperture pair as this doesn't work well for the zone system.

 

My advice is to try out the Pentax and you will see how easy it is to use. The Sekonic I tried years ago was as cumbersome as the DSLR because it didn't use EV and a simple wheel calculator like the Pentax.

 

With the DSLR approach there is way to much calculation in my head to match ISO (mine doesn't go down to 64) and aperture (my lenses don't stop down beyond 22). So most exposures require two adjustments that are hard to do in your head if you are in a hurry.

second vote for the pentax digital spot meter, simple easy to used, also make your self sticker for easy adjust zone

I use both a Sekonic light meter for incident and reflective light and a Canon 5D for capturing

the digital version of the image and viewing the historgram and exposure variations.

Sometimes it leads to too much information but almost every time the incident light is the

optimum exposure and I adjust from there.

Third vote for Pentax Digital Spot Meter. I have used the Zone VI modified version for the past 15 years-ultralight, dead on accurate, fast, and has survived numerous drops.

I got a Sekonic 550 whatever. It has been less accurate than the meter on my Leica M6. Sorry I bought it. I use a Minolta flashmeter in the studio for ambient light. Very accurate and reliable.

4th vote! I made my own little scaled to tape on mine showing a range from -3 up to +3 so I can set my ev values right where I want them tonality speaking.

I use a Sekonic 558 and it does everything I need.

Yet another vote for the Pentax Digital. For someone who uses any form of the Zone System, it is essential. I take a few readings for crucial elements of the scene, and I almost never find I have either over or underexposed. I find a display which shows exposure values, later to be converted to f-stop -- time values on an analog scale, much superior to being told a single aperture -- time reading as is common with other digital meters.

<em>"... I have usually gotten the exposure pretty close (with some effort) if not

right on, using the digital as well as being able to see overall composition, saturation

etc. ..."</em></p>

 

<p>If it works... why mess with it? </p>

 

<p>Personally, I use an ol' (analog) Pentax spot meter. But if your method gives you the

results you're looking for... why mess with it?

Voting? OK, I am so used to my old Sekonic incident meters --- they're in all my outfits,

even the DSLR. Pentax spot using IRE (TV Zone system) for tricky stuff. DSLR metering is

spotty because 50% of the captured information is in the top 20% of the sensor ("expose to

the right"), and the historgram is from the camera's processor -- and not necessarily what

you exposed for.