digital vs film light meters

<p>i have read that my old film light meter is not satisfactory to use with a digital camera. i heard an instructor say that the film light meter was "not as accurate" for digital photography, and that a dedicated light meter from any of several sources, such as gossen or seikonic, made specifically for digital cameras is a better tool to capture the exposure. is this hype by the meter manufacturers or correct? thanks.</p>

<p><em>"i heard an instructor say that the film light meter was "not as accurate" for digital photography," </em>- one must talk about some specific light meter at hand, and should not make generalized statement like that.</p>

<p>Of cource there are variety of better, more accurate, and multiple purpose meters out there, but any light meter that measures light accurately, let say within 1/10 to 1/3 EV stop, is usable with digital or film cameras for static ambient lighting. </p>

<p>For flash lighting this gets a bit more complicated, due to the duration of the flash light or accumulation of multiple flashes, but generally flash meters for film, and for digital, should measure the light the same way.</p>

<p>Your old film light meter could be very well suitable for digital cameras, if is of decent quality and in working condition.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I agree with Frank. Any decent light meter should work fine for digital. I use a Minolta FlashMeter IIIF, and it works great with either medium. It reads out in 1/10 EV steps.</p>

<p>Technique can greatly influence the readings. Make sure you understand the proper operation of the meter.</p>

<p>- Leigh</p>

 

<p>Your instructor may have been referring to the really old meters using selenium cells, which don't have the sensitivity of more modern cadmium sulphide cells. Most meters made after 1980 or so should work fine for digital work.</p>

<p>Any meter good enough for film will be good enough for digital. That said, a light meter is a tool, and any tool takes some practice to use well. Most people with a hammer bend nails until they learn to do better.</p>

<p>Most modern meters use active silicon cell sensors, which offer reasonably high sensitivity and linearity, and are completely electronic. Cadmium sulfide (photo-resistive) meters appeared in the mid to late '60s, and offered very high sensitivity, but suffered from short-term memory when exposed to bright light, long term loss of sensitivity and poor linearity. They required batteries and usually used analog meters for readout. Selenium cells (photo-voltaic) were the earliest, needed no batteries, but were not very sensitive, particularly to red and yellow light. The meters used delicate coils and pivots, like a fine watch.</p>

<p>If you are reporting accurately what was said, I'd be very careful with this instructor. If he can be wrong on this ( and he is) he might be wrong on all sorts of things.</p>

<p>If he meant to say that your light meter was old to the point that its accuracy needs to be confirmed, or that he believes that a wide angled reflective meter would be less helpful than an incident meter or a spotmeter with a finder so you can see what you're metering I could understand that. But either thats not what he said or not what you have heard. If he were to point out that digital has a smaller dynamic range than negative film and so it becomes more important to meter accurately, then that would be correct too. <br>

Are you sure that you've actually picked up the message exactly right?</p>

<p>this is a quote directly from the printed material of the class:<br>

<br />"using a light meter for digital capture is not the same as using your film light meter. film has a wide tolerance for exposure. the accuracy of film-era light meters DO NOT meet the requirements of digital capture." <br>

"remember...the meter used when working with film will not have the accuracy needed for digital capture."<br>

is this correct?</p>

 

No, it is not. There are many "film era" light meters that provide 1/10-stop precision. Digital is no more demanding of accurate exposure than slide film is, and it's quite possible to get properly-exposed slides using meters that are several decades old.

<p>The written instruction you have received is incorrect. Whilst the accuracy of lightmeters can vary , there is no generalised tendency for "film era" meters to be less accurate than those bought today. It is incorrect also to state that film has a wide tolerance for eposure. Some films have a greater dynamic range than digital cameras , others have less. Frankly after a decade of shooting mainly with Velvia I find exposure to be a lot <strong><em>less</em></strong> critical with a recent dslr. </p>

<p>1) Bunk. Good lightmeters have always been accurate enough even for the most anal-retentive photographers. I mean, come on, they were the basis for the most serious application of the zone system, and even decades ago, you could expose slides very accurately using these meters with their incident lighting attachment.</p>

<p>2) Generational misconception about the terms, I suspect, from when there were older, traditional analog meters (such as the Weston, etc.), and then there were very expensive digital spotmeters, where the word "digital" had nothing to do with digital cameras. Understood correctly, it's probably not unfounded to say that the more advanced digital spotmeters allowed more absolute accuracy than the older analog needle meters, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with digital photography.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Your instructor just lacks practical experience. There are meters from 50 years ago that had 1/2 stop accuracy.</p>

<p>One normally does not set the exposure with a digital camera with a handheld meter, unless one is in a studio adjusting light levels, ie ratios.</p>

<p>To set uniform light levels on copy boards; folks 50 to 70 years ago had meters that could sense subtle fractions of an fstop. The goal was NOT about exposure; but to get uniform lighting. A pre WW2 GE self powered meter reads in foot candles, and and measure subtle ratios.</p>

<p>Thus one has a dumbing down going on. Most all folks who shoot digital do not even use a handheld meter. The few that do use it to adjust lighting ratios.</p>

 

<p>Howard;</p>

<p>If I had to guess:</p>

<p>Your instructor *MIGHT* be thinking along the lines of:</p>

<p>The exposure tolerance of Joe Six Packs P&S Walmart film camera with iso 800 color film C41 film is real forgiving compared to digital. The C41 lab corrects for errors with ease. A dumb disposible film camera often has a 2 to 3 stop overexposure built in. The consumer C41 color print film very tolerant of overexposure; where a simple digital today will get blown highlights.</p>

<p>Thus a dumb film camera for Joe Six packs C41 film can be hokey/sloppy compared to a digital camera.</p>

<p><br /> A 1990's Rebel shooter shooting C41 could have a meter that was -1 stop or + 3 stops and still get OK 4x6 prints.</p>

<p>This guess is based on the average Joe six pack has not a slide in 1/3 century; he has shot easy to use do not care C41 stuff and gotten back prints.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>this is a quote directly from the printed material of the class:<br /> "...the accuracy of film-era light meters DO NOT meet the requirements of digital capture." <br /> "...the meter used when working with film will not have the accuracy needed for digital capture."<br /> is this correct?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No. It is not.<br>

There are plenty of film-era light meters with accuracy better than needed for digital work.</p>

<p>- Leigh</p>

 

<p>+1 for "That's absurd," at least taken at face value.</p>

<p>Maybe he means that a histogram gives you far more useful info than a reading off of an old-fashioned light meter? I suppose one could make that argument, but histograms have their failings too. A handheld light meter is still a good tool.</p>

<p>With regard to relative accuracy, I've found that the inconsistencies between even modern, dSLR cameras far exceed the inaccuracies of even relatively mediocre light meters. A half stop difference in exposure between digital cameras is not that unusual. Today, as in the old days, you really have to know your equipment. In the old days, we would set the ISO a tiny bit high or low to fine-tune our exposure readings to the peculiarities of our equipment or media. Today should be no different.</p>

<p>In all fairness to your instructor, though, he can be patently wrong on this point and still have quite a number of very good things to teach you. Nobody is God, not even a professor.</p>

<p>Correct exposure is most important when using Slide film because slide film has a very narrow exposure latatude. Digital has more while negative has the most. Kodacrome slide film was introduced in 1937 and obviousely people were using it successfully back then. So either peple were very good at gessing the correct exposure or the light meters they had were good enough. Some early light meters tended to loose accuracy as the batter started to die. Modern light meters don't have this issue (they automatically compensate for voltage changes. Any light meter made since 1970 will sork fine for digital or film. </p>

<p>When I switched from negative to slides I learned that slides were more demanding of exposure. while I could get the exposure right I still ended up with more rejects because the exposure was off. Although my camera had an accurate light meter it was the older centerjweighted style which looked at the entire picture and calculated a average light value for it. If there was one small bright area the meter would set the exposure mostly for average which was dominated for dark areas of the picture. </p>

<p>I then got myself a new camera which had to diffferent exposure meter settings. Center weighted like my old camera and spot. I used the spot setting most of the time. The spt setting looked at something like only 2% of the actual image. I could then use the spot meter to determine the exposure for the dark areas and then the bright areas seperately and then would typically set the exposure for the bright area. There was no difference in the accuracy of the meter modes by they would generate different exposure readings because they looked at the image differently. Most cameras today actually have multiple light sensors (sometimes refered to as matrix meters) that then report the information to the computer which then compares the exposure reading from the bright and dark areas and then set the exposure based on what it sees and its own software. Your instructor might be confusing accuracy for the type of meter. There is no big difference in acccuracy. However most early cameras used center weighted light meters, and some had spot meters. Centerweighted worked well for low contrast images while spot might be better for high contrast images. Today most SLRs have center weighted , partial, spot, and matrix meters. Which meter mode you use and how you use it is often more important than its accuracy.</p>

<p>One purpose of a teacher is to get you to think.</p>

<p>If he is full of it with this meter issue; he still got your brain to question it; thus you learned by his error. </p>

<p>I frequently use an old Pentax Spotmeter V with needle display to meter critical highlights while shooting digitally. I determined that my particular DSLR will start blowing highlights 2 stops above neutral. In the time it takes to do several shots in full auto matrix metering mode and figure out the right exposure compensation for the final correct shot, I've easily metered the highlights with the spotmeter, set the dial on zone VII and tuned in the correct shutter/aperture settings on my DSLR for a perfect exposure. If the shadows go black: another spotmeter reading in the darkest parts for zone III and corresponding exposure, followed by HDR/tone mapping of the two images in Photoshop. Since I also shoot film, the metering process has become a routine of its own in which I consider the digital camera as just another kind of slide film, sort of. I find that I can retain better creative control over the final result than by relying on the DSLR's matrix metering algorithm.</p>