Resources on spot metering on the web

[eophotos]

Not being a beginner, I've been struggling with spot metering recently. I used to own a Polaris with a 10 degrees spot

attachment which served me very well, but looking for more accuracy, I decided to let it go and buy a 1 degree sot

(Minolta Spotmeter F).<br><br>

 

Since then, life hasn't been quite the same ;o) A lot of my slides come back not as well exposed as I would have

liked. I bought a couple of specialised book to help me out and always look at magazines, but to be honest I haven't

seen anywhere where people explaining how to use a spot don't get bog down with the zone system. I understand

that it is a requirement to work with it, but has anyone seen a tutorial where people don't get too complicated ? I.e.

which color would you look for in a landscape to get a 'mid' tone (green? gray ?which green or gray ?), how to quickly

measure the difference between sky and ground to decide which ND filter to use, etc... <br><br>

 

Please let me know if you've seen anything like this on the web!

 

many thanks.

[Ed_Ingold]

Read "The Camera" and "The Negative" by Ansel Adams. Search for any credible book on the Zone System. Using a light meter is an art. Part of the Zone System is to learn to recognize and "place" different surfaces on the exposure scale.

 

For your reference, an 18% grey card, green grass, barn red and southern blue sky are zone 5 (neutral tone). Tree foliage is -1 and faces (Caucasian) are +1, ad infinitum.

[eophotos]

Thanks Edward. Precisely what I would have liked to avoid but I guess there is no way around. I understand the zone system, it's the way it i explained that can sometime be a little daunting. Thanks for your input.

[james_ollinger]

Also try BEYOND THE ZONE SYTEM by Phil Davis. If you invest the time to go through it and learn it, it will pay off for you.

 

The thing about a 1-deg spot meter is NOT that it's more accurate, it's just more precise. The idea is you can stand at the camera and meter a shadow somewhere and get that shadow's reading, where a 10-deg might get you the shadow and some lighter areas surrounding it.

 

The zone system and using a spot is basically very simple. If you learn how zones render (i.e. Zone 2 is dark with just a little bit of detail. Zone 3 is dark but fully detailed, etc.), then what you do is look at your scene and say, I want THAT shadow over there to be Zone 2. Then you meter other things and see which zones they would fall in. If you place THAT shadow in Zone 2, where does that tree end up? Where does the sky? That rock? If you place a shadow in Zone 2 and the sky ends up being Zone 8, you know your sky is going to be very, very light. Want a more dramatic sky? You'll need to drag it down to Zone 5 or lower. How? A split neutral density perhaps. Or sacrifice shadow detail--move the shadow into Zone 1. Or try to fix things in post-processing----if you're doing film, do an N-2 development and plan on burning in. If you're shooting digital, bracket a lot and merge with HDR software.

 

The point of the Zone System is being able to visualize how things will record on film/paper (or digital files) and how to manipulate it. A spot meter is a wonderful tool for it. Unfortunately, a spot meter can really screw you up if you don't really understand what it's telling you.

[eophotos]

James,

 

Thanks for the advice. I just bought this book online and will let you know what I think of it! I had one book called 'Creative Exposure Photography' I believe and it was quite good. I shoot film mostly with a Mamiya and it's a little daunting to not use the meter properly at all time - in effect, it makes you a little 'blind'. Will see... Thanks!

[david_henderson]

You can use a spotmeter well without adopting or even understanding the zone system.

 

I agree though that you have to understand what its telling you.

 

You can't use a spotmeter well by looking for a mid-tone and taking a single reading. If thats what you want to do, take an incident reading from a position in the same light as your subject. The essence of using a spotmeter right is to take a series of readings and use them to understand how brightly the important parts of your composition will be rendered at a particular exposure.

 

I haven't used or seen a tutorial on using a spotmeter outside zone system books that have little interest for me. Its something I learned by thinking about what I'm doing whilst I'm doing it, whilst keeping in mind two simple concepts.

 

First, you need to relate the brightness range of your subject to the dynamic range of your medium. If you're using say Velvia with a dynamic range IMO of 4/4.5 stops and you have a subject brightness range of 6 stops then you need to make some decisions about whether and how to influence this mismatch. This may be to use a grad; it may be to use fill flash to brighten a dark foreground. It may be to use a polariser to reduce reflective highlights. It may be to use a different film with a wider dynamic range. It may be to accept that part of your subject is going to be featureless white or black. The key to the action is knowing what you need to do and your spotmeter will provide you with the information to do that and translate it into the best available exposure for the look you want.

 

Second, keep taking readings until you understand where all the important elements of your picture will lie. You need to know for example that if you expose the pale blue sky at one stop lighter than a mid-tone (about right for a natural looking sky) then the grass in the foreground is going to be a stop darker than a mid-tone and those trees in full leaf over there will be at two stops darker than a mid-toneand the shade beneath them will be three stops darker than a mid-tone and in essence black or nearly so. But the essence of this sort of photography is not

 

"how do I get this to look as it does to my eye."

 

but

 

"how do I want this to look and what do I need to do to achieve it?"

 

Inevitably spotmetering will slow you down at the beginning, but as with any process it gets faster as you understand it more and you systematise it.

[manut]

"which color would you look for in a landscape to get a 'mid' tone (green? gray ?which green or gray ?)"

 

I read in Jim Juckerman's book, the choice of mid tone should not be confused with color. It is color independent, you have to chose an object that is between the dark and white of your composition.