Handheld Exposure Meter

[danac]

I point the dome towards the camera, to get the same angle of the sun on the dome.

Meaning I look at the distance subject, determine the line from the subject to the camera, then point the dome back along that line. Basically, I just turn around, looking backwards.

So you take the reading while facing away from the distant subject with the meter pointing at the camera and in the direction of the subject. Is that correct?

[q.g._de_bakker]

You do not have to point it at the camera, of course. What you need is have the same light fall on the meter the same way as it does on the subject.

So turn your back to the subject and point the meter the opposite way, away from the subject.

 

You can bias the reading, if desired, by pointing it toward the light source, or away from the light source, to favour the highlights or shadows of the subject.

[AlanKlein]

So you take the reading while facing away from the distant subject with the meter pointing at the camera and in the direction of the subject. Is that correct?

Since meters are built differently, and domes can be in different locations on the meter depending on what meter you're referring to, pointing the meter is confusing. You point the dome to the subject, where ever it is on the meter.

[Ed_Ingold]

An incident meter is used to measure the light falling on the subject to suggest an exposure setting for an "average" subject (18% grey). For studio work, it is also used to measure the lighting ratio of one light or flash at a time toward the flash, then the combination of all lights toward the camera. In each case, the meter is held close to the subject. Of course it can be used far from the subject, pointed to the main source of light if the subject is under the same light.

 

i find it useful for taking pictures in nature, particularly flowers, which tend to be light against a dark background of foliage or earth. With an incident reading, you are less likely to over expose the subject due to a dominant dark background, or under expose reading the bright object itself. That said, built-in camera meters are getting smarter and smarter, taking the art and mystery out of setting exposures.

[Gary Naka]

So you take the reading while facing away from the distant subject with the meter pointing at the camera and in the direction of the subject. Is that correct?

 

Nope.

 

Let's forget the meter for a bit.

 

Imagine a line going from the subject to the camera, and beyond.

Stand on the line, facing towards the subject.

Now do a 180 degree, "about face." You are now facing "away" from the subject, looking down the line away from the camera.

The light falling on your face is the same as the light falling on the subject.

 

With an incident meter, the dome of the incident meter would be pointed in the direction you are facing.

 

The confusing part is when you see someone using an incident meter with a rotating head.

They can be facing in one direction, and the dome can be facing another direction. It is the direction that the DOME is facing that is important.

 

Sorry, this is much easier to show in person or a diagram, than with words.

[q.g._de_bakker]

An incident meter is used to measure the light falling on the subject to suggest an exposure setting for an "average" subject (18% grey). [...]

No. Completely wrong.

For any subject. Reflectance values, and means therof, are what can and will skew reflected (!) light metering.

But incident will give the correct reading, whether your subject is grey, pitch black, or bright as snow.

Edited October 4, 2021 by q.g._de_bakker

[Ed_Ingold]

No. Completely wrong.

For any subject. Reflectance values, and means therof, are what can and will skew reflected (!) light metering.

But incident will give the correct reading, whether your subject is grey, pitch black, or bright as snow.

I agree, but stated it differently. IMO, you are measuring the light falling on the subject, while assuming the reflectance of the subject is about 18#%. In your response, you do the reverse, assume the reflectance is 18% and measure the light falling on the subject. The glass is half empty or half full.

 

Ultimately, a spot meter is better able to deal with problematic lighting and subject material, provided you have the knowledge and experience how to use it. Modern cameras with "smart" matrix metering, dynamic range hovering around 16 stops, and fast bracketed exposures, may render the art of measuring light moot.

[danac]

To quote the redoutable Mr. Spock: "Fascinating." The goal here is to make as perfect an exposure as possible with pre-visualization as opposed to wasteful bracketing. After all, my camera can only expose fifteen images per roll of 120 film. If there is a steep learning curve, so be it. I'm willing and ready. Given the methods stated here, I wish there was more time to practice (being brand new to medium format). It will be interesting to borrow my friend's Sekonic L-608. Thursday Deb and I leave for Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. We have photographed these parks several times in the past. For insurance I will backup every important image with my venerable Canon A-1. Deb and I were married in Zion NP exactly forty years ago on the day we will be there.

[Giovanni Cappai]

I use the L-408 when on film, mostly incident. The spot metering is useful sometimes e.g. shooting against the sun. I wish it had a light for the display (smart phones resolved this though).

 

Review of Sekonic Multimaster L-408

[q.g._de_bakker]

I agree, but stated it differently. IMO, you are measuring the light falling on the subject, while assuming the reflectance of the subject is about 18#%. In your response, you do the reverse, assume the reflectance is 18% and measure the light falling on the subject. The glass is half empty or half full.

 

No. Not all. Incident light metering measures light, and assumes nothing about the subject.

Not half full. Not half empty. No glass at all.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Ultimately, a spot meter is better able to deal with problematic lighting and subject material, provided you have the knowledge and experience how to use it. Modern cameras with "smart" matrix metering, dynamic range hovering around 16 stops, and fast bracketed exposures, may render the art of measuring light moot.

 

Again, not at all. Spot meters are only usefull if you want to meter reflected light over a small angle, of a bit of the scene you cannot meter in isolation otherwise.

Using one, or any other reflected light meter, you need to judge how the reflectance value of that bit measured biased the reading, and adjust accordingly.

If anything, that complicates metering problematic lighting.

 

Matrix metering has achieved a level of obscurity that makes it nigh impossible to know what it is doing. So it indeed is good if and only if you know you can trust it to do what you want. Whether it does that or not you can only know after the fact. So not a problem for those who do not mind a trial and error aporoach.

You really need to master the art of light metering if you want to be in control.

[Gary Naka]

To quote the redoutable Mr. Spock: "Fascinating." The goal here is to make as perfect an exposure as possible with pre-visualization as opposed to wasteful bracketing. After all, my camera can only expose fifteen images per roll of 120 film. If there is a steep learning curve, so be it. I'm willing and ready. Given the methods stated here, I wish there was more time to practice (being brand new to medium format). It will be interesting to borrow my friend's Sekonic L-608. Thursday Deb and I leave for Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. We have photographed these parks several times in the past. For insurance I will backup every important image with my venerable Canon A-1. Deb and I were married in Zion NP exactly forty years ago on the day we will be there.

 

Congrats on your anniversary :)

 

I'm an old incident guy, but I do recognize it's limitations.

Incident is easy to use, for me. As I remember, it worked fine 99.9+% of the time.

 

But as was said, incident does not account for subject dynamic range (DR)/brightness of the scene.

That is when you have to use your brain to compensate, or a spot meter to determine the dynamic range/brightness and then your brain to determine how to shoot the scene. The sunlit tops of the canyon or the shadowed bottom of the canyon?

This is more important for slide film which has a narrower DR than negative film.

 

Where incident does not work, is when you are in completely different lighting that the subject.

Example shooting from a deep shade out into bright sunlight, or the reverse.

In that case, having something like the convertible Sekonic meters would be nice. I could use incident most of the time, with the ability to use spot for those conditions where incident does not work. Right now I have TWO meters, incident and spot, which is a hassle to deal with.

 

Although to effectively "previsualize," I would have to go with a spot meter, and use it as in the zone system.

But the setup work for that was a hassle that I did not want to deal with.

You have to shoot a grey card and scale, at different exposures, to determine the dynamic range of the film.

Then determine what different objects meter as, and how to adjust the exposure to move them to a particular point in the grey scale. And what effect that has on the entire scene.

That was way more work than I wanted to do.

But then, I was shooting cheap 35mm film, not EXPENSIVE and hard to handle 11x14 sheet film.

 

This is presuming color film where you don't adjust the development process. It can get more complicated for B&W where you can adjust development.

Read a GOOD book on the zone system, and you will see what I mean.

[Ed_Ingold]

Matrix metering has achieved a level of obscurity that makes it nigh impossible to know what it is doing. So it indeed is good if and only if you know you can trust it to do what you want.

Trust, but verify! "Trust" in matrix metering is one part, but it is very easy to verify the results. Matrix metering relies on artificial intelligence, which is fortunate since the real thing has become hard to find.

 

No. Not all. Incident light metering measures light, and assumes nothing about the subject.

Not half full. Not half empty. No glass at all.

An incident meter measures light impinging on the subject. While it could be expressed in lumens or some other absolute vale, the exposure value, given in shutter speed and f/stop for a given ISO rating, assumes the subject has a reflectance value of about 18%

[Gary Naka]

As good as matrix metering may be, as @Ed_Ingold said, you need to verify it, not blindly trust it.

I've learned the hard way (subject over/under exposure), that there are situations that the matrix meter on my Nikon D7200 simply cannot handle properly, and I have to deal with in other ways.

 

But back to the subject, handheld meters.

I've not yet seen a matrix handheld meter.

[q.g._de_bakker]

An incident meter measures light impinging on the subject. While it could be expressed in lumens or some other absolute vale, the exposure value, given in shutter speed and f/stop for a given ISO rating, assumes the subject has a reflectance value of about 18%

 

No, it does not.

It 'assumes' that something having a reflectance value of x must be rendered as something having a reflectance value of x, without caring one bit what value x might be.

That's why with one and the same reading, snow will be white, pitch will be black, and something having a reflectance value of 18% will appear as such in the recorded image.

[danac]

;)This fascinating thread reminds me of the saying: "For every PhD, there is an equal and opposite PhD."

[Ed_Ingold]

Once upon a time there were photography books which explained how things work. Now we have the internet, where everyone is an expert and hardly anyone bothers to read and understand. Sheesh!

 

An incident light reading and a reflected reading of an 18% grey card should give the same exposure if the light is uniformly distributed. If my term "assumes" implies an anthropomorphic assignation of a machine, try reading again in context.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Ed_Ingold

[q.g._de_bakker]

Once upon a time there were photography books which explained how things work. Now we have the internet, where everyone is an expert and no one bothers to read and understand. Sheesh!

Good self-assessment, Ed.

 

So let's teach a bit. Photography 1.0.1

 

Let's keep talking about 'assumptions', Ed.

When you point a reflected light meter at something, it measures a certain amount of light. What it assumes is, that if it is a lot of light, the exposure of film or sensor must be less, that if it is not much, the exposure must be more, and that if it is something in between, the exposure must be that too.

Because, Ed, it 'assumes' that the subject is one and the same, that all that is different is the amount of light. So a black subject is assumed to be a dimly lit grey subject, so an overly rich exposure is suggested. A white subject is assumed to be an overlit grey subject that requires a more conservative exposure. And a grey subject is assumed to be a grey subject in moderate light, so an inbetween exposure is suggested. The result of assuming that the subject is an 18%, grey subject is that all exposures produce a middle grey.

Take away that 'assumption', do not bias exposure suggestions with such an assumption, and the white subject will be rendered white, the black will be rendered as a black subject, etc. That's what you get using incident light metering. No (! take note) assumptions about subject reflectance values.

 

Now for an assignment, explain the difference in your own words, Ed.

[c_watson1]

For all the outgassing, it's uncertain how many here use a meter of any sort regularly. Hands up for those who do!

[Gary Naka]

If/when I shoot film, which has been rare, I use my incident meter.

 

If I am trying to figure out a lighting issue, I will use the incident meter to measure how much light is hitting a particular spot, and from which direction.

I did that on my high school football field, to figure out night exposure issues. Inside the 10yd line -1 stop. At the corners -2 stops. :eek:

Facts beats guessing.

For graduation, I use my incident meter. The synthetic graduation gowns reflect sooo much light, that they confuse the Nikon matrix meter, and totally underexpose the faces. What is more important, the gown or the faces?

 

The handheld meter is simply a tool that gets used when I need it.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Gary Naka

[AJG]

For all the outgassing, it's uncertain how many here use a meter of any sort regularly. Hands up for those who do!

Since I shoot with studio flash most of the time for commercial work, I use my Sekonic L 718 flash meter (98% in incident mode) a lot. Chimping the screen on the back of a DSLR just doesn't do it for me, but YMMV.

[danac]

Okay - slight change of pace. I was going to borrow an L-608 but there isn't time to learn it's use. So I will take my friend's Luna-Pro and the variable angle spot attachment. I put the correct batteries in it and zeroed the meter. My question to those who have used this set up is: how good is the spot meter attachment? Edited October 5, 2021 by danac

[Gary Naka]

Okay - slight change of pace. I was going to borrow an L-608 but there isn't time to learn it's use. So I will take my friend's Luna-Pro and the variable angle spot attachment. I put the correct batteries in it and zeroed the meter. My question to those who have used this set up is: how good is the spot meter attachment?

 

If you don't have time to shoot and process a roll of film, do a sanity check, to see that the meter is in the ball park.

Broad daylight, the sunny 16 rule (or sunny 11 if you are further north).

ISO = 100, f/16, 1/125 sec.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Okay - slight change of pace. I was going to borrow an L-608 but there isn't time to learn it's use. So I will take my friend's Luna-Pro and the variable angle spot attachment. I put the correct batteries in it and zeroed the meter. My question to those who have used this set up is: how good is the spot meter attachment?

Both the big 1 degree see-through attachment and the small 15 and 7.5 degree thingy are good.

More modern meters are more convenient.

[Ed_Ingold]

I see others have found what I have experienced. When taking group photos, being consistent is better than being right-on. You spend a lot less time adjusting and editing when you can work in blocks. While you don't absolutely need a meter when setting up a digital camera, you can get it done more quickly with than without. Time is money (customer annoyance, and used heartbeats). Setting up for large goups, I walk around the stage to profile coverage of the flash units (triggered with my aging Sekonic 508 in incident mode), and make the necessary adjustments.

 

The L-508 has a variable spot meter, 1 to 5 degrees. I don't recall using anything less than the tighest setting. The variable feature was dropped in subsequent models. I found the spot mode useful for landscapes with an Hasselblad, The hard part is knowing what to measure and how to apply that measurement.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Ed_Ingold