 BetterPhoto Member |
Metering Basics Are there any good books that teach good technique on metering. Some books mention what they metered off, but rarely explain why. There doesn't seem to be a formula to it. Any suggestions?
|
|
|
|
||
|
Mark Feldstein |
Howdy David ! I think the real "why" or what I call the "Zen" of metering, isn't found so much in books about light meters (although a lot of metering materials briefly explain it) but rather books on the zone system Ansel Adams cooked up years ago. He actually wrote a series of three books, I believe: One on the Zone System, one on "The Negative", and one on "The Print". You at least ought to take a look at the Zone System. The other two are based on the zone system. You don't say whether you're using a hand held meter or a meter built into your camera. Essentially, both kinds work on the principle of objects being an average of 18% gray, which happens to fall at zone 5 of 10 on Adam's system. A camera meter may be center weighted or also offer spot metering capabilities which is pretty handy. A hand held meter measures light wherever you place it in either an incident mode, which is measuring the amount of light falling on a subject, or in the reflected mode, measuring what is reflected off the surface of the subject(s). A hand held spot meter allows you to zero in on an area within 1 degree or so, record multiple readings of a scene and average them. Handy if you can't get close enough to your subject with a standard meter. So, generally, light meters are gray meters using that 18% standard. I think there are two real keys to using them effectively. The first is understanding what meters do, i.e., come up with an average exposure for what they're measuring based on 18% gray. They can't think or interpret a scene. You have to do that and determine whether the exposure it tells you is correct for the whole scene or whether you need to adjust, plus or minus f-stops to get a better rendering for the rest of the scene OR take readings from different areas of the scene and average them in order to say expose for shadow details and at the same time, prevent blowing out the highlights. The second key lies in understanding how the film interprets or records what you see, which isn't the same. This is why we use different films for different subjects (for those of us who still shoot film) in different lighting and filters to adjust color balance and contrast in black and white. Matching the film in terms of type and speed helps a lot when you're looking to perfect your results. In terms of any formulas, once you have a fundamental understanding of how a meter meters and what film will, with a little help from you, produce the results you're looking for, then you'll be able to cook up your own formulas and it tends to become second nature to you if you do it enough. Recording your exposures in a notebook will help you in that regard too when reviewing your work. Beyond the Adams books, you might also take a look at a book called (oddly enough) "The Hand Exposure Meter Book" by Silverman, Zucker and Bob Shell. It used to be available from Mamiya Publishing. It explains meters, metering technique, tricks, how to go about interpreting a meter, and AND they even toss in a really swell, genuine, pocket-size gray card. Hope this is en"light"ening. ;>)
|
|
|
|
||
- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
When they say they metered off of something, is because they used that to get a correct meter reading, and/or to get a starting point. Hypothetical example one-somebody says they metered off something green. Well green(meaning shade that's not real dark or light) is a medium tone similar to the gray card. And if the subject is really dark or light, the type that fools a meter set to auto, you meter off of something besides the subject to get a correct reading. Or if in a situation where you're familar with, you can meter off of something you know isn't correct, but you know how much over or under you should go to get to a correct reading. You could meter off of something very bright, like an egret if doing birds. And based on what you get, know to increase by 1 1/2, or whatever you feel is right. Most common reason at least. Not saying always.
|
|
|
|
||
|
This old forum is now archived. Use improved Forum here
Report this Thread |
||