Selecting a metering method

[compur]

Unless you're shooting large format and doing your own processing and wet darkroom printing I would forget about the zone system.

The most foolproof method in my opinion is incident metering, that is, measuring the light that is falling on your subject with a hand held meter.

In-camera meters are reflective meters and are subject to being fooled by such things are back-lighting, unusually light or dark areas, bright skies, glare, etc BUT if you are aware of these pitfalls you can usually compensate for them and the convenience of having the meter built into the camera makes it a good choice most of the time. Some in-camera meters are quite sophisticated, especially those in the higher end auto focus film cameras and can automatically do a lot of that compensation for you.

Another good choice in my opinion is no metering at all -- what is called the "sunny 16 rule." If you are outdoors walking about in day light then this method not only works fine with B&W film but trains you to judge lighting situations without the need of a meter.

 

[dxqcanada]

Thanks for your responses.

I think I should have maybe been more specific. I understand, for the most part, how the different metering options work.

However, I'm trying to differentiate situations in which one would use a specific method. For example: I have "X" scene. Do I choose to meter a gray card, or do I choose to use the zone system? What kind of factors am I looking at to make these decisions? Indoor? Outdoor? Contrast? How do I evaluate a scene to select a metering option and what am I looking for?

Thanks!

Hmm, you really brought me back to the old'n days.

I used to use a grey card with a reflective light meter (like what's in your camera) to get a general measurement of exposure ... though mostly in studio, or if I was really close to my subject ... problem with using a grey card in the field is carrying it around (I did have a small 4x4 inch card in my camera bag).
I started with using the reflective meter in-camera ... then bought a hand held light meter, used the incident metering, when shooting manual and can't be bothered to meter everything.
Zone System ... hmm, only do that when you have individual control over the processing of a single frame. If you are shooting large format ... go for it ... otherwise, don't bother.
In the end (of my film days ... hmm, still have film in my fridge, so not so over) I just use the in camera spot meter of my Canon F-1N, and use my brain.

 

[Derrel]

With color negative film, you want to expose adequately for the shadowed areas. Color negative film handles over-exposure reasonably well. Same with B&W negative film: you want a decent shadow exposure, and B&W negative film has a delightful "roll-off" of the highlight areas as they go from well-exposed to definitively over-exposed.

Color slide film and digitial need to have their highlight exposures set: they are very sensitive to over-exposure of highlights, so with color slide film and digital color, we tend to meter the highlighted areas, and make SURE we do NOT over-expose them too much.

The Canon AE-1 Program was a camera I used in high school. It has a relatively good in-camera exposure meter. It's going to give you an exposure setting that will "average" an entire scene that is light-metered through the 50mm lens as an 18% gray "average" exposure.

If you can get the camera CLOSE to a single-toned object, what the light meter recommends will be in effect a close-up reading; this is often hard to do, to get close-up to a single subject, and when doing so, one has to make sure not to block the prevailing light, nor allow one's own shadow to influence the light that is being metered. Sounds basic, but metering things that happen to be dimmed by your own shadow is a common mistake when doing a close-up meter reading!

For negatives: you need to ADD light to make it WHITE. And you want to subtract to make it black. (Think of this as a silly, dumb poem mnemonic device.)

White snow outdoors with a reflected light meter needs about 1.5 to 1.7 stops MORE light, to make the snow white, and not the meter's average of 18% gray-colored snow.

A large dumptruck pile's worth of black coal needs a MINUS exposure value of about Minus 1.5 to 1.7 EV to make the coal pile render as black, and not the meter's average idea of 18% gray.

You can meter the palm of your own hand, and open up about 1 stop, and that's similar to metering a gray card, and is a sort of crude, old-time way to imitate an incident light meter reading.

 

[Gary A.]

I stated reading all this ... and I'm thinking where does one start. Your question(s) are not trivial. There isn't any simple answer, like ... in the mornings use reflective, afternoons use incident, dawn and dusk use spot, et cetera. Rhetorically speaking: What does it mean to expose for the shadows ... what does it mean to expose for the highlights ... how much overexposure does one give to shadows ... et cetera????

I strongly suggest you get a solid foundation of metering and exposure. Once armed with this knowledge you'll know when, how and why to use which meter. I don't think you'll be able to find in this, or any thread, complete answers to your questions.

Read, read, read, experiment and if you can, take a class or two in film photography. I am a fan of the Zone System and Ansel Adams and Adams' book, The Negative, while somewhat advanced, but it is still good reading.

 

[limr]

Another good choice in my opinion is no metering at all -- what is called the "sunny 16 rule." If you are outdoors walking about in day light then this method not only works fine with B&W film but trains you to judge lighting situations without the need of a meter.

Sunny 16 works for me. I do use a meter app on my phone to take some general measurements (highlights, shadows, reflections...) but don't meter for every shot.

 

[pgriz]

I used to shoot a lot of slide film which has less latitude than negative film. My go-to was a Luna Gossen handheld meter (like this one: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images1000x1000/gossen_luna_pro_gray_analog_801009583.jpg)

The starting point was to know how much direct light I had to work with. Then I'd incident-meter the shadows to see how many stops the shadows were below that of the direct light. That would give be the basic exposure range I had to work with. Since slide film had a rather narrow latitude (about 5-6 stops I think), I had to make sure that the exposure of the overall scene was going to fit into that range. Negative film has a wider range (8-9 stops, and some can achieve up to 12 stops with very careful processing). Coming back to the slide film, if a highlight was more than three stops over the incident light reading, I would know that it would be blown (as Derrel noted a post or so earlier), so I'd adjust the exposure accordingly (underexpose by about 1 stop to be sure the highlights were not blown). That said, like @limr, I'd figure out the overall exposure, set it manually, and then use it until the light situation changed or if the scene tonality became quite different. By doing the exposure this way, I would have a consistent set of images taken at the same time, so we didn't have one image overexposed because the main subject was dark, and the next one underexposed because the subject was very light.

 

[FLCKeats]

This makes a lot of sense.

Would you consider that a concept of the zone system, or just a basic photography technique?

I used to shoot a lot of slide film which has less latitude than negative film. My go-to was a Luna Gossen handheld meter (like this one: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/images1000x1000/gossen_luna_pro_gray_analog_801009583.jpg)

The starting point was to know how much direct light I had to work with. Then I'd incident-meter the shadows to see how many stops the shadows were below that of the direct light. That would give be the basic exposure range I had to work with. Since slide film had a rather narrow latitude (about 5-6 stops I think), I had to make sure that the exposure of the overall scene was going to fit into that range. Negative film has a wider range (8-9 stops, and some can achieve up to 12 stops with very careful processing). Coming back to the slide film, if a highlight was more than three stops over the incident light reading, I would know that it would be blown (as Derrel noted a post or so earlier), so I'd adjust the exposure accordingly (underexpose by about 1 stop to be sure the highlights were not blown). That said, like @limr, I'd figure out the overall exposure, set it manually, and then use it until the light situation changed or if the scene tonality became quite different. By doing the exposure this way, I would have a consistent set of images taken at the same time, so we didn't have one image overexposed because the main subject was dark, and the next one underexposed because the subject was very light.

 

[pgriz]

I have used a zone system, but generally, the zone system is used with negatives and prints, and what I needed to do was adjust my metering to the latitude of the material I was working with (which was 5-6 latitude slide film). Here's what I suggest: meter the highlights you want to have detail in, meter the shadows, and meter the overall incident light you have to work with. Let's assume you have highlights metered at 1/2000 at f/8, and the shadows at 1/15 at f/8. That's 7 stops of latitude. Let's say your incident reading was 1/500 at f/8. So you have 2 stops above, and 5 stops below. If you're using a negative film, it should handle both ends quite handily with a basic exposure set at the incident meter reading. If you were using slide film, you'd lose the deep shadows. So with slides, you'd need to decide which was more important - preserving the detail in the highlights, or the shadows. If it was the shadows, you'd probably have to overexpose by 1-1-1/2 stops to pull the shadows into enough exposure to get the detail (but knowing you'll have blown highlights).

One thing you can try is to calibrate your film by doing a series of shots of an "average" scene starting with (say) 8 stops below incident, and finishing 4-5 stops above incident. Examine the resulting images to get a feeling for what each stop of exposure revealed to you. Once you've calibrated your film in this manner, you can then decide how to bias your exposure to get the maximum amount of detail.

 

[Ysarex]

.....One thing you can try is to calibrate your film by doing a series of shots of an "average" scene starting with (say) 8 stops below incident, and finishing 4-5 stops above incident. Examine the resulting images to get a feeling for what each stop of exposure revealed to you. Once you've calibrated your film in this manner, you can then decide how to bias your exposure to get the maximum amount of detail.

Now here's a man after my own heart. I'm having one of those "getting old" moments and you've made me feel a little better just now. A critical component to learning and understanding is testing -- constant, methodical and careful testing. Did the current generation miss that? What's the testing methodology?

The OP noted B&W negative film in her original post. But an excellent way to test a light meter is to expose a roll of transparency film. That obviates the added difficulty of trying to assess negatives as a testing procedure.

Joe

 

[pgriz]

"Testing" is not a process that comes naturally for many (maybe even most) people. Unless one has had some exposure during school or work to the necessity of testing or calibrating equipment and materials, it is not obvious why this is useful. On the other hand, few processes give you the learning potential and a deep knowledge of how your equipment and materials will behave.

 

[gsgary]

Good afternoon everyone,

I'm posting this in the film thread, because I shoot film (B&W). I know it's applicable to digital photography, but I've found film photographers tend to have slightly different ideas of methodology. I would welcome insight from anyone, though.

I've been feeling overwhelmed with all the different metering concepts. Not so much the matrix/center/spot concept, but the following:

1. Reflective metering.
2. Incident metering.
3. Using a grey-card.
4. Using the zone system via spot metering.

How the heck do you choose with "method" to use?

In my experience, they all come out slightly different. Close, but usually different within a stop or two.

If someone could compartmentalize this a bit for a novice sake, that'd be awesome.

Thank you!

Metering for film is not like metering for digital, in B+W film meter for the shadow develope for the highlights

 

[gsgary]

Thanks for your responses.

I think I should have maybe been more specific. I understand, for the most part, how the different metering options work.

However, I'm trying to differentiate situations in which one would use a specific method. For example: I have "X" scene. Do I choose to meter a gray card, or do I choose to use the zone system? What kind of factors am I looking at to make these decisions? Indoor? Outdoor? Contrast? How do I evaluate a scene to select a metering option and what am I looking for?

Thanks!

Don't worry about zone system unless you are developing and wet printing

 

[Optimum Clarity]

Good afternoon everyone,

I'm posting this in the film thread, because I shoot film (B&W). I know it's applicable to digital photography, but I've found film photographers tend to have slightly different ideas of methodology. I would welcome insight from anyone, though.

I've been feeling overwhelmed with all the different metering concepts. Not so much the matrix/center/spot concept, but the following:

1. Reflective metering.
2. Incident metering.
3. Using a grey-card.
4. Using the zone system via spot metering.

How the heck do you choose with "method" to use?

In my experience, they all come out slightly different. Close, but usually different within a stop or two.

If someone could compartmentalize this a bit for a novice sake, that'd be awesome.

Thank you!

I didn't bother reading the other replies since this is a reply to the OP so it may have been mentioned, but the method used will change as the conditions and surrounding change. It's tough to use a gray card in the woods in the evening to catch a deer in a clearing as the light is quickly changing.
It makes no sense to use incident to shoot a backlit subject against the sun.
Do a search on using various metering techniques and you will learn a lot.

 

[Dave Colangelo]

I skimmed most of the replies here and generally agree but all things considered I will offer the most common answer...

It Depends...

But I will elaborate based on my experience and chosen method. There are factors like film type, camera type, available meters etc but ill speak generally. FWIW there is no right answer to this question, each method has its pro's and cons and its better to use the method that best suits the situation than one method over all.

1. Reflective metering: This is my most used mode by far when shooting film. If the camera has an in body meter its what you are using and it generally works well. On another hand this can sometimes be the only practical method available to you. Generally when shooting landscapes incident metering on a mountain 1000 yards away is impractical. There is of course a bit of guess work here. Lets say you are shooting a landscape that has a very bright sky and a very dark mountain face. If you frame it such that the sky composes 70% of the image, and meter as such, the mountain will likely come out dark and the sky properly exposed. Here must think a bit in the zone mentality with only a single reflective measure. It should also be noted that Through The Lens Meters (TTL) in film cameras may be biased. For example Nikon film cameras (think F3 era) had very heavy center weighting on their meters. Its worth knowing how your in body meter works before practically using it.

2. Incident metering: I use this when shooting portraits, or things close enough to walk over to them and take a good incident reading. I would say its a bit more accurate but that may be due to the fact there is less guess work in it for me. I usually take a few readings depending on the lighting of the subject and the way the shadows fall.

3. Using a grey-card: have not really messed with this much so I wont comment.

4. Using the zone system via spot metering: First off to really make this work you need a spot meter, a good hand held one can be pricey to say the least but in body ones can be nice. I use this mode in the body (if its available) when the lighting is all over the place and I want a particular thing properly exposed. I also use it a bit when doing medium and large format landscape work and really have time to think about the zone system. This is good if you have the time to really compose, meter and take the shot, which, in reality is not always the case. Some will say this yields the best results and I will generally agree with that. But as many have mentioned with out really working in the darkroom later (or in Photoshop) this method may leave a lot on the table.

Regards
Dave