Incident Metering

Most of my film cameras are models of the previous generations and are either battery free or battery vacant. My Sekonic L308B has followed me for over 20 years though I have recently added an L308S which are basically the same meter. Before that it has been a Western V with Invercone for many years. And 99.9% of the time I used incident light. It is much more accurate to measure the light falling on the subject than light reflected from it as the subject is never a grey card. I also have a digital P&S which never went beyond program or auto!

I also noticed that many film photographers of the younger generations relied too heavily on reflected light. And they think they always got it right. I am not saying this is not true. I also found that most of them take prints instead of slides. What has happened on many occasions was that they didn't actually get their exposure right, but their D&P men sorted it out for them. My observations have been confirmed many times when I looked at their negatives.

That's why I have always advised these youngsters to take more slides for practice and use incident light meters. This would be a big step forward as many of them haven't the slightest idea what exposure was all about. They just relied on the cameras' needles or LEDs. This is a shame as the basic foundation of photography (at least the technical side) was 50% about exposure and 50% about shutter speeds. When I test cameras I always use slides. But once exposure of slides has been mastered, exposure of prints will be no problem.

When I go on holidays and taking building and landscapes I mainly used prints. The reason is that my enlargement man does a very good job with them. But in any event, my incident light meters just cannot be dispensed with wherever I go.
 
Well Bill, at 77 and still working, I guess I meet your standard for elderly journalist...and yes - my Sekonic L-398 is a faithful companion. Old dogs may learn new tricks (like shooting Zuiko primes on an E-1), but the old ones are still the best ones (or so I tell the ladies.) 😉
 
Bill Pierce said:
Roger -

Good system.

What I've always done with negative film and incident meters (beside the simple system of cutting the EI in half and praying) is take a regular reading, then take a second reading casting a shadow on the hemisphere with my hand - and using an exposure between the two. Overcast days, hardly any change in the two readings. Sunny days, big change between the two reading and significant increase in exposure over the "straight" incident reading
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Thanks to Bill and Roger for this as i've been trying to understand this when using my incident meter this week. It occured to me I should be compensating for the shadows but I wasn't sure how much. The hand over the dome sounds a solution I assume you have to think about how deep the shadows might be. Its probaley a "how long is a piece of string question" but how much compensation might you use on a sunny day - 1/2 a stop or whole one? I'm guessing this might just be down to experience

Thanks again for the discussion as I've been searching fo a debate on this subject.
 
Yammerman said:
The hand over the dome sounds a solution I assume you have to think about how deep the shadows might be. Its probaley a "how long is a piece of string question" but how much compensation might you use on a sunny day - 1/2 a stop or whole one? I'm guessing this might just be down to experience.
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It's not so much "hand over the dome" as cast a shadow on the dome. The difference between the two readings on a shadowless day will be zero. On a sunny day, it varies. But don't be suprised if it's two and half or three stops. With black and white neg I shoot halfway between the two; so, on a sunny day I could be giving 1 1/2 stops more exposure than the conventional incident reading (and shortening my development time a bit if all the frames on that roll are exposed that way).

Bill
 
The first meter I bought ws a Sekonic Auto Leader. Actually pretty good to be so inexpensive. When I left Korea, I decieded to spend a little and got the Sekonic L28c2 from the PX catalog. Although it can be used in reflected mode, I never liked, nor really trusted it much that way. Love that meter! When I dropped my first L28c2 one too many times, it had to be held sideways to work. So I played the ebay game until I was able to get a Gossen Luna Pro in my price range. That's a nice meter, and usable in much lower light that the L28c2. Later, a Gossen Luna Pro SBC with some accessories.

I like the Gossens. For reasons I can't quantify, I prefer the Luna Pro in reflected mode, and the SBC in incident mode. I use both. But I still prefer the L28c2 for incident in sufficient light. I prefer incident over reflected much of the time. Especially with my Super Press 23. It's probably just my style of shooting. I

But I think through all four of those meters, I learned to use them as they best worked. I think that is always what has to be done. All of them gave and give me good exposures. All but the Auto Leader still do. Its cell died and getting a replacement proved less accurate from Radio Shack than I hoped it would.

All that said, I have had very good luck with my first two SLR cameras. First was the Yashica TL Super. First, it was just very accurate. TTL match needle gives very good visual ideas on under or over exposure if experience tells you it will need some adjustment. Next was my Fujica ST 901. One of the reasons I wanted the Gossen Luna Pro SBC was my experience with the SBC in the Fujica. I don't think I ever got a bad exposure that couldn't be blamed on me. TTL or hand held meter, some times you have to make adjustments. But I never felt the need for a meter when using those cameras.

YMMV

Thanks for the thread Mr. Pierce. It has made interesting reading. Everyone has had thought provoking enties. I was interested in your experience on movie sets. I had heard the Sekonic L28c2's were used there. Just advertising and ebay hype?
 
I'm a pretty young kid and I rely mostly on my Gossen Digiflash.

Is there a better, small incident meter out there? The Gossen gets the job done, but the controls are awkward and there are so many useless modes to sort through.
 
For years I’ve used a Sekonic L-398 with a label on it to indicate ev15 (sunny f16) with the high slide in, it’s straightforward then to read off how many stops away from f16/Film Speed I am.

With the slide removed it becomes f2.8/reciprocal Film Speed for indoors, very quick and easy I don’t even need to set the film speed on the dial

PS you still have to apply common sense to the reading however
 
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FifthLeaf, find yourself a Weston Master IV or V and get it overhauled by Quality Light Metric. They have the incident attachments also, and sometimes have reconditioned meters for sale. It has a selenium cell, NO batteries. It'll get you down to about 1/8 second @ f/2 which will cover most indoor situations. The later Master VI and Euromaster aren't as well made. The Westons date from the days when saying "screw mount" instead of "thread mount" carried no sexual connotations.

All of Bill's advice still holds true today. We cut our teeth on narrow latitude slie films (which is why we have grey hair).
 
I have a confession. While I use an incident meter and manual camera exposure settings a great deal of the time, I am using cameras with TTL reflected metering (and often automation); so I do ask myself on occasion, "Why doesn't my handheld incident reading agree with the TTL reflected reading of my camera?"

The reasons for disagreement can be many. But, if you can answer why, you've got a very good chance of coming up with the proper exposure rather quickly and rather efficiently.

Bill
 
Thanks for the suggestions, but after a little research I think I'm going to stick with my little Gossen. I mostly want an incident meter that is ultra-compact and, as reliable as those classics are, they're just more than I usually want to carry.

I'll just have modify (i.e. pry out) the Mode button on the Digiflash so that I don't keep accidentally pressing it.
 
Well, my meters are byassed or my understanding is limited, but to my experience incident meters work best for color than for BW. For BW the block detail in the black or dark tones.

Hand held meter vs camera reflective auto ? It depends on several factors, but we should try lazyness will not be one of them. Yet, the fast street photographer should be like an auto puma ready to jump (to click) when necessary and study incidentally his environments when possible.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
ruben said:
Well, my meters are byassed or my understanding is limited, but to my experience incident meters work best for color than for BW. For BW the block detail in the black or dark tones.

Cheers,
Ruben
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Ruben -

It's not so much color vs. b&w as reversal/slide film vs. negative film. Incident meters with that half a ping-pong ball in front of the cel will respond to the "main light" in a contrasty situation and prevent blown out highlights even if it means sacrificing shadow detail. That's great for transparencies and digital where "blown out" is unreclaimable film base or its detailess digital equivalent.

With negative the detailess cellophane is at the shadow end. Exposing for the shadows and "printing" for the highlights was codified by Ansel Adams and the Zone System, but it was around for a lot longer than that. My own attitude with incident metering with negative film is to take two incident readings - one regular, one casting as shadow on the "ping-pong ball" and use an exposure halfway between the two (or just cut the ISO setting in half and pray).

The important part of all of this is that the incident meter is a tool worth considering for anyone shooting digital - whether the final print or screen image is color or b&w.

Bill
 
Bill Pierce said:
Ruben -

The important part of all of this is that the incident meter is a tool worth considering for anyone shooting digital - whether the final print or screen image is color or b&w.

Bill
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I shoot digi for sports, mostly youth soccer. On bright days I carry either a Weston IV or a Sekonic L-208. Often I'll shoot manual exposure on my 1D IIN using an incident reading, especially when either of the teams have white kits. Prevents blown-out highlights, just as you say, Bill. Saves a lot of time in post-processing (I hate the shadows/highlight tool anyway).
 
I'm about ready to head out on a shoot ~ B&W at a political breakfast. I have my Weston Master V in a little belt pouch with the Invercone ready to go after checking it against my other Weston Master V...LOL They match within about 1/6 stop.

The Invercone is Weston's invention. A BIG ping pong ball with a cone shaped indentation so it's only about 1/2 inch thick, but seems as effective as the hemisphere shaped incident light adapters. I can't leave the incident adapter in place with the Weston case ~ it won't close. That's why the little belt pouch.

Bill and I are about the same age (I'm about to turn 66) and we remember the thrill of going out with a bag full of Ektachrome on shoots where bracketing wasn't an option and there was no P-shop to save our butts with "post processing" when we got back to the office. What I find astounding is just how much "common knowledge" has been lost. The metering techniques he's describing were known by high school kids working for the school paper or year book. There were no "photography classes" and nobody majored in photography at college because very few schools offered the option, even if they offered a course or two in the art department.

If I were to go to college these days I'd take a psychology or social anthropology major along with perhaps a minor in business. Understanding and dealing with people is as important as learning exposure techniques.

As for "negative film has lots of latitude"? Ansel Adams wouldn't agree. It's a pleasure to go in the darkroom when the entire roll is properly exposed. Printing goes a lot faster.
 
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Al Kaplan said:
If I were to go to college these days I'd take a psychology or social anthropology major along with perhaps a minor in business. Understanding and dealing with people is as important as learning exposure techniques.
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Perhaps this is a little bit off topic, but, in the '90's, a photographer I greatly admire retired from teaching. He made a list of possible replacements and the dean of the department made a similar list. I showed up on both lists. I wasn't traveling outside the country; so, I said yes.

Unfortunately, I wasn't home a lot and literally ended up flying into NY to teach the once a week class. They were good students. By the end of the semester we were up to snuff on the craft level and beginning to tackle our individual weaknesses. At the end of the semester, a large number of the students asked me to be their faculty advisor. I told them it was best to have their advisor be a teacher in their major. It turns out they were majoring in photography. I didn't say anything to them, but went upstairs and resigned. I let it be known that my travel made it impossible to teach. In part, that was true. And this wasn't an Ivy League University; so, no one was going to be majoring in modern physics or taking a graduate degree in comparative religions.

But taking that precious time that you are allowed to study before becoming a breadwinner to study a relatively simple craft. Study what's in front of the camera. It can be through art history or the history of governments or whatever.

Harvard has a wonderful photography class. They bring in a different teacher from the outside each year. Susan Meiselas and Gilles Perez and, I'm sure, many other good people have taught it. It's overbooked. More people want to take the class than it can handle. But, it is a NO CREDIT class.

Thoughts?
 
Bill,

Great thread, thanks for starting it. I'm 37, which in this thread qualifies me as young! The weekend before last I went to the beach in the sunset hour with my Rolleiflex TLR and my Gossen Luna Pro. I tried your technique of setting the exposure half-way between the direct incident and hand shadow. I should get the results back from the lab this week (used BW400CN film). Anyway, the sharing of first hand experience with an incident meter is why I love RFF. It is helping me me on my journey to become a better photographer. I have not mastered proper exposure yet but feel I am on the right path now and just need to keep practicing.
 
Al Kaplan said:
...

If I were to go to college these days I'd take a psychology or social anthropology major along with perhaps a minor in business. Understanding and dealing with people is as important as learning exposure techniques.
...
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Bill Pierce said:
...

But taking that precious time that you are allowed to study before becoming a breadwinner to study a relatively simple craft. Study what's in front of the camera. It can be through art history or the history of governments or whatever.

...

Thoughts?
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Interesting. How long does it take most people to learn the simple craft? Is it necessary to experiment with different films, developers, types of camera equipment? Is knowledge of chemistry important? Mounting of photographs? I don't mean that confrontationally, I am just curious on your take on that and if studying at the college level can then be worth while?

I do think photography should be a liberal arts major. There should be lots of life type studies required for the degree. My study was in computer information systems. We had to learn math, accounting, statistics, sociology, all things that we might need to know something about before being asked to develop databases or write programs in another discipline. Oh, we had to learn about applications, computers, programming, computer math and such as well.

I quoted Al Kaplan above. I think study in anthropology and language (native as well as foreign) is well worth while. No matter the intended major. A better understanding of people should make life easier.

But as to whether or not a degree in photography is a waste? Truely, I had never thought of that as a possibility. If I think I have it figured out, I will let you know sir.

EDIT: I just realized my questions and comments were more from a film use standpoint. I have no idea how digital might figure into it all.
 
A few years ago I taught media to 17-18 year olds. They had no problem using digital cameras, even took good pictures, some of them. But exposure? Shutter, aperture? No idea whatsoever. Until I was permitted by the school to buy a second hand Gossen incident meter. That made it all visual and understandable. I think a couple of them got their own.
I use my Sekonic L 398 all the time, with my Leicas and my old Nikon FM, where the meter´s been dead for ages - and for digital when I want to be dead sure. 🙂
 
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