F100, Matrix and black-and-white

[Pfreddee]

Among my souvenirs, my F100 is a constant favorite for everything from slides to color negative to black and white. I did notice, however, that using Matrix metering for black and white led to a little too much shadow and not enough detail in the shadows, if you know what I mean. What has been the collective experience with Matrix metering and B&W film? I rate the film at its indicated speed: i.e., ISO 400 is set at ISO 400 in the camera. Would I do better to re-rate the film, use the center-weighted or spot meter? or something else entirely?

Thank yo to all who reply.

With best regards,

Pfreddee(Stephen)

 

[redisburning]

generally speaking I will spot meter a grey card and then adjust for the subject using that initial metering as a starting point.

if you are looking to use aperture or shutter priority you will always have to live with the camera potentially choosing wrong unless you use the above method with your exposure lock button in conjunction with your EV compensation button (Im assuing the f100 has these)

 

[robert blu]

I never used my F 100 for B&W but for slides I found easier to use the center weight instead of the Matrix , because you never know what kind of "calculations" Matrix makes.
On the other side I got excellent results using Matrix with flash.
robert

 

[Mablo]

This is exactly what I've noticed. Matrix metering doesn't really work properly with traditional b&w film. My own hypothesis is matrix was primarily designed to be used with chromes and tries to maintain higher tones like the blue sky. If you shoot print film instead and your image has wide exposure range your shadows will suffer. With narrow exposure range you won't notice anything.

I now only use weighted average with b&w and C-41 and try to avoid metering the sky.