Living in the past?

[Out to Lunch]

Turn it around: perhaps today's in-camera light meters outperform or do as well as hand-held light meters.

 

[charjohncarter]

I used a Sekonic Master L-104 series S from 1969 until about 6 years ago when I up graded to a 308s. The Sekonic Master has an incident cone that is why I used it so much with meter cameras. It (Master) still is right on with my new Sekonic.

 

[icebear]

Nope, left that behind with film many years ago. I'd rather dial in a little negative exposure comp to save my highlights on a bright day. Once I've used a camera for awhile, I know how its meter will react. Plus, on digital cameras these days, they may even have a highlight priority mode (like the Ricoh GR III).

^THIS
based on the histogram of the initial shot of a scene to max out exposure w/o blowing the important highlights.
I haven't used my little Gossen Digisix since I sold my M3.

 

[Erik van Straten]

I have cameras with built-in lightmeters: Leica MP and Leica M5. When I use these cameras, I use their meters. It is nice to have a meter, the exposure will be more precise. But the meter distracts my attention from the subject. Therefore it is for me often better to have no lightmeter at all, so I have cameras without a meter too.


Erik.

 

[emraphoto]

Always have one though it is more of a habit than a technical preference these days. It also helps me to remember the 'pre-flight checks'. Aperture set, shutter speed, iso etc. I once had a fleeting chance to photograph a very important man, who was responsible for a lot of death in West Africa. I didnt do the 'pre-flight routine' and subsequently blew the exposure. Never repeated that mistake.

 

[Robbie Bedell]

I can share Dogman's feelings. I also worked for papers in those days and know firsthand the nightmare of moving from Tri X to transparencies. I am a long-time Gossen fan and most of the time have a Luna-Pro with me. I also use a Luna-Pro F. It's a perfect meter but sometimes a bit large. I have always advocated just walking around and measuring light. If you do that enough you will have a pretty good idea how to expose when you don't have a meter with you. I have never cared for cameras with built-in meters.

www.robbiebedell.photoshelter.com

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I carry a Sekonic L-758DR meter and use it for every photograph. I have not used a built-in camera meter in 20 years. Especially for digital, which has so little exposure latitude compared to BW neg film, built-in meters are incapable of giving correct exposure for most subjects. Yes, you can take the camera reading and manually adjust it, but an incident meter is simply more accurate and faster than jumping through hoops like that.


Here's a tutorial I wrote explaining why an incident meter is better.

I guess you haven't took pictures of people moving between sun and shadow for a while.


🙂 Two devices are never faster than one. But for yours static objects representing the nice things from the past it doesn't matter.

 

[Michael Markey]

I guess you haven't took pictures of people moving between sun and shadow for a while.


🙂 Two devices are never faster than one. But for yours static objects representing the nice things from the past it doesn't matter.

Yep , I rarely take static stuff .
My subjects are moving quickly and often in and out of shade so I rely on the camera which is good enough.

 

[seany65]

I do. Most recently I used a Gossen Variosix F in an art gallery in Manchester when I was using delta 3200 at 6400 in a ricoh 500gx, and with a Praktica PLC3 for the same purpose with more of the same film.

I also have a Gossen Trisix, a Metrwatt Metraphot 3 and a Metrawatt Metrastar. I haven't used the latter with a camera yet. I've got 9 cameras with no meter and the ricoh's has just given up the ghost.

 

[ptpdprinter]

I do. Most recently I used a Gossen Variosix F in an art gallery in Manchester when I was using delta 3200 at 6400 in a ricoh 500gx, and with a Praktica PLC3 for the same purpose with more of the same film.

That's a dim gallery.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

I have owned various handheld meters but seldom use them.
I tend towards cameras with good built-in exposure meters.

Chris

 

[seany65]

Quote:
Originally Posted by seany65

I do. Most recently I used a Gossen Variosix F in an art gallery in Manchester when I was using delta 3200 at 6400 in a ricoh 500gx, and with a Praktica PLC3 for the same purpose with more of the same film.

That's a dim gallery.

In some parts it is, but I wanted to use /125 and /250 to minimise camera shake to see if that was the reason why the first film looked to be slightly out of focus in most shots. I suspect that the small rangefinder patch and using an old pair of spectacles as replacements for the "up-to-date" pair that had fallen to bits and were unrepairable didn't help.

The second film wasn't much better, but many of the exhibits were quite small on the print which may not have helped with any perceived focus issues.

I wanted to re-shoot with my praktica plc3 to see if the bigger "rangefinder" patch and the fact that it was bigger and heavier would help, but the sections I was interested in were closed, so I've lost the chance to do a proper comparison.

 

[Bill Pierce]

While I use an incident meter to prevent losing highlight detail with transparency film and digital sensors, there is a technique I also use that is available to digital shooters that can insure highlight detail and at the same time promote the generous exposures that benefit digital images. It’s simple. It’s the histogram that can be made available on many digital cameras’ viewing screens. True, it’s often a histogram for the jpeg image, not the raw image, but it’s useful in allowing you to use the most generous exposure that does not block highlights. Just give the most generous exposure that doesn’t push the brightest area of the histogram off scale. Is there anybody else that uses this technique?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

While I use an incident meter to prevent losing highlight detail with transparency film and digital sensors, there is a technique I also use that is available to digital shooters that can insure highlight detail and at the same time promote the generous exposures that benefit digital images. It’s simple. It’s the histogram that can be made available on many digital cameras’ viewing screens. True, it’s often a histogram for the jpeg image, not the raw image, but it’s useful in allowing you to use the most generous exposure that does not block highlights. Just give the most generous exposure that doesn’t push the brightest area of the histogram off scale. Is there anybody else that uses this technique?

Its called "Expose To The Right" and no, I don't use or recommend it.


First, most digital cameras histograms are not very accurate and are too small on the screen for them to ever be.


Second, you're overexposing the image and then having to pull the tones back down to where they should be in post-processing, which never looks perfectly natural.


There's no magic bullet or secret trick for exposure that works better than simply exposing correctly using an accurate meter.

 

[Dogman]

Yep, I do use the histogram pretty often. But a good bit of the time I just go with the aperture priority settings and auto ISO. Sometimes I'll switch to shutter priority or even manual but keep auto ISO. A little finessing in LR is usually enough to keep detail in the RAF converted files.

 

[narsuitus]

None of my large format or medium format film cameras have built-in light meters.
Some of my small format film cameras to not have built-in light meters.
Some of my small format film cameras have built-in light meters that work and I sometimes use the meters.
Some of my small format film cameras have built-in light meters that may or may not work. I do not know because I have never put batteries in the cameras and the cameras do not need batteries to take pictures.
I use a variety of hand held light meters.
I also use the Sunny 16 Guideline.
With my cameras that do not have a built-in light meter, I sometimes use a digital camera to determine exposure.

 

[Bill Pierce]

Its called "Expose To The Right" and no, I don't use or recommend it.


First, most digital cameras histograms are not very accurate and are too small on the screen for them to ever be.


Second, you're overexposing the image and then having to pull the tones back down to where they should be in post-processing, which never looks perfectly natural.


There's no magic bullet or secret trick for exposure that works better than simply exposing correctly using an accurate meter.

Chris -

Points well taken. The histograms and blinking highlights on a lot of cameras are too small to be used easily, especially outdoors in bright light. It’s a technique I use indoors under both nasty available light and stage lighting, both situations where the lighting contrast may be such that you do need a full exposure if you want to get any shadow detail. (And, obviously, I can’t really use an incident meter photographing a stage production from offstage.)

It’s interesting. I ran some images taken this way through Raw Digger, a program that analyzes raw images. The frames were bright, but not a single one had overexposed highlights. In fact, they all had a few underexposed areas. I think what we are talking about are relatively unique situations of harsh indoor lighting where the subject is so moment orientated that you can’t do the simple thing of bracketing your exposure.

 

[Uncle Bill]

If I'm using a camera that doesn't have a built in light meter (my Leicas, Canon P, Rolleis, Mamiya C220F and eye level prism Nikon F's), I'm using an incident meter, and I never get a bad shot, black and white or C-41.

 

[mich rassena]

I just look at the live histogram. It's very easy to determine the proper exposure at a glance. It's basically a meter that reads every pixel of your camera's sensor. This was one of the key features that moved me away from digital SLRs to mirrorless.

 

[Dan]

While I use an incident meter to prevent losing highlight detail with transparency film and digital sensors, there is a technique I also use that is available to digital shooters that can insure highlight detail and at the same time promote the generous exposures that benefit digital images. It’s simple. It’s the histogram that can be made available on many digital cameras’ viewing screens. True, it’s often a histogram for the jpeg image, not the raw image, but it’s useful in allowing you to use the most generous exposure that does not block highlights. Just give the most generous exposure that doesn’t push the brightest area of the histogram off scale. Is there anybody else that uses this technique?

Absolutely this technique, especially with my D810. Highlights can be easily controlled with recovery if needed and the histogram is accurate enough that this almost always gives a nice full-bodied exposure that performs well especially with LR's auto exposure's vast improvement.