Metering film with digital

[Joe AC]

I was just wondering how many of you use your digital camera to meter a scene to shoot with your film camera. For those of you who do this, how accurate would you say this system is for B&W, C41, and E6?

Thanks
Joe

 

[Roger Hicks]

OK for slides. Worthless for neg, unless it's a very short brightness range.

Cheers,

R.

 

[gho]

I am preferring a handheld meter as I am mostly using film, but I have used digital cameras as a meter also.

Mostly the handheld meter and the camera meter were in accordance. A nice addition in most digital cameras is the spot metering.

 

[shimokita]

At times I carry both digital and film bodies... With bright city street lights at night I will shoot and chimp the digital to get the effect I want, then expose the film likewise... Spot meter would work just as well ;-).

I tried using a digital P&S as a reference for meterless medium format film, but prefered using a (spot) meter.

Casey

 

[bensyverson]

OK for slides. Worthless for neg, unless it's a very short brightness range.

Cheers,

R.

Why would it be more useful for slides, which have less latitude, than it is for negatives, which have more? If anything, it's harder to use a digital camera as a meter for slides, because E6 clips to black & white faster than digital. So it's easy to be fooled into thinking you're safe when you're not.

Any meter on its own is worthless if you don't know what you're trying to achieve. The trick to using a digital camera as a light meter is learning how to disregard information which doesn't relate to your objective. If you're exposing for the shadows on negative film, the digital camera's image may look clipped and blown out, but the exposure is correct.

 

[Roger Hicks]

With bright city street lights at night I will shoot and chimp the digital to get the effect I want, then expose the film likewise... Casey

Dear Casey,

Fair point. I retract my previous observation about 'worthless with neg'. I was thinking of more conventionally lit scenes.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Why would it be more useful for slides, which have less latitude, than it is for negatives, which have more? .

Because exposure for slides (and digital) is keyed to the highlights, and exposure for neg is keyed to the shadows. But see post above.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Colin Corneau]

I've used mine occasionally, but with the histogram in the display after I take a 'sample' shot. It can be pretty useful that way, especially with the spot meter selected.

More often, I used a Nikon F90x with its amazing meter...seemed to work pretty well for me.

 

[KenR]

Never - that's why they make light meters.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Another discussion thread somewhere... In summary, lots of uses for a digipic at the same spot as your film exposure.
- Meter to establish exposure
- Record of shot, date, time, perhaps exposure
- With GPS, record of location
- "Polaroid" of the shot
- and more

What's hard to to get a DOF preview if the sensor size is different.

 

[Aristophanes]

Another discussion thread somewhere... In summary, lots of uses for a digipic at the same spot as your film exposure.
- Meter to establish exposure
- Record of shot, date, time, perhaps exposure
- With GPS, record of location
- "Polaroid" of the shot
- and more

What's hard to to get a DOF preview if the sensor size is different.

Use your iPhone with Theodolite. It does far more than any P&S.

 

[Pablito]

I find the DSLR very useful as a spot meter for B&W but as others have said you have to know what you are doing and what you want to accomplish. The screen is useless, but the meter readout is not.