nIcident Metering II

[Jim Evidon]

I realize that this may seem to be a dumb question to the old hands, but
I have always used reflected readings and guesstimated for shadows and highlights, not always with success. Many years ago when I started in photography, the rule for incident reading was to go to your subject and point back to the camera location for a reading. I reasoned that this lost the spontaneity of shooting on the fly. I now find, I think, after reading this thread that my assumptions made many years ago may be erroneous, judging from your various responses.

So my question is, dumb as it may seem, can you take an incident reading from the camera source rather than from the subject, and if so, what is the recommended technique and what adjustments, if any need to be made with respect to exposure?

BTW: Please excuse the typo in the thread heading. Of course I meant Incident and not nIcident
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[Gumby]

So my question is, dumb as it may seem, can you take an incident reading from the camera source rather than from the subject, and if so, what is the recommended technique and what adjustments, if any need to be made with respect to exposure?

Sure you can, but you really need to ask yourself "why"... since it might not give you a usefull reading. If, and only if, the light falling on or near your camera is exactly like the light falling on your subject will you get a useful reading. Sometimes you can; sometimes you can't.

Try it yourself... read the incident light on a subject, then walk back to the camera and take another reading from that position. (Don't try this with a photo of a mountain range!)

I think what you might really be more interested in is spot metering, if you want to examine the impact of shadows and highlight values on the overall exposure.

 

[Solinar]

So my question is, dumb as it may seem, can you take an incident reading from the camera source rather than from the subject, and if so, what is the recommended technique and what adjustments, if any need to be made with respect to exposure?

BTW: Please excuse the typo in the thread heading. Of course I meant Incident and not nIcident
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Yes you can, so long as the subject is standing in the same light as your subject and you turn around 180 degrees to take the reading.

This mainly works outdoors. Indoors is a different story where point sources of light are prevalent and you are working against the inverse square law governing the intensity of light reaching your subject.

 

[drewbarb]

As long as you are in the same light as the subject, you can take an incident reading from anywhere- for instance, if you are outside, shooting in natural light, you can take an incident reading where you are standing and be pretty sure that the light will be the same on your subject. Using flash, you do need to point the meter toward the camera from the subject location, but using available light you can meter from any point. The trick is to make sure the incident dome is illuminated the same way as your subject; you want to angle the dome so that about the same amount of highlight and shadow is hitting the dome as is falling on your subject. For instance, if you are photographing a person, you place the dome at the same angle as their face- this gives the same amount of light no the dome for an accurate reading. It helps to have someone familiar with incident reading walk you through this once, to give you an idea of how to hold the meter, but once you get the hang of it, you'll never go back to any other way of metering. After doing this for years, the only way meter is incident or 1 degree spot reflective. For general photography, when I begin shooting, I take a few incident readings, holding the meter in the various amounts of light present to get an idea of the range of highlights and shadows in a given situation. I then put my meter away and shoot, making small adjustments based on how much highlight and shadow there is in my desired shot. If the light changes dramatically, and/or when it's convenient for me to do so, I'll meter again. If I'm shooting chrome, I'll be more careful and meter more often, and use the spot meter more, but for negatives this method works very well.

The thing about reflective metering, spot or otherwise, is that the meter is always giving a reading based on the idea that the subject is roughly a middle gray tone. So if you are metering any other tone, you have to make the adjustment in your head. This is where the Zone system and other similar exposure methods can help- but you still need to know what you are looking at and how you want it be rendered; whereas with accurately done incident meter, you take a reading, and expose at the reading and you'll get true tone.

 

[Gumby]

After doing this for years, the only way [to] meter is incident or 1 degree spot reflective.

I can't agree more.

One comment, though... I find 1 degree to be a bit difficult to manage in some situations because the granularity of measurement is, ummm, just too fine and use broader spot measurement like the 7/15 degree spot offered by the Gossen Luna Pro accessory.

 

[Bill Pierce]

A lot of good information in this thread. I would only add that in small, indoor locations where it might be difficult to find light that matches the light falling on the subject (so you can discreetly meter without alerting the subject) everyone there is usually quite aware you are photographing - and not disturbed if you meter quickly and return to your work. The problem is remembering the correct exposures for several locations. Folks do object to you REPEATEDLY shoving something that looks like half a ping-pong ball in their faces.

 

[Jim Evidon]

Thanks to you all for the guidance. I appreciate your comments.
Jim