When Not To Use An Incident Meter?

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wgerrard

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UPS delivered my Sekonic L-398A and I'm trying to get smart about how to use it effectively. Questions and "what if" scenarios spring to mind. Here are a couple:

1. What situations aren't prime time for incident meters? When shouldn't they be used?

2. What if... the light on a scene comes from a single source but, for one reason or another, the actual light in the scene is broken up into areas of bright light, shade, and shadow. E.g., a street shot of two parallel alleys entering a street, shot straight on from the street, with the sun to my right. The alley on the right is brightly illuminated. A building between the alleys casts a shadow over the alley on the left. Is an exposure based on the incident meter going to give me an image that shows the bright light and the shadow, or will something else happen?
 
Photographing someone sitting in the shade at the cafe in that alley on the left might be accomplished by taking an incident reading in the shade on your side of the main street, but if the upper sunlit windows of that alley partially reflect onto the newspaper she is reading, there'll be no substitute for a spot reflective reading. Same as at concerts, unless the lighting guy has let you take some incident readings before the gig. A bronze door with subtle relief pattern, in shade, might also take an extra stop of exposure, especially on colour negative film, and a reflected reading might actually help there too......
 
Thanks for the pointers, John and Roger. It'll be a refresher at the latter's site.

I'm very likely overthinking this, as usual.

[EDIT: Wanted to mention I've also found the relevant portions of "Perfect Exposure" by Roger and Frances to be very useful. That's a good book to read and keep. BTW, Roger, an Amazon seller is listing a "new" copy of the hardcover edition at $107.00]
 
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wgerrard said:
2. What if... the light on a scene comes from a single source but, for one reason or another, the actual light in the scene is broken up into areas of bright light, shade, and shadow. E.g., a street shot of two parallel alleys entering a street, shot straight on from the street, with the sun to my right. The alley on the right is brightly illuminated. A building between the alleys casts a shadow over the alley on the left. Is an exposure based on the incident meter going to give me an image that shows the bright light and the shadow, or will something else happen?
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If you measure the light in the brightly illuminated area - then the parts of the image with this lighting will be properly exposed. If you measure in the shade, then the darker areas of the scene will be properly exposed.

You have to decide how you want your image to look and which part of the scene is more important.
 
Like any other tool, you will need to experiment to see how things work to give you what you like in a negative. But RogerandFrances's site will give you as good a start as you can get.
 
Can we just conclude that no meter, incident or reflected, will always provide correct exposure information without some human brain power involved? While both types of meters will provide information about the intensity of the light, the final exposure determination or confirmation of an auto reading has to come from the photographer. That personal determination needs to consider the tone of the subject, the recording medium (negative film, positive film, or digital sensor), and the relationship of the subject to the light. .

I sense that too many are seeking that holy grail where they can use zero brain skills but always rely on a device to determine exposure for them. It happens frequently but will never happen all the time.

Maybe that is why photographers who are experienced at using no meter at all consistently get better exposures than many photographers with meters.
 
Certainly not looking for a "Holy Grail", guys. Just a little advice on using what is, for me, a new tool. If I expected the tool to do all the thinking for me, I wouldn't have had a reason to post the questions.

I understand the basic technique of using an incident meter. I'm looking for advice about recognizing situations in which its proper use isn't obvious or intuitive.
 
This is a very strange coincidence; I acquired a Sekonic L-398 yesterday evening, and have precisely the same questions (but some more questions, too).

Knowing what I know right now, answering your question #2, I would pick a spot from which to take the picture of the alleyways; cross the street and stand in front of the building between the alleyways; aim the lumisphere at the exact camera position from which the picture will be taken; take a reading with the meter; set the camera shutter/aperture; go back across the street (praying that a cloud doesn't come along); and take the picture.

Now, that may not be the correct way to do it - that is just what I understand needs to be done.

The sun is up today, and what I am doing is using a digital camera in manual mode for shutter speed and aperture. The camera shows a histogram (it's a 5D), and I am just experimenting away. In the few pictures I've taken so far, I haven't always nailed the correct exposure setting. Some of the shots are underexposed, even when I double checked the reading on the L-398. So, it will be a learning experience. At least with the instant feedback of the 5D, I expect to have most of it figured out today.

The L-398 cannot be used as a reflective light meter, other than as a tool to measure relative light differences being reflected from the subject(s). Use that feature to determine if the contrast ratio is within tolerance. So, in the case of the two alleys, use the lumigrid up close to a wall in the brightly lit alley, memorize that, then use the lumigrid up close in the darker alley, and see if the contrast difference exceeds the capability of the film/sensor. From my understanding of the manual, though, you cannot use the reading from the lumigrid to make the exposure settings on the camera. That's not what it is for.
 
Hi, Sreed. Question #2 was my attempt at conjuring something that appears difficult to meter. (You could recreate it in a studio with two models on either side of a high dividing panel with the light coming from the side.

The premise of an incident meter seems pretty failsafe: Measure the light falling on the subject from along the camera-subject axis, preferably very close to the subject. So, if one half of the subject is bright and the other half is dark, I'd think getting a read would be simple and that the resulting photo should show the bright and shaded areas appropriately. After all, the meter doesn't know that the scene is bright on one side and dark on the other. It's looking the other way.

If my assumption is incorrect, I'm curious to know why so I have a better understanding of the thing. Hence, the question.
 
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I think you have the idea pretty well.

Do you have the manual? On page 19, where there is a picture of a lighthouse in the background with a ledge or cliff in the foreground, it gives instructions for taking two different readings and then averaging the two.

By the way, back from experiments:
1. If you use the High slide with 100 ISO film, and set the shutter to 1/500, then you can take f/stop readings directly from the meter scale.
2. If you let the High slide fall out into the grass, and walk around a lot, it is really hard to find again.
3. You cannot use the incident meter on a bright day without the High slide (the needle pegs out).
4. Using the lumigrid disk in place of the lumisphere and High slide, you can use the meter as a reflected meter, with 100 ISO film and the shutter set at 1/500. This is per the table on page 16 of the manual. Take several readings and average them and the results are acceptable, if not perfect.
 
sreed2006 said:
Do you have the manual? On page 19, where there is a picture of a lighthouse...
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Yep. Pulled that one down from Sekonic's site. Mine was delivered with 18 pages of "Operating instructions" and no lighthouse.

2. If you let the High slide fall out into the grass, and walk around a lot, it is really hard to find again.
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I actually called the vendor who shipped mine to say I thought the high slide was missing. The guy on the phone said to pull the little loop sticking out of the top. Shazam! 🙂

3. You cannot use the incident meter on a bright day without the High slide (the needle pegs out).
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I was out this morning. Here in the southeast, it's still f/22 and 1/500 sun.
 
wgerrard said:
Thanks for the pointers, John and Roger. It'll be a refresher at the latter's site.

I'm very likely overthinking this, as usual.

[EDIT: Wanted to mention I've also found the relevant portions of "Perfect Exposure" by Roger and Frances to be very useful. That's a good book to read and keep. BTW, Roger, an Amazon seller is listing a "new" copy of the hardcover edition at $107.00]
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Dear Bill,

Hell's Teeth! Thanks for that. I'll try to persuade one of my publishers to reprint. Or better still, to do a second edition....

(And, of course, thanks for the kind words).

Cheers,

R.
 
1. the meter won't give you the correct reading when its not in the light for which you want a reading.

2. if you are in the same light as the bright alley then it will give the correct reading for the bright alley(i.e. you are in direct sunlight). If you are in the same light as the shadow alley it will give you the correct reading for the shadow alley. (i.e. you are in shade too).
But since you are having both bright and shadow alleys in shot then you want the shadow alley to lokk like its in shadow so I'd suggest going for metering reading in direct sunlight and that way the bright alley will be correct and the shadow will be in shadow.
 
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Is there a "correct" exposure? How you expose a scene like that described above determines how the final image will look. You could shoot just for the highlights, or even beyond the highlghts to treat the highlights as midtones and depict their texture while throwing the shadow into utter darkness, like a graphic. There are situations where you might shoot just for the shadows -- to draw attention to something in them -- while the rest of the scene is in over-exposed high key. Or you could strive for some several balances between the two. And, of course, the decision to pop a daylight fill flash is a factor in most lighting situations. All of these will produce correctly exposed photographs, depending on what you want to say and show in the photo.

Remember that the light of the scene is one of your variables, albeit one in which you have less control compared to exposure, focus and camera position (though your camera position depends on, or should depend on, the character of the light).

A lot of times you're trying to make the best of bad light -- because the timing of what you're photographic requires you to take a picture then and there. Other times, you see interesting light, and its character is what makes the photograph succeed. Don't forget that a lot of photographers doing pictoral work will see a specific scene and then wait -- sometimes for a very very long time -- for the light to be "right."

Regardless of what you think of Ansel Adams, his photographs are worth studying for the way he timed their taking. Often his most famous captured fleeting balances of dramatic natural light in otherwise ordinary scenes. That's why he came up with the Zone System to better understand the relationships of light and exposure on film.
 
I don't bracket, I give myself "a choice of negatives" if the subject is repeatable, and worthy of multiple exposures. This technique is obviously not applicable if I am trying th catch a decisive moment.
 
tlitody said:
1. the meter won't give you the correct reading when its not in the light for which you want a reading.
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Yes, but in my scenario I am shooting from a position perpendicular to the two alleys. I.e., I'm in the street the alleys run into, looking down their lengths, centered in front of the building. I want the photo to reflect what I see: the well-lit alley on the right and the shaded alley on the left.

So, what I'm trying to understand is whether or not an incident reading from, say, in front of the building looking back to my camera position, is appropriate for that kind of shot.
 
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