>From: Tris Schuler <tristanjohn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>Actually, _all_ meter readings need to be interpreted, no matter where you
>stand and what light you measure. Neither approach (incident or spot) is
>full-proof or necessarily "better" then the other...
I have to mildly disagree here. I would say that the most accurate
exposure is always with incident metering.
Jan, how could that be when sometimes this method isn't even possible to
pursue? How also could it be when in fact it is quite possible to achieve
dead-accurate readings using a spot (or averaged multi-spot) function?
It may well be that incident metering is inconvenient...
Again, at times not possible in the first place.
...or that you are trying to do something that values creativity over
accuracy, but scene metering can only approach (not surpass) the accuracy
of incident metering.
I never said anything would "surpass" anything, exactly, just that at times
one method or the other logically suggests itself as being the best.
Indeed, in the kinds of places I work (in the street, long shots at night)
it just isn't practicable many times to pursue the ambient-light method,
and so reflected light is all I have to work with in terms of determining
exposure.
Getting back to "best": "correct" is "correct" when it comes to exposure.
Is one method in any given case a half stop or a hundredth of a stop more
accurate than another? I suppose that could be the case. But which way does
it fall? You do agree, I suppose, that any reading would be best
interpreted by the photographer before he goes with it.
Again, this is not to say that you cannot do good work with scene or spot
metering, particularly if dead-on accuracy is not an absolute requirement.
(Who cares if it's 1/3rd stop off if everything else is wonderful? :-) But
I would not consider anything except incident metering for technical or
reproduction photography, for example.
You mean in a studio setting of some kind? If so, that's an extremely
narrow view of the argument at hand.
So that's my bias, since I do reproductions, and have been seriously
screwed by using scene/spot metering.
I, on the other hand, carry no bias into this discussion. I see undeniable
benefits to the use of both approaches and I use one or the other as the
occasion warrants and allows. Indeed, at times I amuse myself by dragging
out the old StarLite and checking it against the readings I get from my
4T's, and as a rule you couldn't live on the difference.
By the way, I was working with my wife a month ago outside, as an exercise
in determining proper exposure as much as anything. It was a garden scene
along the side of our house. Tri-X with a green filter. I showed her how to
get various readings through the internal metering functions of the 4T,
then walked her through the same exercise with the Gossen now in hand--of
course in the latter instance she was able to approach the subject (field)
and take ambient readings from the (somewhat diffused) source.
Result? A so-so picture, but it was more or less well exposed using both
metering approaches. She did the all figuring, with a few questions and
prompts from me, bracketed her shots, etc. A useful lesson, I think, if I
convinced her of the need for her to think about what those different meter
readings wanted to say.
Here's a suggestion: as you're aware of bias on your part, develop the
skill to use a spot meter effectively so that you've both incident and
reflected readings to work with in the future. There will surely be times
when these readings do not agree and _neither_ is exactly "accurate."
That's just the way it is.
Tris
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