I'm going to disagree a bit with Jan and Bill, and others, who
don't seem to think much of the multi-spot metering thing. And
I'm feeling like a bit of a hypocrite, since I said yesterday that
incident readings were the absolute best way to determine
exposure, particularly when shooting color. That's still my
story, and I'm sticking to it.
But I nearly never use an exposure meter, incident or otherwise,
when shooting with my OMs. Instead, I almost always use multi-
spot metering, and have for 20 years. I wouldn't be without it,
as evidenced by the fact that of the nine OM bodies I have, seven
of them have multi-spot metering capability. There is, however, a
learning curve involved in using it effectively.
The world is full of things that are essentially 18 percent gray.
(For the purpose of this discussion, I will ignore the fact that
recent studies indicate that the world, on average, is 13 percent
gray, not 18. That's a topic for another day.) So, let me
suggest that you go out and about for an hour or two with an
exposure meter, or an OM-3 or 4, and an 18 percent gray card and
compare readings from the card and from the world in general, and
you should soon learn to spot (pun intended) these things.
For instance, you will find that green grass, most foliage and
rocks, dry tree trunks (but not black walnut or sourwood, which
are black, or birch or sycamore, which are white), and even a
clear blue northern sky fit the bill. There's lots of other stuff
you will find that may be peculiar to the kind of photographs you
take. Remember these. In addition, with practice, you will
quickly be able to spot stuff that is about the right shade, even
if you've never seen it before.
Using this knowledge, I generally take spot readings of two or
three things, sometimes even four or five, in the frame that I
judge to be approximately 18 percent gray, ignoring the extremes
of light and dark, then fire away, usually storing the result in
memory first. At the risk of dislocating my shoulder from patting
myself on the back, my percentage of correctly exposed slides is
at least 95. And I almost never bracket. For the second coming
or a flying saucer, I might. Otherwise, no, not today.
Now, as for incident readings, which I so highly recommended
yesterday, and still do, I religiously use my Sekonic Digi Master
L-718 with my medium format gear. It does everything: direct,
incident, spot and flash readings, and averaging. I use it almost
exclusively as an incident meter, though it has this really neat
little attachment that allows it to read directly off the ground
glass. I consider that to be the greatest thing since the cable
release for doing macro work with medium and large format
cameras. No more bellows factor calculations!
Incidentally, since I actually do practice what I preach, at least
sometimes, I'm feeling a little less hypocritical now.
Walt
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