I just read that article yesterday and found it quite interesting. His
method of weighting the areas you find important in the scene was a logical
one, I thought, though I have no means by which to sample 10 readings
without an abacus, a slide rule, a book of runes, and a week's vacation. I
was stunned to see the potential variation on the readings due to color
sensitivity, though -- one of his patches was a stop and a half off. I shoot
almost 100% B&W, usually using an OM1 and a hand held "sort of spot" meter
(a Polaris with the 10% spot attachment). In truth I think it's much less of
an issue with B&W and there's always the possibility that my particular
meter is not as color sensitive as his much more expensive one is. Nine
times out of ten (when incident isn't an option) I can find something in the
scene I'm pretty confident is 18% grey, and I just meter that. If I'm a
little unsure, I'll look for some shadows I want to preserve and then guess
how far under middle grey it is -- a real poor man's half a zone system.
Still, using his scenario, if my middle grey target was composed of that hue
of yellow his meter found so objectionable, my reading would be way off
(though it seems much more likely that different meters would have different
points of departure).
It does help (partially) explain how, over the years, I've been able to get
wildly different readings from various camera meters and hand-helds, even
when I was using them in such a way as to ensure they were seeing the same
thing. My now sold but then brand new Gossen and properly functioning
Polaris, for instance, had nearly identical fields of view, and yet once in
a while they'd give me readings two full stops different. I'd walk right up
to something, fill the frame, take a reading with both meters, then the
Olympus, and then a gee-whiz N*kon, and get 'em all to make a different
guess. Then I'd go inside and weep.
Matthew Born
___
So the questions I have are:
1) Do we have any idea what the color response is for OM meters?
2) And does anyone have metering related experience using B&W films with
OM meters? Should I be concerned, even?
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