Black and white film metering

[Terrywoodenpic]

If I may attempt an answer...

Think of the white plastic dome as an artificial white highlight whose presence tells the meter to give the exposure that will reproduce this as a white highlight should be. If the reading is taken in the shade, any white highlights in the shaded areas will come out white, which implies that the more brightly lit ones in the sunny areas will be relatively overexposed. If the reading is taken in the sun, the converse applies. An incident reading ensures that highlights situated in the same lighting as the reading was done from will be correctly exposed.

This matters more with slide film (and digital) since blown highlights are lost forever.

If the subject brightness range falls within the capability of the film to record, then this method works perfectly well with negative films. It only fails when the subject brightness range exceeds that of the film to record. This latter property can be adjusted by development time, which is where the Zone System comes from to ensure that on the one hand all the required tones can be printed and that they fall on the correct shade of grey in the print. The Zone System also has a built in assumption that may not always be true in that it assumes darkroom printing and the limited (relatively) tonal range of darkroom papers. Step outside this scenario to scan and digitally print, and the tonal bottlenecks become different.

Yes... But when it come to Digital. Hand held meters are largely redundant, except for the special case of studio work. and balanced flash out doors.

Even in B/W film photography blocked highlights are a problem in terms of quality loss. When they reach the top shoulder of the characteristic curve they are compressed and tonal differences become imperceptible. i.e. blocked.
Even developing to a lower gamma can not rectify this, as the contrast becomes even lower.
Reducing the gamma lowers the contrast of the entire curve from shadow to highlight and so reducing the difference between each grey.
Taken to an extreme, this loses all detail and apparent sharpness into a morass of uniform grey, and in the other extreme to pure black and white, as in graphic lith film.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I have tried numerous times to work this out. I obviously have a blind spot.

My modern Sekonic can be used for reflective and incident metering.

Just about all incident meters, except some specialist flash meters can take reflected readings.

I have a new analogue Sekonic incident meter, and a digital Gossen incident continuous light and flash meter. both have the facility to take reflected readings, but why would you.

For interest sake, I have compared them with the auto settings on my digital cameras and they do produce excellent exposures. very similar to exposing to the right.

 

[excalibur2]

In case Ben (OP) is confused....an incident light reading is the same as a reflective light reading off a Kodak grey card if positioned the same as the subject i.e. if the subject is upright or horizontal. I bought one about 50 years ago and the first thing I did was to compare readings from the grey card to things like blue sky, grass, grey stone etc etc and found they were roughly similar. So I don't carry a grey card around but take a exposure reading of something similar e.g. a bridge about 500 yards away but the background and reflection from the water behind the bridge is white (cloud)...then just take a meter reading of the grey pavement or grass (in the same light) and your shot will come out ok. If the background to the bridge was clear blue sky then just point your camera and shoot (if on semi auto).
Blue sky is very handy abroad as if in doubt about what to meter in a scene, then just take a meter reading from the sky...works for me when in Ibiza taking quick shots. Mind you, all this is for neg film, but for positive film you have to be more accurate for best results.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

In case Ben (OP) is confused....an incident light reading is the same as a reflective light reading off a Kodak grey card if positioned the same as the subject i.e. if the subject is upright or horizontal. I bought one about 50 years ago and the first thing I did was to compare readings from the grey card to things like blue sky, grass, grey stone etc etc and found they were roughly similar. So I don't carry a grey card around but take a exposure reading of something similar e.g. a bridge about 500 yards away but the background and reflection from the water behind the bridge is white (cloud)...then just take a meter reading of the grey pavement or grass (in the same light) and your shot will come out ok. If the background to the bridge was clear blue sky then just point your camera and shoot (if on semi auto).
Blue sky is very handy abroad as if in doubt about what to meter in a scene, then just take a meter reading from the sky...works for me when in Ibiza taking quick shots. Mind you, all this is for neg film, but for positive film you have to be more accurate for best results.

I agree with using a pavement or grass. But I am not fond of grey cards, as the angle you hold them is quite critical as to how much light they reflect But in theory, they are doing the same thing as an incident meter but in a less sophisticated way, and it does not take into account we are mostly shooting three dimensional subjects, which the dome is proxy for.

 

[excalibur2]

I agree with using a pavement or grass. But I am not fond of grey cards, as the angle you hold them is quite critical as to how much light they reflect But in theory, they are doing the same thing as an incident meter but in a less sophisticated way, and it does not take into account we are mostly shooting three dimensional subjects, which the dome is proxy for.

Well Terry I think we are reading from the same hymn book but use different ways to get the same result and all the newbies have probably been scared off reading this thread, when the basics of exposure and metering (with commonsense) are fairly simple h'mm if you can pick them out from all the posts.