Re: [Leica] Metering Question

["Jeff S" <segawa@netone.com>]

Dennis,

"My" metering technique has been well-documented by Ansel Adams in The
Negative. Fred Picker also did a good, small book on the subject.

When using the Zone System, we're metering significant highlights AND
shadows and our final exposure is determined by the effect we're trying to
achieve. Obviously, in some cases, the contrast range falls beyond the
capabilities of the film. To some extent, the film's range can be expanded
or contracted by altering the film's development times, though by and large
(and in general, for 35mm slides), you'll need to compromise--burn out those
highlights a tad in order to preserve some critical detail lurking in the
shadows or maintain detail in the bright areas, and let shadows sink into
featureless gloom.

The remarkable aspect of this system is it's predictability: If you know how
far you can under- or overexpose your film before it loses detail, and you
know the actual contrast range of your scene, can essentially get the image
that you had visualized.

It's not super-fast! I practice in "reading" the light then confirming the
reading with my meter.  This way, if something comes up, I can grab the
camera and shoot first, meter later. Usually, I can guesstimate to within a
stop, and bracketing takes care of the rest. This last is especially useful
for fast shooting with the Leica M! More often, I'm using a larger camera on
tripod, but even for landscapes, speed sometimes makes all the diff.

Jeff

>Now and then I think that the spotmeter is the way for me to go with
>chrome.
>
>Now, tell us all your technique.  Meter the brighest spot in the scene
>and expose x-stops under that, or what?