[Leica] light meters (long)

["Don Dory" <dorysrus@mindspring.com>]

So, ignoring the feelings of our poor overworked M-6's lets really discuss
external light meters just for the sake of the discussion.

The original question had to do with what suggestions we could make.  I
think to do that I at least would need to know what your film requirements
are.  If you mainly use tri-x (substitute the traditional film of your
choice)around 320 then your choices are large and cheap.  You could use an
old leica-meter available at the proverbial trade shows for next to nothing
to Sekonic Scouts or pretty much anything.  On the other hand if you use a
very saturated E-6 film then you probably need something much, much better.
Gossen Luna-Pro's, Minolta III's or IIIf"s,  the more recent IV or IVf's, or
any of the recent Sekonics would all be fine for somebody.  Go to any decent
camera store and try out their selection.  Which one works the way you work?

Why the "better" light meter?  Because until you are absolutely sure it's
not your meter then you will always wonder about the might have been(where
do we place the blame) shots instead of on your own knowledge, skill, and
technique.  If you have taken the time to take an incident(or interpreted
reflective) reading of highlight then shadow, thought about where you wanted
to place your highlights or shadows, and found the resulting image matches
your vision then you have found true photographic joy.  So, yes, it is very
worthwhile to slow down, take notes, and experiment with exposure/meter
reading.  Compare what the meter said to what came out to what it was that
you were metering.  Was it what you were expecting or was it completely
different.  If different, why?  Unless you are very precise in your darkroom
work I would suggest using slide film to magnify your exposure decision
making to better see what is going on.

Now, do you get an incident or reflective meter?  I do share most of the
LUG's opinion concerning the built in M-6 meter.  It is very accurate and
predictable.  Note, to get a sense of what the meter sees take your camera
to place where there is some interior point light source, say a light bulb
at three meters with a 50mm lens.  Set your exposure with the bulb just
outside your viewfinder.  Now swing your camera slowly toward the glowing
bulb, notice at what point and how rapidly the meter starts to indicate a
changed exposure.  This exercise will help you to understand what your meter
sees.  Now, back to incident or reflective meters.  Until you intuitively
understand a gray scale and how a reflective meter turns that reading into
middle gray you are doomed to exposure failure or massive bracketing unless
the light is very flat.  If you have taken a traditional B/W darkroom course
this is why you exposed rolls of film over the entire range of shutter
speeds and apertures with multiple rolls of film that you proceeded to
develop for different lengths of time to find your films speed point as well
as what effect over and under exposure really does to your images.  And if
you haven't, now would be a good time to shoot some contrasty scene five
stops over to five stops under in half stops to see what happens when your
exposure goes way off.

An incident meter takes more time to use most of the time.  It does take
most of the guesswork out of metering until you hit extreme situations. For
an example of an extreme situation search the LUG archives looking for
"Black Cat".  Because an incident meter is reading the light falling on a
subject not what is reflected you get to decide what  tonal range your
picture displays without having to wonder whether you are reading a light
gray, a middle gray, or a dark gray.  Also, after you have metered an area,
the exposure usually doesn't change, especially indoors.  By pre-setting
your exposure you actually speed things up;  you only have to worry about
composition, depth of field/movement blurs, and focus.

After you get really comfortable with light and how your film displays that
light then you will find that a cheap but predictable meter works just fine.
Which is why the response to your question appears inconsistent.   Many of
the members of this group, not me by a long shot I still have ten more years
in the lake, are past masters at painting with light and some have forgotten
how long it takes to really see light.  Others of the list are at all levels
of experience and consequently different tools work for them.  So the real
answer is to borrow different meters, shoot lots of film while taking notes,
and see what works for you in bringing out what you expected to see.

 Don
dorysrus@mindspring.com