R8 metering (was: incident metering)

[Pascal <cyberdog@ibm.net>]

At 21:33 -0400 12-07-1997, ted grant wrote:
>
>Now lets get back to the KING of metering! :) The R8 without question is just
>amazing, honest no BS here. I have been fiddling that meter back and
>forth, from
>spot to Multi pattern (matrix) to the Intregal (centered weighted) and it is
>right time after time. The only time there is a screwed-up exposure has been
>when I didn't believe it and fiddled! :)
>
>We have been shooting night scenes and it is right on no matter what the
>lighting, whether buildings, water fountains, traffic, hell I've got where I'm
>looking for the weirdest situations just to see if I can screw them up by the
>camera making a wrong exposure.  But so far I haven't been able to fool it.
>
>And in most of these situations you just couldn't get an incident reading,
>so it
>really helps to have the camera so accurate.
>
>ted

Ted, I've been using my R8 for two months now and on a general line I can
agree with you. I made a lot of night shots (R8 mounted on the Leica
mini-tripod and ball head) both on slide and photo film under various
circumstances (e.g. lot of contrast between dark scenes and street lights).
The results were excellent indeed. The black parts of the scene become more
detailed when using matrix metering instead of spot or central metering
(because of the longer exposure time the R8's computer is choosing), and
skies become somewhat lighter but more dramatic. A nice overall result.

In more general photography, the matrix metering works all right most of
the time. I have, however, already had some overexposed pictures. These
mostly happen when you photograph a normal subject (e.g. a person) against
a much darker background (e.g. trees in a wood). Apparently, the computer
thinks it must take a longer exposure because of the large dark parts (the
background), with the result that the main subject is overexposed. I would
say this is about 1 f-stop. Noting dramatic if you are shooting photo film
and printing pictures yourself, but as this is not my case, the result is
not quite perfect.
Other thing: sometimes I have obtained underexposed pictures simply because
there were some white (reflecting?) parts in the picture (it was a white
garden table with white plastic chairs around it). There the R8 thinks
there is too much light, so it must expose shorter. Again, nothing
dramatic, but not the  exposure you would normally obtain if you measured
light with a spot metering (at least, if you have some experience). As this
was on slide film, the problem was quite obvious.

BTW: did you know that the meter of the R8 is factory-calibrated on an
underexposure of -1/3 ? This was done to have slides with nice, saturated
colors (information read in the French magazine Chasseur d'Images).
Apparently, Leica must think most of us are shooting slide film. If you
combine this with a slide film with very saturated, deep colors such as
Fuji Velvia, the results can be very dramatic, depending on your personal
taste. So, some experimenting is at its place. I am leaving for the Swiss
mountains  in a week, and will take a mixture of Fuji Velvia 50 ASA and
Fuji Provia 100 ASA. I wonder which film will prove most appealing to my
taste.

So, I am in general very satisfied with my R8, but I would not dare too say
that the matrix metering is flawless in all circumstances. It sure is in
case things must go quick, and if you let someone who's not used to SLR
metering take a few shots. It sure is if you want to take pictures without
bothering too much about technicalities and if you want to concentrate on
your subject and picture composition.

Pascal
Belgium

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