Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/07/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> The incident meter is a secret the camera manufacturersdon't want > you to know about. > About twenty years ago I was teaching at a NSW University and I realised that, surprise, surprise, my students didn't want to buy their own incident meter. It was then that I found that if you place one of those styrene coffee cups over your SLR lens, set the exposure to the reciprocal of the ASA at f16 and pointed the camera at the sun your got the same reading. Does it work in shadows? You bet your R8 ir does!!! Any minor adjustments can be made by either sanding down the styrene slightly OR marking it with a black felt pen till the exposure reads correctly. (I said to calibrate it in sunlight, but I just realised that some cities have smog and others have 6 months of nighttime, so best to calibrate it against a known meter) Now, when you have a tricky lighting situation, like a black cat in a coal cellar or a white feather in a snow storm you will be able to whip out your trusty coffee cup and take correctly exposed pictures. Now... we have a meter which gives correct exposure. The whole thing costs either 2 cents or nothing. This leaves all that money you were to spend on you brand new incident meter for other important things, like sending your M6 to Leica for a focus adjustment! Rob