Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/01/17

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Metering the highlights. Help!
From: George Hartzell <hartzell@corp.webtv.net>
Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 10:15:04 -0800 (PST)

Eric Welch writes:
 > >So Ted (or anyone else), if you're reading, what do you mean by metering for
 > >the highlights?  If the hottest reading in the scene is the water at EV 10,
 > >what exposure value do you shoot?
 > 
 > I'll not propose to answer for Ted (he doesn't think much of the Zone
 > system, so zones aren't much help here <G>). To meter for the highlights is
 > to place the bright part of the scene where you want it.
 > 
 > I learned to shoot with chrome film, so this is a natural for me. Though
 > I'm way out of practice now because I shoot only neg. film at work. In your
 > example, you want to keep the brightest part of the scene at about Zone 6,
 > 6.5 or even 7. Depends on how bright it is over the mid-gray tone you want
 > to represent. 
 > 
 > It would help to not think in EV at all. With an incident meter, EV would
 > be whatever the meter says. You use Zones if you're taking reflective meter
 > readings. So say you're shooting a bride with a white dress. You meter the
 > bright part of the dress at about Zone VII and leave it. Don't bother
 > metering the shadows. Let them go where they may. Slide film demands you
 > keep the highlights from blowing out. Lack of detail in the highlights
 > kills slides faster than about anything else.

The mixing of Zones and EV's muddies the waters for me, since my none
of my meters read in either (though I think I understand both).

In real life, I'm stuck on the nuts and bolts of this.  Does this
sound like another correct way of stating it:

  o  Slide film has about 5 stops of dynamic range.
  o  Find the brightest element in the scene in which one want's detail,
     spot meter it.  With this exposure, the brightest element would
     be exposed to be 18% grey.
  o  Choose an exposure that is 2 or 2 1/3 stops faster than that
     brightest element, which underexposes it and moves it up towards
     the high end of the dynamic range.

Does that sound like a reasonable game plan?

g.