Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/08/24
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 02:01 PM 8/24/03 -0700, Sonny Carter wrote: >I had the distinct impression, though it has been a while since I used one, >that the Pentax spot meter reports an EV too, and you have to set it on the >calculator wheel to derive the f stop and shutterspeed. The Pentax meters, both analog and digital, do indeed read out in EV--if your film is ISO 100. At other ISO settings, the readout is just a luminance scale where each whole number is a doubling or halving of the light. Setting the ISO scale on the calculator dial adds or subtracts the needed amount. My Minolta Spotmeter M can be set to read out in EV numbers. I occasionally use this when I'm checking brightness range, because it's just simple subtraction to get the number of stops. Usually I just set it to tell me the right f/stop and shutter speed. The nice thing about EV (or any whole-number meter scale), is that if you don't want to think in terms of the square root of two or reciprocals, it makes thinking about how many stops up or down you want very easy. This can be useful in macrophotography or long exposures where you're dealing with multiple calculations plus reciprocity failure. Do all the calculations in EV, where you're just adding or subtracting. Then use your meter dial to turn the result into a shutter speed and f/stop. I think the method many of us Leica people use, consciously or unconsciously, is just to count "clicks" plus or minus the meter reading. Meter says 1/60 at f/4, but it's a Caucasian face, so I'll open one. Click. Meter says 1/15 at f/2, but it's a shadow I want some detail in. Close down two. Click, click. The Leica as abacus. Of course, if photographers called them "clicks," people might think we were bicycle tourists or military people on maneuvers, or Simon stocking up his game fighter jet with virtual ordinance. So we call them "stops." - --Peter - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html