I rarely use the hilight and shadow buttons because rarely do I have
pure white or pure black to meter on. For a single spot metering, the
manuals are reasonably clear, but they fail to mention the case when
you do multiple spot readings. In multi-spot readings, the shadow
function calculates 2 2/3rds stops up from the lowest spot reading
while the hilight calculates 2 stops down from the highest spot
reading. You can check for yourself if you have an OM-4,4t,3,3t. Just
take a large range of multiple spot readings. Normally the meter bar
(exposure) reads the average. If you hit hilight, the meter bar first
goes to the top spot, then moves down 2 stops. The same with shadow,
the bar moves down to the lowest spot, then moves up 2 2/3 stops.
It's almost like the camera is telling you what it is thinking.
So in multi-spot situations, if you were to scan your scene with the
spot meter and meter the highest hilight and the lowest shadow area,
the hilight button would set the exposure based on the hilights (and
possibly turning shadows to black) while the shadow button would base
the exposure on the deepest shadow (and possibly burning out the
highlights).
I still think the best approach is to try and determine the tonality you
want to be middle tone, gray, and expose for that. I have probably used
the hilight or shadow function in a real exposure setting once in 1000
to 10000 shots, and I use the spot meter quite a bit. It is much easier
to just spot meter something, even if it is snow, and guess how many
stops it needs adjusting. Rarely is anything pure white that requires 2
stops adjustment. More likely it is 1 2/3, 1 1/3 or just 1 stop. And if
your scene exceeds the nominal 5 stop range (slide film mind you), and
you are trying to expose for shadow detail, your hilights are going to
blow out. If that is what you want, and you want black to be black, use
the 2 2/3 shadow compensation on the dark subject. More often than not,
though, you expose for hilights and let the shadows fall where they
will, in which case it is usually better to manually compensate from a
tonality you can determine. This has been my experience.
Wayne
At 09:02 AM 9/14/2003, you wrote:
>Apart from the two brochures, any clues as to a good primer on using the
>spot meter and the highlight/shadow buttons? Preferably one that is readily
>available and cheap (!), like on the net?
>
>I KNOW this has been discussed before, but I've trawled unsuccessfully in
>the Archives. I hope by next week sometime to be able to do some practical
>stuff (ie shoot some film ;-)) but at the moment I'd like to bone up on it.
>
>Ta,
>
>D.
>
>Donald Neil MacDonald, BA DipLIS
>www.skelpitheid.com
>
>
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