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[OM] Re: In over my head!

Subject: [OM] Re: In over my head!
From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 09:51:15 -0500
Darin wrote:

> I don't have a handheld meter yet. Can I get by with the meter in my OM-1, 

Of course.  You just can't meter flash with it.

> or should I buy a handheld?

I would always recommend a handheld flash/incident meter and wish I had 
bought one 40 years ago.  Essential if you do lots of flash photography 
and convenient and more accurate for everything else.

> Also, I know how a spot meter works, but I forget what an incident meter 
> is,or how it works?

An incident meter measures the light coming from the light source (a 
flash tube indoors or sky if you're outside).  The reading of an 
incident meter is not affected by the color or reflectivity of your 
subject.  It's ideally used by standing where the subject is and 
pointing the meter back toward the camera.

A reflected light meter reads the light reflected from the subject and 
is different depending on the color and reflectivity of the subject.  It 
has to assume that the "average" in the scene is an even gray color of 
18% reflectivity.

That's why Chris warned about opening up a stop when measuring scenes 
with lots of snow.  The meter assumes everything is gray.  If you accept 
the meter reading it will turn the snow gray which is why you need to 
open up for more exposure.  Similarly, if the subject was very dark, the 
meter would try to turn this into gray by overexposing it.  In this case 
you'd have to close down to less than the meter's recommendation.  This 
is the basic problem with reflected meters.  If the scene doesn't 
average out to a medium gray reflectivity you have to recognize that and 
adjust.  The easiest way to do this is to carry a gray card and measure 
the gray card in the same light as is falling on the subject.  Or better 
yet just use an incident meter.

> If I were to buy a meter, which should I get?

I think all of the incident meters are pretty good.  You can probably 
get a good deal on a used one.  Just don't get one that's so old that 
you have to worry about mercury batteries like with the OM-1.

I use a Sekonic L-358 primarily because it has a "percentage flash" 
feature which makes it very handy for fill flash.  When you take a fill 
flash reading outdoors you get a reading for the proper total exposure 
and you also get a notice of the percentage of the total (in 10% 
increments) that was due to flash.  20-40% is usually a good value for 
fill flash so it makes it very easy to determine when all is right. 
Just adjust the flash power control or move the flash closer or further 
away if it's on a stand as I like to do for outdoor portraits.

The L-358 also has an optional built-in Pocket Wizard radio transmitter 
to fire remote flashes which makes it very easy to set up remote 
background flashes for ballrooms, etc.  Of course, you can also do this 
with any radio transmitter setup by attaching it to the PC socket on the 
meter. (normally used for firing the flash via PC cord)

On the other hand, the !$%&*!% Sekonic control wheel turns the wrong way 
as far as I'm concerned.  Counterclockwise to increase a value which is 
counter-intuitive for me.  Minolta makes nice meters also but I'll put 
up with the wrong way wheel for the sake of the flash percentage 
feature.  Other meters may have it as well.  I'm not familiar with them all.

Chuck Norcutt


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