Metering

I had a lovely email asking me about my metering techniques

I decided to make an episode of the podcast about the techniques I use, and so I needed a blog post to support it.

I decided to take the large format camera out and talk about the metering techniques I use to produce correct tones in a negative. I primarily use the zone system described by Ansel Adams, alongside my trusty PENTAX digital spotmeter. This combination allows me to obtain exposures that I can use for scanning and printing.

The spot meter above has a variety of dials that look intimidating and confusing to start with but are fairly cimple to work with then you get to grips with them. As with any spot meter, you look through the eyepiece at the scene and press the button. This particular meter will give you an EV reading using an LED panel on the inside.

You set your ISO on the first ring, and this also rotates the shutterspeeds into position. Then, you rotate your EV reading round to the middle arrow and the apertures will alight with the approptiate shutter speeds. This will give you a combination for 18% grey, middle grey.

The combination of shutter and aperture will give you middle grey for the 1% of the scene you metered for. That means anything with an EV value of 11 will be near white, and anything with an EV value of 7 will be almost black with some detail.

The next job is to MOVE the EV dial down 2 stops, putting the value you want where you want it. For example, if you measure something you want to be dark, but with some shadow detail, you measure that point and rotate it down to ZONE 3. This will ensure your shadow detail will be present.

In the image above, I have indicated where I metered and what zone I placed the values on. Remember, ZONE 5 is middle grey, ZONE 3 is black with some detail, and ZONE 7 is white with some detail. As it happens the negative scanned a little differently to how the tones came out, but this technique works a treat for all metering needs.

When metering, look at the EV values, make it to ZONE 5 and underexpose it by 2 stops for your shadow detail. That is my metering techniques.