Good evening, I've just purchased a used 'Minolta M' spot meter from a photo swap meet and will be using it with my medium format. I think the use of the meter for landscape photos (Zone System, sorta) is understood. However, the method of use for available light portraits is not clear. What part of the face do I meter off of, or do I meter off of my hand? Also, can anyone describe the functions of the not so obvious controls? I'll find a manual eventually, until then......

Thanks for any input, Bob Passage

-- Bob Passage (bgpassage@earthlink.net), August 28, 1999

Answers

Hi Bob,

I'm not familiar with the Minolta M specifically, but any meter, spot or otherwise, simply says "for the amount of light I'm seeing, here is the exposure to produce 18% gray in the print". You'll have to adjust the exposure depending on skin tone, to put a skin reading in the zone you desire. Personally, I prefer an incident reading or a gray card reading, unless there is something unusual about the scene- very wide brightness range, for example. I saw a web site a few days ago that speciallized in manuals for photo equipment, but alas, I didn't bookmark it. Possible a search would turn it up again.

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), August 28, 1999.

Bob, a spotmeter offers you a very small angle of metering, generally 1 degree, whereas most handheld meters meter between 25 and 30 degrees. If you're familiar with reflective meter use, you should have no problem using a spotmeter on a face - you're just able to meter very tiny parts of the face, so you can know the light level of the not only the lit and shadow sides of a face, as with most handhelds meters, but also the bits of shadow under the nose and the highlight in her hair - you simply canknow where all those reading fall. By doing this, you can measure the range of light more effectively (or at least meter more precisely chosen areas) than most meters. How have you been metering portraiture up to now? Using a spot meter just gives you more tiny bits that you can measure, but the principles of how to meter for portraiture remain the same.

-- August Depner (apdepner@uswest.net), August 29, 1999.

You'll have to meter the spot in the face which reflects 18% gray in your estimation, called zone V. Don't let anybody suggest you that this is easy. You'll make mistakes with that when starting. Try slide-film first with this method of exposure and you'll see what I mean. The Minolta M has buttons S(hadow) A(verage) H(ighlight) above. I do not use them, because I do not like Minolta to determine for me how dark a shadow must be and how bright a highlight. The button M: push it to record your meterings in a subject field, to a maximum of three. The button M-Clr: clear this memory. The button ASA/Time: choosing between these two to change it with the arrow-keys. Once set the right ASA, you put it on Time (the screen will tell you what mode you're in). The button FNo./EV: choosing for a read-out at F-stops or EV-values. I always choose EV-values because you can read out the F-stops at the line above (if there's an EV-value of 6.8 and I take over the corresponding F-stop from the line given as 2, I know I underexpose 0.2 stops). At this line you'll also see the three meterings you recorded with the M-button. If you do not see them all, you'll have to push the arrow-keys up or down (e.i. change the exposure-time) to see all the three meterings. Good luck! I use the meter as follows: I read the darkest area, the lightest area and the area I want to fall in zone V. Then I can read out the brightness range, so I know how to develop; soft or hard and I can expose for the zone V-spot in the subject.

-- Lot (lotw@wxs.nl), August 29, 1999.

Thje problem with spot meters in low-light situations is that a fair share of them don't measure low EVs reliably or not at all. Whereas a minimum EV of -5 is given for my Gossen (30-dgree) meter, my Soligor spot meter will not go below EV 2, and I know that it is not very reliable there. So it might be a good idea to measure some bright spot instead of an 18% grey (such as the back of a grey card) and over-expose by the appropriate number of stops. Also, I have read that it might be a good idea to test the adjustment of your meter by using a very small, very bright light source (such as a candle at some distance) in dark surroundings. Aim past the source with your meter, then slowly bring the light into the circle marking the measurement spot from different directions and check that the needle really just moves when the light source is within it.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), August 30, 1999.

If the contrast is not too great, and i'm using negative film,i would want to make sure that i have shadow detail so i would meter off the shadow areas of the face. unless of course i want a full silhouette, in which case i will measure off the highlights of the face or backgrond. If contrast is substantial, i'll measure off both the highlights and shadows and get the average measurement.

-- jorge andrada (glamour@mozcom.com), January 12, 2001.

As a Famous Photographer (his name escapes me for the momment)stated very elloquently, "What do I need a light meter for? what if I was out shooting and the damn thing broke? Then what would I do?" I think that summarizes my feeling on light meters.

(you can find that qoute in the "Developing Cookbook")

Nauman

-- Nauman Saghir (nsaghir@hotmail.com), January 12, 2001.