P3D Re: Trust your meter?[D[D

[George Gioumousis <georggms@xxxxxxxxxx>]

bobh wrote
> 
> RE: Greg W. wants to know what is behind the 'anti-meter' sentiments 
> he finds on this board?
> I say trust your meter only if it agrees with Sunny 16! Why, because 
> meters are very dumb beasts and few know how they really work. The 
> sentiment comes from experience perhaps. So what is the problem.

I have not noticed any ant-meter sentiment on this list; maybe some
sensible caution about their use. 'bobh' makes very good sense. Let
me add my experience with meters:

My serious photography (as contrasted to people at science-fiction
conventions and cats at home in stereo) involves California native
plants in the wild. Quite often there are some flowers and branches and
leaves in the sun, and a fair amount of soil in deep shadow because of
the afore-mentioned branches and leaves. My SLR (a Minolta Maxxum
700si, with a very slick meter) averages the  dark soil and the sunlit
branches and flowers, decides it's pretty dark, gives lots of exposure,
and the flowers are washed out. With the sunny 16 rule, the soil is
dark and the flowers are brilliant.

This is not to say that the  through-the-lens metering is wasted; there
are times (especially with my 1:1 macro lens) when nothing else would
do. With my Realist format camera, sometimes I can do quite well with
the sunny 16 rule, and sometimes I use the Minolta as a very heavy
exposure meter and range-finder.


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