Incident or reflective....old school light meter....

[Poisson Du Jour]

Don't meter from the sky; just meter from those elements in the picture which need to be correctly exposed, and let the sky take care of itself as a "background" value. The only time I give any analysis to the sky is in contrasty sunsets, averaging a slightly third-left section of sunset with the foreground.

Are you using transparency, negative/colour or B&W film? If you are using transparency, exposure will be more critical than the quite relaxed allowance of negatives.

[TooManyShots]

Don't meter from the sky; just meter from those elements in the picture which need to be correctly exposed, and let the sky take care of itself as a "background" value. The only time I give any analysis to the sky is in contrasty sunsets, averaging a slightly third-left section of sunset with the foreground.

Are you using transparency, negative/colour or B&W film? If you are using transparency, exposure will be more critical than the quite relaxed allowance of negatives.

OK. I will bring my Canon 30D with me tomorrow just to test some reading against my Luna Pro. Even a reflective reading against my wall panel in my room has a 1 stop difference comparing to the incident reading. I am not sure what the reflective meter would be metering if my subject is some distance away. I am shooting with color negative, Fuji Reala 100.

[Alan Klein]

In order to answer that question we need to know what type of film you are using.

I think you're the only person who picked up he's shooting digital on a film forum.

[TooManyShots]

I think you're the only person who picked up he's shooting digital on a film forum.

I shoot both... And doing paid gigs with digital of course.

[summicron1]

all meters are advisory only. if ur looking for a way to meter that gives you one shot at a good exposure, ur dreaming. Meter like crazy, then bracket 1/3 stops for a stop in either direction. When you get the film back you can see which worked best.

[Poisson Du Jour]

all meters are advisory only. if ur looking for a way to meter that gives you one shot at a good exposure, ur dreaming. Meter like crazy, then bracket 1/3 stops for a stop in either direction. When you get the film back you can see which worked best.

I don't see how 0.3 step brackets will have any effect on negative film (especially Reala) given its very generous latitude. Commonly neg film is bracketed to +/– 2 stops to bring up the event horizon, then work incrementally forward and back from there. This is not the same as with transparency film where 0.3 steps to 0.5 (or 0.6) steps are most commonly used except for deliberate low or high key shooting.

[Poisson Du Jour]

OK. I will bring my Canon 30D with me tomorrow just to test some reading against my Luna Pro. Even a reflective reading against my wall panel in my room has a 1 stop difference comparing to the incident reading. I am not sure what the reflective meter would be metering if my subject is some distance away. I am shooting with color negative, Fuji Reala 100.

Incident is light falling on the subject; reflective is light coming off the subject viewed by the meter/camera. This is chiefly why incident is reliable for nailing some (but not a lot) of exposures, with the only other refinement being multi-spot metering.

I would view your 30d metering as potentially very misleading with a 1 stop difference comparison and urge you to concentrate on using incident metering with aim-back to camera from subject. It's not perfect but will eliminate the margin of error caused by an evaluative metering system that is averaging the luminance of several small areas of reflected subject light.

[markbarendt]

I shot my first roll of medium format film last week and using my Canon 30d to meter the scene. It works and the shots were a bit overexposed.

Having metered with anything, at the right EI, I find it a bit tough to believe that your Reala was seriously overexposed.

Negative films can typically handle 2-4 stops of extra exposure without losing detail.

My guess is that the negatives are fine and the lab you used didn't try very hard.

Obviously, incident reading may not be accurate because the area I am standing is generally under shades.

Actually it is still very accurate, you simply need to understand that the meter is just giving you a reference point rather the camera setting.

All you need to do is decide how much different the two are. You simply apply zone system principles as you would with spot metering.

[newcan1]

I've taken shots just like this before. With my old Weston Master, pointing toward the trees and adding a stop (to compensate for the sky and water) usually gives the correct exposure.

[CPorter]

Do I meter this scene with the incident mode? Or do I meter off the reflective light coming from the trees? Would the reflective mode be accurate even when I am no where near my subjects?

The skinny of it is that it does not matter which one you use, a well executed photograph can be had from both ways, regardless of the film used. It does matter though, how you might use either method. I prefer reflective because it tells you what the actual reflective values are that will be reaching the film, but you have to be keenly aware of how much of either the dark areas or the light areas are influencing the meter's reading.