Difference Between In-Camera and Handheld Light Metering?

5 years 6 months ago #601151 by Jeff Wensloff
So is there going to be a difference between metering from a handheld light meter vs the one in the camera?  Or is this something that is minor?  


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5 years 6 months ago #601170 by Nikon Shooter

Jeff Wensloff wrote: So is there going to be a difference between metering from a handheld light meter vs the one in the camera?  Or is this something that is minor?  


The camera's light meter, Jeff, will measure a scene in a reflected 
light; that means the 18% rule coming from the subject. OTH, the
dedicated light meter will do the same plus it offers the incident
light metering — that is most often used in studio — through the
use of a dome over the metering cell. HTH.

Light is free… capturing it is not!
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5 years 6 months ago #601177 by Ozzie_Traveller
G'day Jeff

NS has give you a good description of one aspect of hand-held metering that the in-camera metering can't replicate

However, the other difference - that in-camera metering does replicate - is the careful and selective hand-held metering of different parts of the subject, before the photographer calculates the actual exposure settings to create in-camera the image s/he has created in the mind

Presume your shutter speed is set, and you criss-cross the scene with the lens 1/2-pressing the shutter 3-4-5-6 times to get that many meter readings of highlights, mid tones & shadows ... you see the aperture changing with each 1/2-shutter press

You as a photographer now need to correlate those different results and decide upon a final setting ... just as the person using the hand-held meter does. Do you want the highlights to take precidence? or the shadows? Do you split the difference and go for the mid-tones (as the camera will do if left to its own devices)

Many of today's cameras have an AEL button for locking the exposure, and experienced users will do their version of the above, select the zone they want the exposure to follow, press AEL before composing the scene in some way, then taking the final image, knowing that the exposure has been locked in

Full manual operation can do the same, but I find it too slow and it reminds me of the film camera days of 50 yrs ago that to me, thankfully have passed us by

Hope this helps
Phil from the great land Downunder
www.flickr.com/photos/ozzie_traveller/sets/

Phil from the great land Downunder
www.flickr.com/photos/ozzie_traveller/sets/

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5 years 6 months ago #601244 by effron
I have a couple old Sekonics and another I don't recall, haven't touched any of them in years. The in camera meters are very good and with some practice and attention can do 99% of what a handheld does. Probably more important is the range of a modern sensor obsoleted handhelds.

Why so serious?
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5 years 6 months ago #601255 by fmw
The advantage of incident metering is that it isn't affected by the reflectivity of the subject and, therefore is more accurate.  The complex matrix meters in cameras try to battle the reflectivity problem.  I think they are better than handheld reflected meters for that reason. 

In this day and age, I don't think it is all that important, however.  You can bracket to your heart's content with a digital camera without it costing anything.  In the film days incident meters were more popular because film and processing were expensive - especially in sheet film formats.


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5 years 6 months ago #601325 by Sue Bidwell
IMO, the in camera meter will do most of what you need.  I haven't used a handheld meter in years.  


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