digital camera as exposure meter

Richard Polhill wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Richard Polhill wrote:
viewerofrecphoto wrote:
looking for a digital camera to use as an exposure meter and histogram
display for my film camera.
preferred features:
- small size
- low price
- accurate histogram
- iso range 100-1600
- zoom range 24-200 (35mm equiv)
- manual aperture & shutter speed
- ease of use to look at histograms
resolution/noise are not important.

But a good (Ã,£300) meter is a lot cheaper than a digital camera and 24-200 lens.
A $600 camera (Nikon D40 with an 18-55mm kit lense)
will
run circles around any $600 light meter. At $800 for a
DSLR the OP might nearly want to simply ditch shooting
with film at all, and use only the "meter"!

Thereby solving all his problems, bring world peace,
banish poverty, hunger and suffering. Of course.

How exactly will it "run rings around" a meter? It IS a meter.

And just what the **** is a "lense"?

So, you had no substance to add, no discussion of any
real point you might have made; but your ego insisted
that you make *some* kind of a response?

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Richard Polhill wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Richard Polhill wrote:
viewerofrecphoto wrote:
looking for a digital camera to use as an exposure meter and histogram
display for my film camera.
preferred features:
- small size
- low price
- accurate histogram
- iso range 100-1600
- zoom range 24-200 (35mm equiv)
- manual aperture & shutter speed
- ease of use to look at histograms
resolution/noise are not important.

But a good (Ã,£300) meter is a lot cheaper than a digital camera and 24-200 lens.
A $600 camera (Nikon D40 with an 18-55mm kit lense)
will
run circles around any $600 light meter. At $800 for a
DSLR the OP might nearly want to simply ditch shooting
with film at all, and use only the "meter"!
Thereby solving all his problems, bring world peace,
banish poverty, hunger and suffering. Of course.

How exactly will it "run rings around" a meter? It IS a meter.

And just what the **** is a "lense"?

So, you had no substance to add, no discussion of any
real point you might have made; but your ego insisted
that you make *some* kind of a response?

Ditto.

But actually, the point I made was that if the guy wants a lightmeter for use
with his MF kit, there is no reason on earth that he'd want to pay $1000-$2000
for a DSLR when a $500 meter will do the job of a meter better.

Ignoring your fatuous argument that if he buys the DSLR he can then use that
instead of his MF kit, I refute your claims that the DSLR can do a better job
of being a meter than a meter.

I challenged you to substantiate your claim that a cheap plastic DSLR will
"run circles around" a $500 meter AS A METER.

It is up to you whether you choose to do so. I suspect you won't but will
*have* to respond anyway.

On Aug 8, 4:58 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Recently, Floyd L. Davidson posted:

But if one actually uses a "spot" meter to determine the
an appropriate exposure level for the highlights, and
then confirms that the shadows are within the dynamic
range of the film (or the electronic sensor with a
digital camera), a "reflected meter" reading is by far
more acurrate.

I don't follow your thinking here. If one uses a spot meter to sample the
highlight areas and the shadow areas, there is no guessing involved in the
dynamic range of the scene. From there, the photographer can accurately
expose for the areas of interest. I don't see how a reflected meter would
be a better tool.


A spot meter is a reflected meter. In fact Floyd and you are saying
the same thing. He was replying to the statement (by Richard Polhill)
Or alternatively, something
you can't do with a camera is incident light metering,
measuring the light falling on a subject rather than
that reflected.
by pointing out the same thing as you. Polhill, I might add,replied by
calling this notion (to wit, that reflected spot readings are a more
accurate means of determining exposure than incident readings) as
"unmitigated bull****".

Recently, Floyd L. Davidson posted:

Richard Polhill wrote:
viewerofrecphoto wrote:
looking for a digital camera to use as an exposure meter and
histogram display for my film camera.
preferred features:
- small size
- low price
- accurate histogram
- iso range 100-1600
- zoom range 24-200 (35mm equiv)
- manual aperture & shutter speed
- ease of use to look at histograms
resolution/noise are not important.


But a good (£300) meter is a lot cheaper than a digital camera and
24-200 lens.

A $600 camera (Nikon D40 with an 18-55mm kit lense) will
run circles around any $600 light meter. At $800 for a
DSLR the OP might nearly want to simply ditch shooting
with film at all, and use only the "meter"!

As this thread is being cross-posted to a medium format group, if the OP
is using a MF camera such notions are not necessarily so.

But if one actually uses a "spot" meter to determine the
an appropriate exposure level for the highlights, and
then confirms that the shadows are within the dynamic
range of the film (or the electronic sensor with a
digital camera), a "reflected meter" reading is by far
more acurrate.

I don't follow your thinking here. If one uses a spot meter to sample the
highlight areas and the shadow areas, there is no guessing involved in the
dynamic range of the scene. From there, the photographer can accurately
expose for the areas of interest. I don't see how a reflected meter would
be a better tool.

That might well be just about as useful as a $600 meter.
But just like a light meter, it pales by comparison to
a DSLR.

For the OP's task and question at hand, I think a DSLR is the wrong tool
altogether. YMMV.

Neil

acl wrote:
On Aug 8, 4:58 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Recently, Floyd L. Davidson posted:

But if one actually uses a "spot" meter to determine the
an appropriate exposure level for the highlights, and
then confirms that the shadows are within the dynamic
range of the film (or the electronic sensor with a
digital camera), a "reflected meter" reading is by far
more acurrate.
I don't follow your thinking here. If one uses a spot meter to sample the
highlight areas and the shadow areas, there is no guessing involved in the
dynamic range of the scene. From there, the photographer can accurately
expose for the areas of interest. I don't see how a reflected meter would
be a better tool.


A spot meter is a reflected meter. In fact Floyd and you are saying
the same thing. He was replying to the statement (by Richard Polhill)
Or alternatively, something
you can't do with a camera is incident light metering,
measuring the light falling on a subject rather than
that reflected.
by pointing out the same thing as you. Polhill, I might add,replied by
calling this notion (to wit, that reflected spot readings are a more
accurate means of determining exposure than incident readings) as
"unmitigated bull****".


I did that. Admittedly it depends on the scene, but once to remove the
reflectivity of the subject from the readings you should get more accurate
exposure.

Film, negative in particular, has more latitude than digital. Hence I
That isn't true for current DSLRs.

Agreed.

A persistent myth... :-)


how many stops of latitude shooting in RAW mode does a D80-class dSLR
offer?

Negative film offers something like 5-stops of overexposure latitude.
It is next to impossible to blow highlights. Yet the dSLR's I've tried (I
don't own one) seem to easily blow highlights.

Richard Polhill wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Richard Polhill wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Richard Polhill wrote:
viewerofrecphoto wrote:
looking for a digital camera to use as an exposure meter and histogram
display for my film camera.
preferred features:
- small size
- low price
- accurate histogram
- iso range 100-1600
- zoom range 24-200 (35mm equiv)
- manual aperture & shutter speed
- ease of use to look at histograms
resolution/noise are not important.

But a good (Ãf,Ã,£300) meter is a lot cheaper than a digital camera and 24-200 lens.
A $600 camera (Nikon D40 with an 18-55mm kit lense)
will
run circles around any $600 light meter. At $800 for a
DSLR the OP might nearly want to simply ditch shooting
with film at all, and use only the "meter"!
Thereby solving all his problems, bring world peace,
banish poverty, hunger and suffering. Of course.

How exactly will it "run rings around" a meter? It IS a meter.

And just what the **** is a "lense"?
So, you had no substance to add, no discussion of any
real point you might have made; but your ego insisted
that you make *some* kind of a response?

Ditto.

But actually, the point I made was that if the guy wants
a lightmeter for use with his MF kit, there is no reason
on earth that he'd want to pay $1000-$2000 for a DSLR
when a $500 meter will do the job of a meter better.

Ignoring your fatuous argument that if he buys the DSLR
he can then use that instead of his MF kit, I refute
your claims that the DSLR can do a better job of being a
meter than a meter.

If you can refute it, go right ahead. But so far you
haven't.

The ball is *still* in your court. Why not try an
honest discussion of facts rather than these emotional
rants you've posted twice now?

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On Aug 8, 8:39 pm, (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:

A $600 camera (Nikon D40 with an 18-55mm kit lense) will
run circles around any $600 light meter. At $800 for a
DSLR the OP might nearly want to simply ditch shooting
with film at all, and use only the "meter"!

and of course a $800dslr produces quality
comparable to MF film. and of course, there
is no need to buy a lens on said $800dslr,
it does it all by magic. snork
life is so easy, isn't it? :-)


Use of an incident light meter eliminates the need to
adjust the average in relation to 18% reflectance, but
there is still the problem of relating the highlights to
the average.

But if one actually uses a "spot" meter to determine the
an appropriate exposure level for the highlights, and
then confirms that the shadows are within the dynamic
range of the film (or the electronic sensor with a
digital camera), a "reflected meter" reading is by far
more acurrate.

beg to disagree: it won't be by far more
accurate. it will just be giving a measurement
and exposure that takes into account the
highlight and shadow limits of the sensor/film.

the incident light meter will be measuring light
accurately, but that doesn't mean it will produce
the best exposure for the scene under consideration,
in combination with the traits of the recording media.

Just one other thought, if you still find a £300 meter
too expensive, you can spend half that on a Canon T90
and lens which is one of the finest meters ever
made. Hell, you can even get one with a stuck shutter
for peanuts as you don't want to take photos with it.

That might well be just about as useful as a $600 meter.
But just like a light meter, it pales by comparison to
a DSLR.

disagree completely: there is nothing magically
"better" about meters in dslrs compared to meters
in film cameras. Absolutely nothing. In fact,
if anything for someone using MF film it will
be a much better choice to grab a T90 than
to grab a dslr: at least the T90 meter
will be calibrated for film, something the
dslr will never be.

and I can vouch for that: I've used MF film
with a 35mm film matrix meter camera as
a MF meter and the exposure is spot on.
Have tried it with a dslr and it just plain
won't work without special calibration.

Richard Polhill wrote:
acl wrote:
On Aug 8, 4:58 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Recently, Floyd L. Davidson posted:

But if one actually uses a "spot" meter to determine the
an appropriate exposure level for the highlights, and
then confirms that the shadows are within the dynamic
range of the film (or the electronic sensor with a
digital camera), a "reflected meter" reading is by far
more acurrate.
I don't follow your thinking here. If one uses a spot meter to sample the
highlight areas and the shadow areas, there is no guessing involved in the
dynamic range of the scene. From there, the photographer can accurately
expose for the areas of interest. I don't see how a reflected meter would
be a better tool.

A spot meter is a reflected meter. In fact Floyd and
you are saying
the same thing. He was replying to the statement (by Richard Polhill)
Or alternatively, something
you can't do with a camera is incident light metering,
measuring the light falling on a subject rather than
that reflected.
by pointing out the same thing as you. Polhill, I might add,replied by
calling this notion (to wit, that reflected spot readings are a more
accurate means of determining exposure than incident readings) as
"unmitigated bull****".


I did that. Admittedly it depends on the scene, but once
to remove the reflectivity of the subject from the
readings you should get more accurate exposure.

You cannot do that with an incident light meter...
for reasons that were previously explained.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

Mike M wrote:
Film, negative in particular, has more latitude than digital. Hence I
That isn't true for current DSLRs.

Agreed.

A persistent myth... :-)


how many stops of latitude shooting in RAW mode does a D80-class dSLR
offer?

The dynamic range of current DSLR's runs at about 10 or
11 fstops. Typical color negative film does not match
that.

Here is a web site that has far more data and information than
we can plug into a Usenet thread:

http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta....summary1.html

The main points a

"Here are some of the issues in the Digital vs Film debate:

+ The question really is film versus electronic sensors.
+ Both are analog capture.
+ Electronic sensors: an analog charge gets digitized
in the camera.
+ Film can be scanned at high resolution.

+ Image detail requires many megapixels.
+ Until recently, "digital" cameras could not meet
film resolution.
+ Digital cameras only meet/exceed film cameras in
some restricted areas.
+ E.g. Wildlife action photography.

+ Images have tonality and dynamic range.
+ Both film and electronic sensors are good in
this regard.
+ Electronic sensors have a larger dynamic range
than film (at least the better sensors do).

+ Electronic sensors have lower image noise.
+ Noise in an image has a big impact on the
perception of image quality.
+ The size of the pixels in the electronic sensor
are directly related to the signal-to-noise in
the image produced by the camera. Larger pixels
are better."

Negative film offers something like 5-stops of overexposure latitude.
It is next to impossible to blow highlights.

That depends on your definition of "blow highlights". I
personally think that if you get more than about 1 fstop
into the non-linear region of the curve you *have* blown
the highlights. The fact that there is "detail" (which
is actually more noise than not) has little meaning when
the detail is no longer a useful representation of the
original scene.

Which is another way of saying that "dynamic range" is
only a useful term when it is defined within a *useful*
signal-to-noise range. (Keeping in mind that if you
wish to toss that requirement for film it is a two way
street and the low end for an electronic sensor extends
farther than does the high end for film, when SNR is not
considered.)

Yet the dSLR's I've tried (I
don't own one) seem to easily blow highlights.

And with digital it is easier to *avoid* blowing the
highlights in the first place.


In perspective though, *none* of the above discussion is
a reason to choose film or digital either one! Both
have advantages and disadvantages in certain
circumstances that are much more significant, and
each individual's perception of what is *fun* is
more important than any technical characteristic.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)