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Is spot metering just an EV compensation?
Metering, regardless of type, and exposure compensation are different functions with different purposes. Metering is used to obtain exposure exposure settings (ISO, aperture, shutter speed), while exposure compensation is used to modify those values. It is basically the difference between nouns and adjectives.
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The quote doesn't talk about metering but about recording light, i.e. photography (literally).
most photos are of reflective objects, rather than of light sources, the occasional sunset notwithstanding and even in this case, the clouds, sky, and landscape are usually more interesting than the sun itself.)
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A spot meter is handy to be able to read the reflectivity of an object in the scene precisely from a distance.
It is like putting a telephoto lens on a meter to isolate one part of the subject.
An alternate method is to walk over to the subject and read the reflectivity close-up.
Without a spot meter, you would take a reading of the average light ...
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The vast majority of Adams' most significant works were of landscapes in which much of the scene was miles away from the camera over very rough terrain. While Adams did often spend hours or even days reaching a remote spot where he placed his cameras, spending another two days to traipse over to an area that would be in the photograph to take an incident ...
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With my long exposures, I meter for the scene and then add whatever ND amount needed and disregard the camera’s meter from there on out. That being said, it wouldn’t hurt to do some testing to determine more about your particular filter’s characteristics (I’d recommend using a digital camera for the testing). Take a regular exposure, manually adjust 10 stops ...
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Those talking about the 'angle' refer to the angle of view of light meters.
A standard reflective light meter has a fairly large angle of view, and thus meters for a large area in your scene.
Spot meters have a very narrow angle of view. You've likely seen mentions of 1-degree spot meters. This means that such a spot meter meters for 1 degree in your ...
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Yes, you could match the spot metering result by some degree of EV compensation, if you knew how much compensation. We typically may not know, so we instead meter it to be able to manage that.
Spot metering only analyzes the light intensity in that small spot. Regular metering looks at a much larger spot, closer to the full scene. Suppose you are ...
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It sounds like the scene your were framing was outside the operating range of your 80D's meter.
It's rated for EV 1-20.
At ISO 100, EV 1 is equal to f/1 for 1/2 second.¹
The maximum ISO for the 80D is 25,600. That's 8 stops higher than ISO 100.
f/8 is six stops darker than f/1.
You report that 30 seconds was a good exposure time for ISO 25,600 and f/8....
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You basically have the right idea in your first bullet. The simple approach is to meter and set your exposure for the foreground. Then meter the sky (not the sun), and pick a ND grad filter strength that is the difference of the two meter readings (or slightly less, to within a stop if you can).
Depending on your scene, you might need to adjust your ...
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"Is it worth it" greatly depends on what you are doing, how you approach your photography, and what other gear you are planning to use.
If you have a modern digital camera, then their value is greatly diminished. If you're working with a large format film camera, then they're invaluable if you like to carefully inspect the light of the scene before deciding ...
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An incident light reading is the same (very similar to) as a simple grey-card reading. They both assume an average scene illuminance. That's a big assumption for the creative photographic interpretation practiced by Mr Adams.
Adams used an SEI reflection spot meter with a very narrow angle to record actual different light levels that reached the camera ...
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When you set the ISO on camera, that is the adjustment to compensate for increased development time. Any further changes to shutter speed or aperture would change the exposure further.
In the scenario you describe, you want to process ISO 400 film at ISO 1600. That is a two-stop increase in development. So exposure has to decrease by two stops. Based on ...
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The camera can be set to lock the exposure in auto modes using different buttons, but a system default is to lock in the exposure at the time you hold the shutter release half way down. So, you'd get to where you want to take a shot, go halfway down, the autofocus and exposure would lock in, and then you'd take the shot.
Since you were using partial ...
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Why are not taken the real Area increments of 1.5, 1.33, 1.66 using the radius √(3/2), √(4/3), √(5/3) as the real fractional stops of +1/2EV; +1/3EV; +2/3EV?
Because of addition property.
Surely, you would like adding +1/2EV twice to produce +1EV which means 2*light.
Now, if +1/2EV was 1.5*light, then +1EV would be 2.25*light.
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This comes down to understanding how logarithms work. Specifically in photography, the log base-2 of a doubling ratio equates to a difference of 1 stop.
We use logarithms to reduce repeated multiplication and division by growth factors to simpler linear addition or subtraction of stop values. If you are familiar with the decibel scale, this is the same ...
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Whether you want to compensate the camera's auto exposure for the lighting conditions depends on a number of factors.
Cameras use various metering methods to determine the correct exposure. This is a considerable list, so I won't list and explain all of them, but two common methods are centre weighted and average metering.
Since light meters expect ...
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This is, as far as any other camera than an "electric" compatible Pentacon/Praktica (eg the Praktica LLC) is concerned, a fully manual/stop-down-metering M42 lens. The automatic aperture (for a bright viewfinder. Not shutter priority!) will only ever work on a native M42 camera, and the meter-coupling facility of the "electric" lenses will only work with ...
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Should I rather meter without filter and then add 10 stops, or meter with filter, to get accurate exposure?
Neither.
Film doesn't respond linearly at very long exposures. This is known as reciprocity failure or The Schwarzschild Effect. For most films, any exposure longer than about one second are affected by this.
You should meter without the filter and ...
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In addition to timvrhn's answer above (great answer, btw). You also asked "How do we make use of that information?"
When shooting a scene (e.g. a landscape) you may be dealing with a potential broad exposure range.
Having a narrow "spot" focus feature allows the photographer to more easily isolate the brightest and darkest features in a scene to ...
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Just like a there are different types of hammers, and a ball-peen hammer isn't always the type you want to use...there are different ways to meter a scene and a spot isn't always the type you want to use. But, it does come in handy to nail down the correct exposure in tough lighting conditions.
What you need to look at is the different tools available and ...
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It makes absolutely no difference where an incident reading is taken. The only thing that matters is that the meter sees the same light as the subject does, and with the same orientation relative to the source and camera (angle of incidence).
I.e. if the light source is the sun behind you and you want to take a picture of a mountain 3 miles away; then just ...
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This is probably opinion-based.
The truth is that I only use a light meter for incident light on a studio.
If that is why you are using it, you do not need a spotmeter.
If you are taking photos of landscape or architecture for example, and you also want to do a zone metering, you probably need it.
This will also depend if you are using digital or not. If ...
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I don't have this particular model (I have an L-308S-U), but after a bit of experimentation with a flashlight...
That means that the currently recommended f-stop is f/4 plus 2/10 of a stop - towards 5.6, meaning the light is slightly brighter than what would cause it to recommend exactly f/4.
You would use that number to determine when to move up to the ...
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How does a camera determine aperture when in shutter-priority mode?
It measures the amount of light reflected from various areas of the scene and calculates a desired exposure value based upon the metering mode used. It then selects an aperture value that, combined with the shutter duration and ISO setting you have selected, will result in the desired ...
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It doesn't matter how you arrive at the three exposure relevant parameters time,aperture, and ISO. Whether you set them manually or via any of the automatic modes doesn't change the final result.
EV compensation just tells the exposure automatic that you want it to set the values for a darker or lighter result than it thinks to be correct; Spot metering ...
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How fine an increment can the camera exposure be adjusted?
For more years than I want to remember, I managed a department that made process control materials. We exposed test films and made test prints; the goal was uniform precision day-to-day. The best we could do in the laboratory was an end product controlled to 1/3 f-stop. No easy task; everything that ...
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As Peter mentioned in comments, spot meters DO NOT and CANNOT correctly expose the spot. They only try make the spot come out middle gray level (because subject colors just confuse them). That may be good if your spot is middle gray, but you'll have to know to compensate about +1EV for a Caucasian face (this can vary).
Cameras today have the best ...
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If you want to use Ansel Adam's and Fred Archer's Zone System, you must use a spot-meter.
The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal
film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred
Archer.1 Adams described the Zone System as "[...] not an invention
of mine; it is a codification of the principles of ...
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In contradiction to (handheld) spot meters and incident light meters, reflective light meters such as the one in your FM2 are harder to use for precise metering.
As explained in this answer, spot meters have a very narrow angle of view, thereby metering only a small part of the entire scene. With such specific metering, you can imagine it is not all too ...
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