Meters and metering patterns

Taking a meter reading is fading into the past as surely as film is being replaced by digital images. Long considered the mark of a good studio photographer, taking a meter reading required a working knowledge of lighting and how the film would record the light. It also was a part of the workflow needed to consistently produce professional quality work. These meters were usually hand held and not cheap. These meters are still available and used by professionals in still and motion picture photography almost exclusively.  Today’s cameras will come with a built in light meter capable of recording one, two, or even three types of metering patterns. These in-camera meters are very capable and actually quite accurate, but they do not replace the lighting knowledge of a professional photographer. Convenience and consistency in metering brought these meters to the feature set of today’s cameras.

The following are brief descriptions of the in-camera meter types and their usefulness.

REFLECTIVE - All current cameras on today’s market use a reflective metering system. This is where the light striking the subject is reflected off the subject back into the cameras meter where it is recorded and evaluated. It is the photographer’s choice as to what metering pattern they choose to use for evaluating the light entering the meter.

SPOT Meters are meters that read a very small portion of the viewfinder, usually a small circular section of the screen 9 degrees or smaller. By recording only this small area, the meter creates a very narrowly defined definition of the recommended exposure for that particular image.

CENTER WEIGHTED meters read an area that resembles an elongated horizontal oval in the center of the screen. With an area covering 40 -60% of the total image area, the center weighted meter evaluates the light striking the defined area and averages the exposure to balance the light recording an averaged exposure.

MATRIX meters (evaluative) are programmed with a database of literally hundreds of thousands of image exposures, with algorithms used to calculate the best possible exposure when compared to the cameras meter database. Very accurate, these meters generally render almost any scene to good advantage, but they do tend to bias towards a normal scene rendition. More dramatic effects can usually be obtained through application of other metering methods.

The last meter type is the Incident Meter and is a true professional meter. Still hand held and now more advanced than ever, it remains the professional’s tool for getting the most accurate reading of the light in any photograph.

INCIDENT Light meters – Light striking a subject is incidental light. It offers a very accurate recording of light as the camera sees it. Incident metering is the normal choice of working photographers, especially when critical exposure is necessary or in very controlled environments like a studio. Incident meters are usually recognized by the Diffusion dome found on the top or the front of the meter. This white globe diffuses the light and directs it into the meter cells. Many incident meters also combine Color meters or Flash meters into their construction. These make the meter more versatile and useful to the professional photographer.