How to use hand meters



Pentax 67, 75mm lens, Fuji Velvia 50, Minolta auto meter IIIF, Bogen tripod and ball head.

Unlike built-in camera meters which read light reflected from the subject, hand held incident meters read the light falling on the subject. All built-in camera meters are reflected light meters. Centerweighted, spot, or multisegment meters read the light reflected from the subject. Camera meters work fine most of the time, but they can be fooled by the color or texture of your subject, resulting in over or underexposures. Reflected light meters are also more difficult to use when photographing backlit subjects. You could easily loose all details. Even frontlit subjects which are very bight or dark can fool reflected meters.

Incident meters measure the light falling on the subject and are not affected by the subject lightness or darkness, or its color. Black is recorded as black, and white records as white. To use an incident light meter, point its plastic dome so it is in the same light as your subject. The best way to use a hand meter is to hold the meter in front of your subject and aiming its dome at the camera. Once you take your reading, transfer the shutters speed/f-stop reading to your camera. Some hand meters include a mode for flash photography. This is a great feature to look for in a hand meter if you do a lot of flash photography such as studio, modeling, or even close-ups. To take a flash reading, point the meter at the camera and fire the test button on your flash. The correct f-stop will be displayed on the meter depending on your camera's flash sync.

MINOLTA Auto Meter VF Photo Exposure Light Meter

There are dozens of accessories for hand meters including spot attachments (useful if your camera doesn't have a spot meter), close-up, microscope, or attachments for calculating printing time in the darkroom. I always carry my incident meter with me and try to use it whenever possible. It is very useful for quick and accurate readings when there is no middle tone to read, or when I'm photographing very light or very dark subjects. For the image above, I used incident reading to get proper exposure in the early morning fog.