Incident vs Reflective Metering (Light Meter vs TTL) - Which is Best? | Mark Wallace

[@Reason-fg4ik]

Been watching Mark Wallace for about 5 years and learned most of my metering techniques from his videos. Another great video Mark! 👏

[@skyviews100]

Probably the best explanation of reflective/incident metering I've seen. Well done!

[@bruce-le-smith]

very helpful thank you. Teresa is a ray of light!

[@JohnMacLeanPhotography]

I very much appreciated your unedited, one take video. Good presenters don’t need no stinking edits! I got my first Minolta Flash Meter III back in 1984 (it took six S76 silver oxide button batteries), and a IV F (that I still have and works sometimes). Now I use a Sekonic L-478D-U.

[@takeiteasy13]

Are you fully satisfied with your L-478D? Why not L-858D that many prefer?

[@dlanska]

Nice job. Very clear, systematic, and helpful.

[@karney44m]

The reflective meter in your Sekonic is great for as you said, the zone system but...it is also brilliant for the "Chroma Zone System" made prominent by Dean Collins. Every color has a mid tone or zone 5 value. Using the reflected meter you are able to turn a white wall any shade of any color using that meter with a gel on your background light, find the mid point and then stop down or open up however many zone points you wish to shift the color. Just a single primary blue gel can go from the deepest most monitor melting saturated to pale sky blue just by using that meter and the zone system. No need for a hundred different shades of one color gel.

[@adelgundyrin9309]

Thank you Mark. Interesting and helpful video as always.

[@josephcumbey1770]

Thank you. Excellent explanation of incident vs reflective light.

[@JAMESDOWDELL-dv9se]

For landscape photography, it could be important to note that you can make your incident light meter reading from any distance from a geyser or mountain range as long as it is illuminated by the same unimpaired sunlight that exists at the point of measurement. The light from the sun comes from so far away, that a little extra mileage does not diminish it's power.

[@luna_bird]

Could you please elaborate more? For example, I want to take a picture of a mountain in front of me, and I can't walk closer to the mountain. Can I stand next to my camera and just point the incident meter towards the camera? Thank you.

[@Jacob-nn9in]

@@luna_bird Yes, as long as you're in the same kind of light as the subject. If the mountain is lit by the sun but you're under cloud, for example, you won't get the right reading.

[@letmebereal]

​​@@Jacob-nn9inoften if your taking a photo of a distant scene some parts will be in shade some in sunlight .So I guess in that situation I would have to use a reflective metering reading since I will be in one or the other.

[@JB-ou6fl]

Mark, I love how you describe difficult concepts. Your videos are very helpful for me.

[@oneclickbeaute9244]

You have taught us with demonstration on the basic principle of light. Great tutorial sir

[@JimJohnD]

An incident meter will always give you the correct exposure. Reflective metering will always try to get to 18% grey depending on what is in the shot. Reflective is best when used in spot metering.

[@jpdj2715]

It depends. It will give you an 18% grey depiction of an 18% grey object in your image, provided you held the lumisphere (*) correctly. The angle of the lumisphere is decisive in how much shadow detail you gain or loose. When the subject dynamic range is bigger than the contrast envelope of your film/digital camera, then the incident meter still does the 18% to 18% but you may end up with bleached out highlights or the darkest greys in your image have lost gradation and are all black. And that can happen both at the same time. Then, when your subject has a narrow dynamic range, the meter does not advise you where to place the subject into the contrast envelope of your medium. When you now expose to the right, you mitigate the risk of grain or digital noise, when you expose to the left, you get more refined gradation detail (due to the logarithmic nature of exposure). The problem with spot metering is that either (a) you have to meter both the brightest and darkest spots in your frame and figure out how to expose that, or (b) you have to take a reference surface that is an approximation of 18% grey (like Caucasian skin that is not too pale or tan), measure that once and hope for the best. Both incident metering and spot metering require deep understanding and experience in order to get the ultimate out of them. When there is time to do test shots, then you could easily bracket test shots with your digital camera and then choose the best exposure for a sequence of shots that do not allow for bracketing. Especially in the studio, in the way Mark uses his meter, my Sekonic 758 is a nice tool to help with metering in that, after camera-calibration shots and uploading data to the meter, it knows the camera's usable dynamic range and can place a darkest and lightest measurement in between that, indicating proper exposure relative to 18% grey. My Nikon Z 7ii can be set to "highlight -weighted" where it finds the brightest photosite in the frame and suggests exposure, exposes, assuming that that photosites is pure white - never bleached out highlights (shots look underexposed most of the time as LrC opens them because there may be only a couple individual stray "white" photosites in the frame and this then must be corrected by lowering the white point). Then this gets us to the AI in the camera that does a dumbed down version of "computer vision" (a branch of AI research - increasingly less dumbed down in today's cameras at least for AF) that enables the camera to recognize what you are pointing at and adapt its exposure to that (meaning you less have to brighten up high key shots and darken low key shots less). That all said, Mark's explanation makes perfect sense as a 101 introduction. (*) The white half dome on the meter below which the light sensor is.

[@rauliankeller758]

@@jpdj2715 thanks for the detailed explanation! Do I get it right: if I do an incident metering of the light, the aperture indicated by the light meter ensures that a middle gray card would come out as middle gray in the photo? Hence, to check if I need to apply exposure bracketing I would additionally check if, with the the aperture indicated by incident metering, the highlights and the shadows would be clipped by means of the camera's histogram, correct?

[@tw9535]

@@jpdj2715 You can expose for the most important subject (or most important part of a subject, such as a face) in your frame either with: (1) incident held in front of the most important thing (which places it where it would go on a 'proper' exposure) or (2) spot reflection off it (which places _it_ in the middle). Either is fine. You just have to decide how much to move off (sacrifice) based on secondary concerns. Either way, meters are TOOLS for information gathering, not magic wands.

[@sameerrao5834]

I presume that spot metering for the lit side of the subject's face would give the same result as the incident reading where Mark held the lumisphere at the face? If so, then the additional benefit of spot metering is that I can meter other parts of the frame to make sure that things that I want fit within the dynamic range of the sensor/film. I don't see how you can do that with incident metering which I always understood as a means to fix light intensity of various lights in a studio set up or on a film set. I'd always go with spot metering for determining exposure of a shot. Not sure if I am missing something here.

[@social_ad5151]

Thank you for explaining the topic related to photography

[@susanabanana2024]

I love your explanation! This is great! Even better than being such a great explanation, you demonstrated so well, what you had explained! Thank you.

[@salvamando1]

Bravo! I love your videos, it makes complex concepts understandable ! I’ve actually tried to order the light meter you feature in this video but I suppose that due to pandemic related supply issues, it has been on back order for nearly a year! I just today got a notification that it is finally in stock! Yeepee!

[@simondesborough9272]

Brilliant explanation 😊

[@T-Slider]

Great recap! Thanks Mark!

[@marchinderickx8193]

Excellent explanation!

[@aymanhussain4362]

Mr. Mark, thank you for the valuable information you provide regarding photography and lighting. I would like to ask you about the correct way to position the light meter for accurate readings. Should it be directed towards the light source or towards the camera?

[@chiokehart-kelly3481]

Very good explanation and the model is STUNNING.

[@carlwarrenphoto]

Thank you love to refresh metering knowledge

[@parasinthephilippines]

Excellent lesson.

[@stevecain1956]

Thanks Mark excellent.

[@ChrisKluepfel]

Great tutorial, would you use the reflective metering for correct skin tones too?

[@VintageVines80s]

Very informative

[@oupekha]

Best explanation

[@SwoleBeastTribe]

💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯 W O W ! - Swole Beast🤙🏽🙏🏽✌🏽

[@SidneyPratt]

Thanks.

[@anthonytriana4209]

Can you explain how to properly calibrate your sekonic to your camera?

[@Heyy.its.C]

So I’m in the market to buying a light meter and was curious on if I needed to get a light meter that also had reflective meter since my camera naturally pick that up. So do you think that the reflective mirror in a camera works just as good as one and a portable light meter? Because I was thinking of buying a light meter that only has incident metering to save some money.

[@WILLIAMPERRELLI]

Hi Is the flash also set to Ttl? Thanks

[@rphotographer]

Hello, is your meter calibrated to your camera? or no adjustments to the meter?

[@jpdj2715]

There's a list of omissions here. (1) The ISO institute doesn't define "correct exposure". Sekonic probably sticks to Kodak's opinion on that in their film market dominance era. (2) Canon may have a different opinion. When you calibrate I would argue that adapt to the Sekonic. (3) The Lens's f/number deviates from light transmission and different lenses deviate differently. A 1.2L has a T-value of 1.5 and that's how "fast" it is in a calibrated domain. (4) The f/number may only be correct at infinity focus and the lens does it's T-value at that. At closer by distances, the number in f/number increases but generally no brand shows that to you. This applies to all lenses with focus breathing and potentially more. (5) Your camera has fuzzy light metering modes. (6) You may know the camera's dynamic range but not its contrast envelope (DR available in a single shot/frame). (7) Incident metering ignores subject dynamic range. DR in subject may be greater than camera's contrast envelope and now what? Or, contrast envelope may be greater than subject dynamic range and now what? In the latter case, exposing to the right compresses gradation but exposing to the left will make gradation easier visible (and have a bit more Bayer noise). More?

[@sfink16]

Very good explanation! I'm assuming that you using "Evaluative" metering (Canon and whatever the other manufacturers call theirs) to meter TTL. What about spot metering to get the exact point on the subject metered? Or should I always use full metering versus spot, center, partial metering? Also, what about metering a sunset? Obviously it's through the lens with exposure compensation. Is there anything special I should know with sunset shots and metering?

[@marcusjames1221]

When I am setting up the sekonic L-858d-u with the new module for flash I think the best way to go is setting up White balance first and then setting up the light meter Next but we’re do I start to get a base line from the start how would you go about this I no I have to take 3 photos Either side three stops under and three stops over can you help me in this Project many thanks Mark

[@johnleonard4149]

Very thorough

[@spritual_enlightenment]

Great!

[@PedroLeitao]

Interesting!

[@minarimon3106]

Is it a good one for a professional cinematographer??

[@msrover2645]

thanks man

[@barrydillon8801]

Also TTL cannot measure a flash output in advance so we use a fladh meter in studio

[@narendra672]

👏

[@of1300]

It does not work better, incident reading. You use incident for your faces or foreground or subject, and check background with reflective reading on the basis of the incident. Youre sekonik helps you by keeping your incident reading as average and showing you via reflective the stop steps over and under. Very practical.

[@jonasweiss5817]

Cameras don’t think and make mistakes. They are calibrated to process via standards.

[@sijilo]

☺️

[@alansparks-zg2tz]

As clear as mud

[@ziggy149]

What happened to your Leica stuff, Mark? Bummer

[@armanhemat1479]

thats why you should use an iphone. it gets it right 118% of the time. lol