Best explanation on you tube.

This, not only clears up the use of the spot meter, it also puts the grayscale zones in context in a way that gets to the point and is easy to understand. You are a natural-born teacher. Thank you Mr. Henson!

That’s the best explanation I’ve seen to date on spot metering and the zone system. Excellent work.

Van I just say in all my years listening to all kinds of people explaining the Zone system, this is the most succinct and easiest explanation to follow I’ve ever heard. Thank you very much sir keep up the good work.

Oh Martin, this and part 2 was a real game changer, coz you brought it on the point - easy to unterstand, very good examples and I learned more with these two short vids than out of several "high end" explanation on KZfaq...thx a lot!!!

Finally someone who knows the real information!

Great video... im a large format and digital photographer.. but i dont develop at home due to no space... so what I do is , I get my negative in camera as controlled as possible for contrast range (using grads if necessary to) and development with a lab, I will use N- 1 or 2 to place the zones so that i have as much info as possible on the neg and when scanning, the info is all there for me to then add back contrast in processing. Usually I dont have to do any major surgery on an image as it can be detrimental on the quality if its too much work.. hence you need to get the negative as good as you can in camera. The same applies to colour work ..with pulling or pushing, but most of the time I dont need to do this, as Ive metered my shadows well and controlled the highlights with filtration if necessary.

I have watched loads of videos on this subject and Martin just puts things into a format which makes sense, thank you for the great work Mr Henson 👍

Mr. Henson, thanks for giving me a clear concept about a light meter.Thanks so much!

Very well explained and presented. Thank you!

Just discovered your channel. Really enjoying it. Subscribed. Thank you for the great content.

Possibly the best quick tutorial on the zone system I have seen so far. Brilliant sir!

This is the best video by far on spot metering

Simple and easily understood. Thank you.

Thank you for this.

excellent video

Very helpful and I thank you Martin.

Thank you for making this simple for a novice trying to learn the Zone System.

thank you for the full explanation of the reflective spot metering technique, very helpful

Yup. Good presentation.

thanks for the video ! I have the Sekonic 758 Cine and never had this idea of using the ISO2 to go from Z5 to Z2 ! Brilliant !

Very well explained Martin…simple to the point. Thank you…be safe, Cheers..

Very good looking forward to using this Light Meter understanding a little bit more now. Thank you for your good tips. Will give it a try cheers all the best

Awesome! Thank you so much Martin!! It's starting to make sense!

Dear Sir, this is by far the best video to explain the spot meter.

Brilliant work Martin great explanation of this somewhat tricky subject, this video I willhave to play several times to get it into my head and to reverse this thinking for positives thank you

Super video Martin, thank you! Just got a similar meter to yours and have only been using incident mode so far. This has given me incentive to try the spot and place the zones where needed using exposure adjustments relative to zone 5.

well done video Martin!

This was great, thank you.

Hi Martin, this is the best learning video on spot metering I've ever seen! Thank you so much for this!

short and understandable, Thank you ! .....

thanks Martin ,

Excellent

great explination! thanks for making it easy to understand!!

I used a Honeywell 1° spot meter when learning the Adams Zone System in 1971 while in college and quickly realized metering off the 18% card for exposure could be skipped is instead you metered for exposure from a Zone 1 area of the scene then shifted the ASA setting on the meter 3-4 stops slower (e.g. 50 for ASA 400 Tri-X based on looking at the negative and reproducing that solid black object in a scene with enough density to see a perceptual difference between it and the max. black printed film base + fog. Then determine the development time to fit scene to paper so white Zone 9 objects where a very light shade of gray with the just paper base rendering the Zone 10 specular on #2 grade paper per the gospel of St. Ansel one just needed to do a test for the EV range of different lighting contrast - flat sun, cross-lit sun, partly cloudy, overcast - to find the required negative development time. The Adams method of changing development time to vary keep negative highlight density (and shadow - highlight range) the same on all negatives only works if using sheet film, or all photos taken on the roll have the same Zone 1 - 9 EV range when measured with the meter. I was using a 35mm Nikon F back then and would buy Tri-X in bulk and load my own reusable 10-exposure canisters for each scene, bracketing generously when learning to do it his way and doing “artistic” photography. But I was actually making money doing photojournalism for the school paper and other publication where that wasn’t practical. I still used the Zone 1 spot metering for setting exposure, but used knowing the EV range between Zone 1 and 9 to know in advance what Polycontrast filter would be needed, again based on one time testing. I developed all the roll film for the time it took to fit the EV range of a cross-lit sunny scene on the paper with #2 filtration, then altered filtration as needed based the actual EV range for each shot, based on my notes. Shooting color negative film I did the same Zone 1 metering and meter ASA/ISO speed shift to get optimal shadow exposure, then measure the Z1-Z9 range to discover whether or not the EV range would fit the print paper. If the scene range exceeded the EV range the paper could render there wasn’t anything which could be done via development of negative or print. The solution in that situation was being able to custom print the color prints and burn in any blown highlights during exposure. My first job in 1972 was assisting top wedding shooter Monte Zucker who never showed proofs to customers. We would get 220 color negative film back uncut which he would review on a light box, marking those he wanted printed and the film was sent back to the lab (Meisel in Dallas) where a color print maker he had trained to print to his specs would custom print 10” x 10” prints, burning and dodging as required. Those were the first prints the customer saw and they would buy every one of them. If the contract was for a 50 photo album we’d typically shoot around 120, then print 70 - 80 upselling the customers without them resisting because they wanted all of them. 😊 After that I worked in the National Geographic HQ photo lab and shot a lot of (free) Kodachrome or Ektachrome with my spot meter. I would spot metered the Zone 9 content for exposure, adjusting the meter ASA/ISO setting up based on bracket test of meter ASA/ISO setting to find what adjusted setting nailed the Zone 9 / 10 highlight exposure. I would then meter a Zone 1 black object to find the Z9- Z1 EV range which would tell me how many stops of shadow detail would be lost if that scene was exposed for the highlight detail. I stopped metering entirely after getting my first digital camera with histogram and overexposure warning. Like color print or slide the sensor has a fixed EV range the scene will fit, or not. The way to find out is to shoot in M mode and expose so only specular highlights are blinking then look at the left side of the histogram is indicating a loss of shadow detail. When using studio lights with digital I used drape white and black terry hand towels on a stand, raise the fill flash until there is shadow detail on the black towel, turn on the back rim light and raise until what it hits is just at clipping in the playback, then turn on the key light and raise it until the front of the white towel is just below clipping. Much faster than metering. Plus even if you meter you wind up adjusting by eye. I used the same approach with speedlights with one flash on a camera bracket as fill and a second off camera.

I just purchased an old spot meter. This is very helpful!!

Danke Ihnen für die nützliche Information.

Thank you for making this clear. Best video on this information wise on OnesTube

An easy to understand lesson on spot metering that is straightforward and well presented. I do think though, that when teaching spot metering that using the terms underexposure and overexposure leads to confusion since those terms are associated with a photographic mistake. I've heard "adjust down/up" which seems better, but I prefer the term that Adams used: "Place the exposure up/down" since it indicates a thoughtful action and a path to using zone metering as a creative process.

Nice video

Thanks! Very helpful. Does this mean that the usable range to still have a bit of detail is about 6.5 EV?

This is fascinating and easily the best explanation of spot metering AND the zone system. A mentor taught me to meter for Zone III then go plus two stops. Explained the opposite way but the same result on your video. If the meter read Zone III as f22 at 1 second, the shutter should be 1/4 second. Scene lighting didn't matter, just find your Zone III and add two stops, he said. It always seemed to work, but the missing part was finding the Zone IX reading and seeing if it was five stops from Zone III. The overexpose for Zone VIII or IX rule wasn't anything I considered. The waterfall photo is interesting because I hadn't thought to overexpose for an image like it. For example, a meter for Zone IX would be f22 at 1/4, your exposure would be f22 at 2 seconds or 4 seconds right? Would a Zone III reading have worked in the waterfall photo? The N+/N- developing isn't something I'd considered either. A five-stop range would be Zone III is f22 at 1 second and my Zone VIII is f22 at 1/30. If I find a Zone VIII is f22 at 1/60, then it's N - right? Sorry for all the questions. Been getting more and more serious with 4x5 after a lot of mucking around with it. Thanks for making this video.

Thanks for a much needed tutorial on this essential technique. So you showed two meterings , one for shadows and one for highlights. When metering for your picture do you do both? or just the one? Your church and water picture is high contrast; which area did you meter to get the metering you wanted? Lastly, you mentioned that you don't usually measure dynamic range, but could you demonstrate how you compensate for dynamic range using +/-N development of the negative? It's an area I have found to be confusing. Love your channel. I like it's quiet low-hype tone and the videos are quite well done. Congratulations.

Thank you. What about digital photography? Do under and overexpose?

🙏🙏🙏🙏👍👍👍👍

Great explanation of the zone system and metering. I have a question, will my in camera spot meter give similar results? Does it also meter for zone 5?

hi martin, base on the video if i take o reading on the darkest part and the brightest side, what eposure will i use on my camera inm doing a slide negative shoot in black and white large format?

Excellent tutorial Martin,please ,when you measure the dark area and put it in zone 3, as a result you have also changed the highlight area by 2 stops, correct?Every time you measure the high and low lights and change the area if the other also changes, right?Many thanks!

Sir, can a spot meter give us a value that doesn't put the metered object in zone 5? I made a test a few days ago metering a dar blue sheet and the meter's suggested value have underexposed the sheet 2 stops from middle grey. Thanks for the video!

How can I use the same for digital photography

Out of curiosity. When I count them all I see 11 zones

That’s not a one degree in the sekonic. It’s a 5 degree. If it’s a one degree I’ll eat my hat (or celebrate with a six pack of Modelo dark). There are very few 1 degree spot meters stills in manufacture.

Physics: Warmth Lesson 1: We are going to boil water. What do we need, what are we doing and what happens? Do you think a wise teacher will start his lessen on warmth with a thermonuclear test? ------------------------------------- Photography: The lightmeter It is not wise and almost useless to do a lesson on the spotmeter and the zones. You have to start with an ordenairy meter ( with a dome ). Do your average reading of the houses on a square, the cars, the people and the sparkling water of the fountain. If you want do a metering with the lightmeter plus the dome on it. If you want do the reading of photo grey cart on the same square. Forget the spotmeter, the zones, developement short / normal / long. Ansel Adams was day and night busy in his darkroom with burning and dodging print after print. Forget the three books of Ansel Adams. I think most of the time a spotmeter is a show off toy for photo wankers.

i am so angry because this particular meter has a lot of usability issues

Love your Videos....one question on your sekonic meter how do I set the ISO2 to minus two? Sorry, this is a new meter for me to learn...