h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm a beginner to photography and found your article interesting, informative and thought-provoking. I've read through a few photography books, magazines etc and while many list the aperture and shutter speed for specific photos, I haven't until now found a good explanation of how best to decide on which settings will suit a particular scene.
And now, if I may, a question ...
Should I rush out and buy a light meter to allow me to, for example, see people who are standing in front of windows in my pictures; or would it be possible to successfully use the spot-metering facility on my basic modern SLR to the same effect?
Thanks again for the article ... it's left me feeling pretty motivated

apologies for replying to my own reply before you got a chance...
I just had a look at your site and with your artice in mind, I'm finally starting to see the attraction of b&w photography!

Hi there garbled.

I can't see any reason why you shouldn't use the spot meter in your camera to take readings. The only point to remember is that you must take the reading from the same direction as you will take the photograph from, so you have the same incident light falling on the subject.

In general, it's better to learn to make the best use of the equipment you have than to buy more. A handheld light meter is useful but certainly not essential if you have a modern camera with light meter. The only other piece of (pretty cheap) equipment you might want to consider is a grey card, which you can place in front of your subject, to take a reading from, to give you the mid grey reading.

Oh... and black and white photography is lots of fun, and highly recommended.

Sus

Hi Garbled,

Glad you liked the article - thanks for your comments.

I'd echo what Pegasus said - a spot meter greatly helps in photography as in, for example, metering people standing against a window. If you've got a spot meter already built into your SLR you're probably best sticking with this. I have always done so, and only bought a separate meter when I got a medium format camera that didn't have a meter built in.

There are a couple of small advantages in a handheld meter; firstly, if you're using a tripod, you can set the composition up and you don't have to disturb it by moving the camera around to take readings; secondly, separate spot meters often read an even smaller area than built-in ones. Neither of these points has made much difference to me, to be honest!

A positive advantage of a camera's built in meter is that it reads through the lens, which means any filters you have on the front of the lens may be automatically included in the reading. However, beware that this may not work with some strong coloured filters, or polarisers.

Cheers,

Stretchy.