Incident vs. Reflective

[chaunceytanton]

I have a 156xl Nizo which I'm pretty sure takes 'reflective' light readings in order to set the aperture, as i believe most super8s do. My question is this. Would a 'Cine' light meter, which takes incident light readings, be more accurate than the internal light meter in my Nizo? Now I know that incident readings, by nature, are more accurate for determining proper tones, etc., but could an incident light reading with a light meter replace the internal reflective readings of my Nizo? thanks, chauncey

[MovieStuff]

A lot depends on what type of film you are shooting. For all my negative still camera work, I tend to use an ambient meter and go with what it says. Neg has enough latitude that it can handle almost any exposure variation within a stop or so. Reversal, in particular Kodachrome 40, is pretty unforgiving on exposure. If it's an overcast day, I just take a reflective reading with my camera and it seems to work out just fine. If it's sunny, then I take a reflective reading of the overall scene and then a reflective reading off my hand and split the difference. This keeps the whites and skin tones from burning out and still maintains shadow detail.

Hope this helps! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Roger