From: donl@glass.esd.sgi.com (donl mathis)
Newsgroups: rec.photo
Subject: Re: Zone System & Gossen Ultra Spot
Date: 2 Oct 92 01:10:20 GMT
Reply-To: donl@glass.esd.sgi.com (donl mathis)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA


In article <1992Oct1.203816.6821@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>,
eugene@briar.lle.rochester.edu (Eugene Kowaluk) writes:
|> 
|> Has anybody worked with the Ultra Spot's zone function?

Yes.

|> If so, would you recommend this spotmeter over the others because of this
|> function?

No.

|> Thanks.

You're welcome.

Perhaps I'd better explain.  ;)

The folks who designed and implemented the Ultra Spot were most likely
not serious zone system photographers, nor did they really understand
serious zone system photography.  The result is that their design gives
you a sort locked-in procedure that doesn't necessarily fit the real
world.  You must (must) first choose a low zone, and place it on a zone
below V.  You cannot place a high zone.  Then you may measure other
values and see where they fall.  If, once you've looked at the high
values, you find yourself wishing you could have placed on II instead
of III, you're out of luck -- you have to start over.  And so on.  The
"procedure" you're locked into is inappropriate.  It should be possible
to place a reading anywhere you want, at any time, and then see where
others fall.  It should be possible to shuffle the whole scale up and
down, i.e. to move all of your readings together if you decide to
change the placement.

On top of that, the only display on this meter is through the
viewfinder, and it's all around the edges.  I found it extremely
uncomfortable to have to hold this big (big) heavy (heavy) meter up to
my face for several minutes, looking off the edges, while I considered
the readings.  These considerations have nothing to do with looking at
the scene; there's no need to have to do it with the thing glued to
your eye.

Now, on top of that, the processor was slow.  When you hit and up/down
button, you have to push, release, and wait.  So when you start moving
values around, there is a rather painful process of waiting for the
meter to debounce it's buttons or whatever it's doing and get around to
updating the values and listening to the buttons again.  You can't just
say "tick, tick, tick" to get from ISO 100 to ISO 200; you must say
"push, wait, push, wait, push".  Most annoying, and unworkable in my
opinion.

So it *could* have been a great meter, but they made a lot of
mistakes.  I'm sure the accuracy is as good as it gets, but the user
interface makes the meter useless.

In the end, the best meter for the zone system, in my opinion, is *still*
the little Pentax digital.  And that includes a preference over the 
Minolta, and anything else digital that reads in 1/10 stops and doesn't
let you easily fiddle with the readings.

There is one possible alternative that I'm aware of, but I've never
used it, so I can't say for sure.  There is a new meter from Sekonic
that apparently has some zone system capability.  I know Andy Wai was
looking at them, but I can't remember if he ended up getting one.  I
do seem to recall seeing a posting or some email that the meter was
actually pretty good.

My reservations are primarily due to my experience with the older
Sekonic L-488 digital, which I found to be full of features (though
none really helpful with the zone system), but very poor in accuracy
and flare control.  Features do no good if the readings can't be
trusted.  Sekonic would have had to learn how to fix these problems
in order for me to consider their new meter -- certainly possible, 
but I just don't know.

- donl mathis at Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
donl@sgi.com