The Zone Light Meter Blog
Long-form guides on light metering, the Zone System, and the analogue corrections that turn a meter reading into the right exposure. Updated as ideas land.
Push and Pull Processing, Explained
How to push or pull film: rating at a new EI, changing development, what it does to shadows and contrast, and how far Tri-X, HP5 and Portra go.
How to Expose Expired Film
Expired film exposure compensation: the one stop per decade rule, why storage beats the date, how each stock ages, and how to test a roll first.
Metering Infrared Film Through an IR Filter
How to expose infrared film behind an R72 filter: meter without it, add stops, bracket hard. Films that still see IR, focus shift and reciprocity.
The Zone System for Film Photographers in 2026
A complete guide to Ansel Adams's Zone System for negative and slide film, with worked examples and placement-and-fall practice.
The Best Light Meter Apps for Film Photography in 2026
Honest round-up of light meter apps for film: Zone Light Meter, Pocket Light Meter, myLightMeter Pro, FilmMeter, Lightme, and Lumu.
The Sunny 16 Rule, Explained
Where Sunny 16 came from, how to use it as a starting point, where it breaks down, and how to back it up with a real meter reading.
Reciprocity Failure, Stock by Stock
Why long exposures need more time than the meter says, with corrected times for 14 popular film stocks and a chart covering the full catalog.
How Zone Light Meter Does Reciprocity Correction
The mechanism behind the long-exposure numbers: a per-emulsion Schwarzschild exponent fitted to manufacturer data, applied past one second and stacked with every other correction.
Multi-Spot Metering for Film
How to take three or more spot readings, weight them by importance, and arrive at the exposure your subject actually needs.