Mamiya 7 users: Do you,

[Gerry M]

meter with the body meter only, or do you (also/instead of), use a hand held meter? I am referring to the original 7, not the II. It is my understanding the meter on the II body is a bit less of a "spot meter". I would appreciate your experienced input.
Gerry

[bensyverson]

Body meter only... If your scene is very contrasty, meter using the area just above the RF patch, and recompose. For slides, I find metering a general midtone works well, but for negatives, I meter off a darker midtone.

[benlees]

When I had a 7 I would look for a bit in the scene that would be gray and meter that. Sometimes I would carry a gray card and use that. Most of the time the meter itself was accurate for what I wanted to shoot.

[arpinum]

I've used spot meters in tricky situations, but its rare. I practiced metering off a lightbulb for awhile to get a feel for the location and size of the patch.

[atlcruiser]

The mamiya 7 meter drove me crazy for a while until I got a "feel" for the patch. About 75% of the time I pick a zone 3 shadow then stop down a bit or a zone 5 grey and call it done. When I am on a tripod I will use a handheld spot meter. I find it to be very accurate.

[JonasYip]

only the body meter. using a lightbulb to map out the metering pattern is a good idea

[Johnmcd]

I use the body meter with AEL. Point it at the area I want to meter and then recompose.

John

[degruyl]

shoe mount meter. I find the internal meter completely unusable (and I use a spot meter for large format. That isn't the issue).

[visionners]

I use the internal meter, precise enough for me as well on slide :

[rphenning]

body only. meter where I want to expose and compose.

[Bob Michaels]

I use my brain to determine exposure considering the meter reading to be one valuable data point. This is true using my Mamiya 7 and all 35mm rangefinders (auto & manual) as well as both incident and reflected hand held meters.

Determining correct exposure is not difficult. Getting the meter to always read the correct exposure sometimes is difficult. Choose the easy way.

[Gerry M]

Thanks to all for your input. Interesting and helpful.
Gerry

[Dante]

I use the internal meter mostly. As pointed out above, the metering point is above the focusing box. On mine it's above and to the right of the top-right corner. On the 43mm lens it seems to be a little higher and further to the right than with the 80mm ... the distance is very tiny though.

I found it by looking through the viewfinder at a small light source and moving the viewfinder around until I got the highest reading on the meter. Knowing this I've gotten consistantly accurate results as long as I pick a good mid-tone. It's worked well for me with slide and print film. Hope that helps!