I fully agree that using a spotmeter is the best way to go, but be aware that even these will "average out" the area seen by the meter. If this area contains texture, and you want details in the shadow of the texture, you have to make allowances.(posted 9522 days ago)With B&W, if you do your own processing, you should be able to get detail in far more than plus or minus 2 stops. The minus is about right, but you should be able to get detail in plus 4 stops or more. In the Zone system, this means you should get decent detail in zones III to IX or X.