Color meters and digital Photography

Any One here use a color meter? Do they display the color tempature

in degrees kelvin? Think I could use one to meter and then set the

white balance on my camera since it offers this opiton.

You can reply to rip@sportspics.biz

Thanks....I've never used one.

yes.

yes -- at least the Minolta Colormeter IIIF does.

YES but you'll be better off using the custom white balance feature and to shoot Raw

or Nikon NEF files instead of TIFF or JPEG.

The Minolta color meter that I use indicates color temperature in degrees Kelvin but it also indicates yellow/blue and magenta/green filters for correcting the color.

As Ellis states above, you're better off using the white balance in your camera and shooting raw files. Even then, some areas in a scene might be lit with lights of varying color balance. Much of that can be corrected in PhotoShop. When I'm shooting film I'll often have to do multiple exposures with different filtration, turning different lights on and off for different exposures.

Digital and white balancing makes that much easier.

Hi,

I was browsing the web for information regearding colour meters and digital photography and found this old thread.

I have a couple of questions regearding colour meters and digital photography.

Firstly; several articles/snippets that I have been able to locate online in regeards to this topic have said not only does a colour temperature meter work, but is also suggested as a means of getting true data for digital photography. I have read that one must use the meter to measure the degrees Kelvin of a light source and then dial that number in on their DSLR.

How is this done though? Do you not have to firstly enter the type of /film/ used (Tungsten/Daylight etc.) for a point of reference to which the meter will base it's results upon? Or does this only apply to the filter compensation aspect, and infact (for example the Minolta colour meter II) measures purely and seperatly the colour temperature without the need to enter any film type?

With that said; does the data from the meter differ under the same light source when each respective film type is chosen?

If one does have to enter a film type to garner the correct responce in degress Kelvin; what film type should be chosen for digital and how is that choice made?

What I am basically asking for, in a "newbie" kind-of-way, is a simple step by step guide to using a colour meter with a DSLR.

Also, I am mainly interested in the Minolta Colour Meter II. Can anyone shed some light in regeards to the Flash receptor unit and how that compares to the Minolta IIIF's flash capabilities? I have read opposing thoughts.

It would be nice if it were as simple as metering, reading the data displayed in degrees Kelvin, and entering that manually into the camera for ambient/flash and both. Things are never that simple sadly.

Thanks for your time, and I look forward to any responses!

Chris