Which light meter please?

[jim_mcdonald1]

Hi

I have a 300D, 17-40, 70-200f?4 and a 50 and am learning hard. If

money allows and I learn fast enough, I'd like to trade up eventually

to a 1DSII or whatever is available by then. I'm trying to buy decent

gear in the meantime eg Gitzo tripod/Markins head with the upgrade

path in mind. I'd appreciate advice on a meter please. My major

interests are landsacpes and portraits. Thank you.

[yakim_peled1]

There are a lot of light meters. In what way did you find the build-in meter inadequate? Also, have you searched?

 

Happy shooting,

Yakim.

[panos_voudouris]

I really do not see the need for a lightmeter when one has a digital body. By the time you take a reading with the lightmeter and transfer it to the camera you could have taken a shot checked the histogram, adjusted exposure and taken another shot.

 

You'd be better off learning where to meter and how to adjust exposure on the camera and save the money towards the 1D!

[digitmstr]

Sekonic makes a great little meter which works for both incident and reflected reading of ambient & strobes. It's the L-308B. I use it both in the studio and location with perfect results.

[christopher_bibbs]

I use a Minolta VF and a Gossen Luna-Pro and a third meter which total escapes me at the moment. I prefer the Luna-Pro and it's analong readout to the digital models, but I have no other reason to prefer one meter to another. They all feel about the same after awhile.

 

As to Panos's comment, I'd say a lightmeter does much more for you than a histogram ever will. If you want to judge ratios or you are lighting a scene that is predominately light or dark tones, you need the information a light meter will give you. Accept no subsitutes.

[test11664875106]

I own Sekonik 308 and except for incedent light metering (ambient or as I use it - flash) it's basically useless because for reflective metering it has just too wide field of view. If you really want an external lightmeter, then you should be looking at spot-meters with 1 degree field of view. On the other hand by the time you own 1DS series it already comes with good bulit-in meter. With EOS-3 I haven't felt need for external meter, not so with 20D.

[digitmstr]

>>for reflective metering it has just too wide field of view<<

 

you can take measurements directly off the subject with the 308B in reflective mode and it works great that way. Clearly, if the subject is too far away you'll need a spot meter.

[rob_murray]

Forget the meter, your camera meter is just fine. BUT learn when to override it.

[WM]

The light meter on the 300d is pretty good, but there are times when the meter will get fooled, but if you need a meter, a good and not terribly expensive meter is the Sekonic 308B. I guess if you had a meter, you could use that to check with the metering on the 300d, and learn which situation to dial in the exposure compensation and by how much.............which would make a great learning tool.

[df-gallery]

I think that there is a difference in using a lightmeter and a built in TTL meter. Each has its benefits, and I think that Jim is a good path, wanting to learn how to expose correctly using a light meter. In essence, the histogram approach is a sort it out after approach. It is not really addressing the problem, rather, try until you get right. Which is not bad, but I think Jim is trying to learn photography, rather than leaning how to use a camera. Much to applaud there. I am not saying that TTL metering is useless. I use it a majority of the time. But when you want pre-exposure information, or consistent exposure with a given scene, using a light meter is the only way to go. For example, getting the lighting levels in a portraiture shot, where the lighting remains constant, but colour of cloths and position vary.

 

I have used a Minolta IVF with spot and incident attachments. Excellent meter. Simple, reliable and faithful. I have since sold that to go with a much more sophisticated Sekonic L-608. Completely different. Built in spot meter, weather sealed, much more complex features and bigger.

 

It is best to get a meter that can do both incident and reflected. And with reflected, it is best to get one that can do spot. A general 60? reflected, is pretty useless. I recommend at least a 5? spot, and an incident dome. For portraiture with flash, you'd be using incident more, and more landscapes you'd be using spot more.

 

Regardless of what meter you choose, try to get your hands on some photos that talk about metering. In general, try to large and medium format focused books, or more technical books.

[digitmstr]

Since Digital has a reduced dyn. range SPOT metering (while extremely useful and a great tool for any photographer) has a somewhat limited use, IMO.

 

There is only so much the sensor can take before having to really sacrifice the highlights (or shadows). And there is no push/pull processing as with film. Therefore, taking spot readings of clouds, foliage, shadows, mountains, etc... will almost always result in a dyn. range far above what the sensor can take. Without PULL processing that means something has to give.

 

At that point, I would rather shoot RAW and develop different images to blend together later.

[test11664875106]

Giampiero, slides also have reduced exposure latitude compare to b/w negative films (actually even less than recent DSLR's), yet precise metering is even more important. (Spot-)metering doesn't alter the scene or makes exposure magic, it just allows you to more accurately evaluate the scene so you can decide how to proceede. As for blending, it's not always an option - do you want one person to appear twice in a shot as he/she moves while you exposure separate images for highlights and shadows? Histogram might be useful to understand spread or values, but it won't tell you which part of the scene is actually contributing to those values.

[jmontgomery]

I am similarly looking for a good meter. Many have said something to the effect ... that your built-in meter is fine ... so why do you want an external meter? Well the reason I am looking for an external meter is the issue with quickly changing light and avoiding the issue of removing the camera from the tripod many times during dramatically changing light at sunrise and sunset. I once had a simple analog meter and liked it ... but the Sekonic L308 really looks nice for my needs now.