Do you find handheld meter still very useful?

[kenneth y]

I understand that the handheld meter can give both incident metering

and reflected metering but the SLR camera can only offer reflected

metering (TTL meter). But I guess most of the amateur photographers

just rely on the TTL meter rather than to get a separate handheld

meter in the shooting. Just wonder under what situations that the

TTL meter cannot do a better job than the handheld meter and do you

think the latter is still useful? Any thoughts?

 

Thanks.

[Jochen_S]

When shooting concerts officialy I like to take a incident reading of the stage lights in advance to get a idea of what I'll have to deal with independent from any lights fooling my TTL metering later.

 

I also use a handheld flashmeter for multiple lights setups.

 

Being no pro doesn't mean having most of my cameras equiped with trustworthy build in meters; I love old RFs, MF and LF gear and care a shit about these Mercury batteries demanded by my Spotmatic.

 

I'd feel lost with a handheld meter and variable aperture zooms, but I hardly use these. - Yes I used to go without meter but a bunch of SLRs and prefer relying on the instant feedback of digital if I use it, but even with my film SLRs I was rather grateful for a handheld spotmeter during concerts.

 

BTW I sometimes plan / cancel shootings in advance and just pull out my meter to check the scene and decide what to pack / load, rather than carrying useless stuff or changing films midroll.

 

As long as you'll never use multiple nonTTL flashes you can maybe do without a handheld meter as long as you stick to that battery dependant camera you have.

[ben conover]

TTL meter will not give you the accuracy of the incident meter.

 

However, I once went photographing old Irish barns in dappled sunlight. I went with a friend, he had just aquired a new Hasselblad and lenses, $10,000 worth, plus he had a Sekonic incident meter for $500. All I had was my trusty ole Fuji 69 and film. We both jumped out of the car at the same time. He started fiddling with his meter and camera. I had already decided that the correct exposure was 1/60th at 5.6 ISO 50 I got a few shots of him in the light by the barn.

 

Having said that, I am buying a B&J 4x5 press with lens, holders, and a Weston light meter all for the grand sum of $150. I will be needeing the meter.

 

Cheers.

[ellis_vener_photography]

<I>TTL meter will not give you the accuracy of the incident meter.</I><P>That is just not

true-- sometimes a TTL meter is a lot more accurate than an incident reading is, and

sometimes you aren't in a position to hold the incident meter in the same light that is

illuminating the subject. There is the matter of how you interpret the reading from either

--and that only comes from experience.

[david_henderson]

The value of a hand-held meter relative to an in-camera meter will depend on a number of variables, including their respective capabilities. Certainly I'd be happier with a modern in-camera matrix meter than using a wide reflective meter or an incident meter all the time just because they happened to be handheld.

 

That said, I use a hand-held meter all the time and here's why. I mainly use high contrast slide film, and control of the brightness range in a photograph, and knowing in advance how important elements of the composition will be rendered. Unsurprisingly I need a narrow angle spotmeter. I want it handheld rather than in-camera because I prefer to compose before metering and then I want to leave the composition alone rather than move the camera all over the place to meter. Equally the separate meter allows me to quickly check exposure ranges in a potential photograph without setting up a camera.

 

Of course if you photograph differently with different materials you may well draw entirely different conclusions. I don't suppose there's one in a hundred photographers that really needs a handheld meter, but I know I do.

[Ed_Ingold]

A TTL meter will meet at least 80 percent of your needs. I find them very accurate, in all kinds of cameras, since the mid '80s anyway. That said, an hand-held meter can be more flexible (and accurate) if used skillfully. Using a light meter, even in a camera, is as much an art as science.

 

The most useful meter, and one I always carry, is a combination spot/incident/flash meter (I have a Sekonic L-508). The spot meter, in hand or in the camera) is very useful for landscapes, where there may be a bright object (like a rock, or in a concert) or shadows that must be "contained", or an high-contrast situation (bright sky, dark foreground). The incident meter is very useful for outdoor portraits and macro work, where you often have a bright subject against a dark background. The flash meter (usually in incident mode) is indispensible for portraits, groups and multi-flash situations in general.

 

Modern cameras, particularly Nikon SLRs and DSLRs, use matrix sensors and fuzzy logic which draws on a library of "rules" developed by expert photographers - "How would you meter this scene?" Cameras like my F5 (and onward) are accurate in about 96 percent of situations I encounter - good enough to be used as a light meter for my manual Hasselblad (if I don't mind carrying a few extra pounds of dead weight). The difference is that I know where it does not work, and am prepared to control the situation.

[rdkirk]

>>Modern cameras, particularly Nikon SLRs and DSLRs, use matrix sensors and fuzzy logic which draws on a library of "rules" developed by expert photographers - "How would you meter this scene?" <<

 

Matrix metering and Canon's Evaluative Metering actuall operate by a kind of scene matching. This was explained in detail in the photo mags when this kind of metering first hit the scene in the latter 80s.

 

The camera measures light levels in the sectors of the screen and uses some indicator (normally the focus point) to identify the subject. Then it uses a proprietary algorithm to convert all that information into a mathmatic expression. The camera contains a database of 10s of 1000s of expressions produced by the same algorithm from 10s of 1000s of correctly exposed photographs of all kinds of situations (in 1987, Nikon claimed 90,000 photograph/expressions in their Matrix metering camera database). When it finds a match, it sets the exposure.

 

One thing to remember, though, is that even if the meter correctly identifies the lighting scheme ("subject in front of dark background with bright backlights") it obviously can't know if you actually intend to expose the subject "wrong" (eg, a full silhouette instead of a 1-stop underexposure of a backlighted subject), and the meter is still programmed to reproduce the subject as a medium gray (so you have to dial in compensation for the SUBJECT that is brighter or darker than medium gray).

[pvp]

A TTL meter will, in most cases, do as good a job as a handheld meter. In the case of a person who doesn't know how to use a handheld meter, the TTL meter will do much better.

 

Handheld meters don't have center-weighted evaluative fuzzy logic, although sometimes the logic of the person using the meter may be somewhat fuzzy.

 

This may be a drawback or an advantage, depending on your preference or what you had for breakfast: when you allow the camera's circuitry to make all the decisions you are in essence allowing someone else (the person who programmed the computer in the camera) to make your choices for you. The handheld meter requires the user to be fully involved in the decision, something that TTL metering makes almost irrelevant.

 

I also find my handheld meter very useful for my cameras that have no metering at all built in to them... :o)

[stephen hazelton]

Useful for a camera that has non-functioning meter, which is not uncommon. Useful when shooting pinhole. Useful for cameras without a meter at all, such as Holga.

[SCL]

When I'm taking any of my cameras which have either no built in meter or a questionable meter, I'll frequently take my handheld to validate my Sunny 16 rule mental calculations, or if I want dead-on incident readings. Although I use both modern matrix metered cameras and ones without meters, I keep getting increasingly drawn back to the older fully mechanicals (Leica M4, Ricoh 500, and my Bronica MF)to really savor the shooting experience.

[ilkka]

Yes. Half of my cameras don't have built in lightmeters. And I am currently waiting for delivery of two new cameras, both without lightmeters.

 

For digital shooter, separate lightmeter is not that important. It is easier to check the histogram and adjust as necessary. But as a film shooter, I would still use separate meter for example for portraits whether with or without flash, even if the camera has a TTL meter. Small format film is so cheap that it is easier just to bracket if unsure. BUt in medium format and especially large format, film cost and availability in the field becomes an issue so it is better to get the exposure right the first time. In this case a spot meter is invaluable.

[tallnbig68]

Yes, and to that end have a question.

 

Do handheld meters deteriorate, with age?

 

Have used a Lunasix 3 since 1969, usually to

confirm or yes deny what the builtin-in TTL

meter in either my Pentax KX's or now Nikon F100

tells me.

 

I believe the meter is reading a stop to a stop

and a half high; over exposure.

 

So purchased a Sekonic L-398M Studio Deluxe meter, from a friend who

had two of them. The meter had been used, perhaps once!

 

Even with my tri-focal glasses focused I find the meter

utterly confusing to use for starters; however would a lesser

meter (lesser in fancy bits, and lesser in cost perhaps)

still do the trick?

 

And having seen the results from my F100 (mostly dull weather

outdoor action photos) am not satisifed, most images are

underexposed, by perhaps one or two stops. Film is Provia 400F

subjects are fast-moving railway trains.

 

So am wondering if said hand-held meterm ight give me an edge

as it were for photography.