Lightmeters

[xuelun_li]

I bought a Yashica TLR without a built-in lightmeter recently. Thus,

I am thinking of buying a lightmeter but I have no experience in

buying them. I am wondering what are the differences between

lightmeters for ambient, spot, flash, etc. If I am doing photography

of buildings and nature, what are the recommended meters? Thanks a

lot for the advice!

[eric_branden]

Probably the best thing would be to use the photo.net search function. Use key words such as sekonic, gossen, and don't forget to plug in a specfic type of lightmeters.

 

The information you get from the search would probably be of more value than the rough generalizations i could type here.

 

A flash meter measures the amount of light coming from a flash.

 

An ambient meter measures a constant light source. The sun, a lamp, even candles.

 

A spot meter only measures a really small, i mean a super tiny portion of the scene.

 

Recomended lightmeters. If your on a budget an allready have a 35mm slr i'd say use that one.

 

Since your just going to shoot nature and urbanscapes i think even an old school cds meter would meet your needs.

 

hope this helped

[neelphoto]

For nature photography, I always use a spotmeter. There are various spotmeters in the market but the two popular ones are by Pentax and Minolta. To be able to use a spotmeter correctly, you need to understand the zone system for determining exposure. And I don't see any reason why a spot meter won't work on buildings.

[ellis_vener_photography]

Ambient = existing or constant light as in room lights or sun light.

 

Flash = electronic flash

 

For a discussion of incident and spot (reflective) meters and the advantages and

disadvantages of both methods of measuring light for photographic purposes see:

 

http://www.sekonic.com/IncidentVsReflect.html

[david choo]

Get a meter that does reflective as well as incident. One good meter will last you a lifetime. Sekonic makes great multi purpose, weather sealed meters. There are some situations where you'll need a reflective spot meter reading... and often times you'll just need a simple incident reading, whether in studio or in nature. Good luck to you.

[joseph_smith3]

Here is a link that will compare various light meters. The ShootSmarter site is full of useful info on many photo subjects. If you are going to make this investment, get one with spot, reflective and incident capabilities. EBay is a good place to buy these meters used.

http://www.shootsmarter.com/infocenter/wc005.html

 

Joe smith

[peter_evans4]

<p>Perhaps you don't need a flash meter, and you may find that

experience, intelligent guesswork, and occasional bracketing will stand

in for a spot meter. Perhaps you'll be happy with the functions offered by

all but the most basic of exposure meters. <em>Ergonomic</em>

differences are important: I was constantly irritated by an older, rather

expensive Sekonic meter (sorry, I don't remember the number). By

contrast, I find my Sekonic "Twinmate L-208" a delight to use. It's not a

flash or spot meter, and I don't know how good it is at very low light

levels. It's fairly cheap as meters go. It's light and small enough not to

irritate, while being large enough not to be fiddly. And, unlike some

other inexpensive meters I've tried, each dial rotates with the

appropriate degree of friction. You could get it or something like it

while deciding on (or saving up for) a more elaborate alternative, and

even after you'd bought the latter you might still want to use it.</p>