Advice on Buying A Light Meter

[pihjin]

November 14, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone can give me some advice on buying a light meter.
Something that does both incident and reflected metering would be great but really my main focus is incident metering for still life and portrait photography.
The purse strings are tight as I just bought a new lens and Christmas is a-comin’ so I don’t need anything too top-of-the-range.
Even a good one that I might find second-hand would be great.

Thanks everyone. Oh and I use a Canon 400D camera if that helps.

D

[pihjin]

November 20, 2008 at 11:27 pm

Bumpedy bump bump…
I’m still trying to fingure stuff out myself but would anyone even have a link to a helpful guide about light meters?

Thanks!

[Martin]

November 21, 2008 at 9:23 am

As noone has replied….

I use a Sekonic L-308S FLASHMATE

Its the most basic of the Sekonic Meters and very cheap, possibly around the 130euro mark. It does both incident and reflected metering. Only thing it is missing for me as i shoot landscapes mostly is a spot meter.

I dont do still life and portrait photography so don’t know if the incident and reflected metering of the 308S is up to the job but it does seem to help me get my positive film shots exposed correctly so the meter seems to be quite accurate…..

If your stuck, you cant go wrong with just getting the best Sekonic light meter you can afford :idea:

M

[pihjin]

November 21, 2008 at 11:14 am

Thanks Martin…

I’ll get saving so :)

[Ballyman]

November 21, 2008 at 11:52 am

What improvement will a light meter give you over the in camera metering?

I saw a guy covering the horse racing at Cheltenham last week with a light meter around his neck. He was also using a film camera though so this may have been why as it looked pretty old.

Is there an advantage for outdoor photography?

[Martin]

November 21, 2008 at 12:19 pm

Ballyman wrote:

What improvement will a light meter give you over the in camera metering?

I saw a guy covering the horse racing at Cheltenham last week with a light meter around his neck. He was also using a film camera though so this may have been why as it looked pretty old.

Is there an advantage for outdoor photography?

Most Medium format and Large format film cameras don’t have light meters hence why allot of users of these cameras use them for landscape type work.

The main advantage is that hand held meters can also do incident readings where an SLR can only do reflected metering.

Over time you get to know your SLR’s meter and know when its wrong and know how to adjust. Therefore there is not really much of an advantage of using a handheld for landscapes. In a studio enviroment its a whole different story though… See link below for more info:

http://www.vividlight.com/articles/512.htm

[121FOTO]

January 20, 2009 at 4:55 pm

I use a Sekonic L358. I use it mainly for the indoor shots but I think that it’s main advantage is in flash photography. It gives you the option to control the ambient light / flash light ratio. I think this is pretty nice feature.