What light meter have you got

[Emmamac]

As tittle says and how accurate is it as i want to buy one..

[Staropramen]

What will you use the meter for? That is the crucial question.

For general use I really like my Sekonic L308s - an excellent little meter: reflected/incident, half and third stop increments (great for vintage cameras), also useable for flash work. But it's a <u>small</u> pocketable meter, not a studio meter, and no option for spot metering, etc.

[RonM]

I have a Sekonic L-408 which has an inbuilt spot function and I find it very accurate. Again depends what you're going to use a meter for.
The L-308 will do most of what you may need, look on E-bay as basic meters come up fairly frequently and don't tend to go for extravagant sums An example here

[Benchista]

I've got 4 decent ones, and they're all accurate - albeit some are very old. A couple of Gossens, an old Lunasix F and a fairly new Digisix (great little meter), an ancient Pentax Spotmeter V, and a Weston Euromaster II. The Digisix is pretty cheap and very small, so gets used more than the others.

[Fen]

As tittle says and how accurate is it as i want to buy one..

I think you need to learn about lighting first, same as with the studio lights question

[PhilW]

I just have the one in my camera

[TimF]

Excluding the in-camera ones I have two: a Gossen Variosix F2 and a Pentax Spotmeter.

[Barney]

I just have the one in my camera

Same as Phil and I see no reason to change.

[john_g]

Back in the days of film I used to use the spot meter in my Canon T90. Generally, because it could take multiple readings and show where they'd fall on the Zone System, it was a great way of checking how highlights and shadows would be rendered. Nowadays I just use my digital camera's meter, looking at the histogram to get the same information.

Unless you're shooting with transparency film, I've never believed that incident light meters gave enough information on their own - readings often need to be modified to allow for light or dark subjects - so looking at the camera's histogram is both easier and faster.

For most people using a digital camera, I think that a hand-held light meter is no more than an interesting anachronism.

[OneTen]

...Sekonic L308s...not a studio meter.

It's actually a really good meter for studio use. It will take incident readings from either ambient or flash (connected via pc cord or not).

[OneTen]

Unless you're shooting with transparency film, I've never believed that incident light meters gave enough information on their own - readings often need to be modified to allow for light or dark subjects.

This doesn't make sense to me John. My experience is reflected readings will need adjustment depending on the subject tone, reflectivity etc. whereas incident readings measure the light falling on a subject and give the exposure to render the tones as seen.

[Barney]

For most people using a digital camera, I think that a hand-held light meter is no more than an interesting anachronism.

Indeed. Using a combination of image review and histogram you get all the information you need really.

[OneTen]

As tittle says and how accurate is it as i want to buy one..

I think you need to learn about lighting first, same as with the studio lights question

I'd suggest that learning to use a lightmeter is part of learning lighting. Prior to that, understanding exposure is key to learning photography.

People have answered your question but I can't see how this will help you.

If you are aiming to using this with studio flash then a flashmeter would be what's needed.

For landscapes many people prefer a spot meter and adjust the camera settings to create the tones they require.

I used to prefer to take incident readings when I could but now only use the cameras in-built meter, adjusting to over or under expose for the desired result.

Do you understand exposure?

[john_g]

Unless you're shooting with transparency film, I've never believed that incident light meters gave enough information on their own - readings often need to be modified to allow for light or dark subjects.

This doesn't make sense to me John. My experience is reflected readings will need adjustment depending on the subject tone, reflectivity etc. whereas incident readings measure the light falling on a subject and give the exposure to render the tones as seen.

That's why I mentioned transparency film - this is the only medium where I aim to capture tones as seen. For everything else, my intention for any given subject is to best capture the widest tonal range possible, and this will often not correspond to 'tones as seen'. Metering a black cat in a coal cellar may well show nothing above zone 2, but I'd prefer to use a longer exposure to capture the details of the scene. Then I can selectively adjust the image in Photoshop to place the tones where I want them. The key point is that I'll have captured the maximum possible information when I press the button. If I then choose to throw some of it away, I can do this better when editing, knowing that I'll be darkening the cat's fur (which I'll have captured in full detail), not trying to coax some texture out of a picture that hasn't captured it in the first place.

Perhaps a lot of it comes down to the sort of photography we enjoy, as well as our willingness to post-process our images. I can see that for subjects such as natural history, many would want to shoot as if they were using transparency film so as to avoid the need for any subsequent tweaking. For the kinds of thing I normally shoot, however, that reasoning doesn't usually apply - I subscribe to the school of thought that aims to shift the histogram as far to the right as possible without burning out the highlights.

[Barney]

As tittle says and how accurate is it as i want to buy one..

I think you need to learn about lighting first, same as with the studio lights question

I'd suggest that learning to use a lightmeter is part of learning lighting. Prior to that, understanding exposure is key to learning photography.

I disagree. In this digital age, learning to use an external lightmeter has to come after learning about lighting first. The histogram and image playback are far more useful tools and only once they are mastered should the student look to see if they can get anything more from using an external lightmeter.

[OneTen]

When setting up studio lighting with two or more lights, using a meter to determine ratios is very useful and from experience, I'd say is the best way of understanding studio lighting.

[PhilW]

When setting up studio lighting with two or more lights, using a meter to determine ratios is very useful and from experience, I'd say is the best way of understanding studio lighting.

I have tried doing that..... but it made my head hurt.

Now i tend to use the dials on my (bowens) heads as a near-enough guide to a 'stop'. So if i want one light 2 stops down I see that light one is at 4 and put light two at 2. Then tweak based on a (very) aproximate inverse square law judgement on the relative flash - subject distance.....

Then - take a test shot and chimp it :P

[OneTen]

... inverse square law judgement on the relative flash - subject distance....

Again, all part of understanding studio lighting.

[Barney]

... inverse square law judgement on the relative flash - subject distance....

Again, all part of understanding studio lighting.

Yes but you don't need an external lightmeter to understand that, and to be honest, it adds a level of technicality that I think actually hinders learning and creative photography.

Worrying about flash to subject distance, what f:stop to set the flash to, none of that really matters, and not having an understanding of it doesn't really matter.

All you need to know is how the size of a light source and its distance from the subject affects the lighting, and what modifiers do what job. Youcan then mess around with one light, then two, three or more, in a very free way which encourages trial and error and more creative photography.

The one thing I learnt from the portrait photography course at Annabel Williams I won through AP is that you need know nothing technical about the lights you use, all you need to know is how the light looks on the subject.

[OneTen]

...which encourages trial and error and more creative photography.

or it removes trial and error and allows creativity to flourish.

There's obviously more than one way to skin a cat. However I find using a lightmeter easy, what do people find difficult about it?