[Dutchie]

Who uses lightmeters and is it a very usefull tool. Or is it just one of those things you don't need if you know your camera good enough?

And i think it was markulous who mentioned it. But what do you use again for knowing were the sun goes under. Compas? I remember you mentioned it when talking about the filters.

[stepheno]

I have a Kiev 4 lightmeter which I rarely use. It's accurate and only cost me £4 - it weighs nothing and I can leave it in my bag. Modern cameras cope with metering very well.

As for the sun going down I just use my eyes

[labbai]

Lightmeter is great, when you do exact shooting in studio or you really want to adjust your color balance, graytones and so. I Shot with my fathers Hasselblad sometimes years ago, and that was when the lightmeter was handy. Hasselblad had none.
Nowdays, if you shoot raw, you can do almost all adjustments with some software.
Most of the modern DLSRs got better lightmeters that they used to be in the filmdays.. Gray cards Gray card - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia were handy, but that was back then when you had a film camera. Tri-x Kodak Tri-X - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia was the thing... But every modern camera has a good lightmeter nowdays.
If you shoot film, get one, otherwise... well, It's a nice gadget.
Anyways, I have a lens cloth as a gray card...

[Markulous]

Originally Posted by Dutchie

Who uses lightmeters and is it a very usefull tool. Or is it just one of those things you don't need if you know your camera good enough?

And i think it was markulous who mentioned it. But what do you use again for knowing were the sun goes under. Compas? I remember you mentioned it when talking about the filters.

Do I hear my name? If so, I'd have been one of them that said that it wasn't really necessary to have a lightmeter. Aside from, at sunrise and sunset the light changes so quickly that it's better to use the in-camera meter and Exposure Compensation (bearing in mind, Canon users, most cameras only have a pathetic +/- 2.0!)

You can get Sun Compasses that tell you where the sun will rise/set (and when) but I find that there's usually enough pre-sunrise light to tell where (and the when is easily available on the 'Net) and for sunsets, it's quite easy to see the path it'll take.

[Dutchie]

Ok, thanks for the info guys

[goatee]

I use a Sekonic L308 when shooting with studio lights. It's also useful if you're shooting a scene and it's very high contrast, which could fool your camera meter. To be honest though, I only use it with the studio lights.

[AQ]

[quote=Markulous;216770] bearing in mind, Canon users, most cameras only have a pathetic +/- 2.0!

quote]

No problem just switch to manual mode

[Dave Canon]

I have an old Weston Master III which must be very old. I had not used it for 25 years as I just use the Camera meter. Last week I needed to measure the EV value from an image projected from a screen so found the Weston which seemed to be dead; then the glass fell out. Perhaps I should not have neglected it all this time.

Dave

[sejanus]

Meters seem to me to be less than useful with digital cameras. They may offer benefits when using a dSLR but I actually find that an electronic viewfinder is much more effective.

If, on the other hand, you still use a lot of film like what I do , then a good incident light meter is hard to beat for getting the most appropriate exposure for your requirements.

I have several meters but my latest aquisition, the L308 that Goatee mentions above, is very much the bee's knees. The big, easy to read digital display beats my seventies era Weston and Gossens hands down and I've proved to my own satisfaction that it really is accurate to 1/10th of a stop.

If you genuinely want to understand how to use a meter, get hold of Roger Hicks's book 'Perfect Exposure', which is the most readable and enthusiasm forming document I've ever come across on the subject. Another very usefull book is Leonard Gaunt's 'Photographic Exposure in Practice'. Of course, for the true fanatic, the classic geek's book is Dunn & Wakefield's 'Exposure Manual'.

Read all three and you may end up taking perfectly exposed but excrutiatingly dull pictures - you have been warned!

[VinnyP]

[quote=AQ;216850]

Originally Posted by Markulous

bearing in mind, Canon users, most cameras only have a pathetic +/- 2.0!

quote]

No problem just switch to manual mode

At 9FPS?

[Markulous]

Originally Posted by AQ

No problem just switch to manual mode

Originally Posted by VinnyP

At 9FPS?

Yeah, and not just burst shots, Vinny, but sunrise/sets the light changing sufficiently quickly to make manual extremely difficult - I've 'underperformed' (miserably failed, in other words!) on a couple of occasions