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Value of Lightmeters
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Wonder if many of you use Lightmeters much these days and do you have much value for them outside of studio work?
A few years ago I picked up a Sekonic L758DR Lightmeter while visiting New York (lot cheaper than getting it in Europe at the time).
At the time the main reason for buying it was to improve my exposures for Landscape photography as I was struggling on that front. I went for a decent meter as I also figured it would have long term value.
Despite the fact I started photographying weddings since buying the meter, it now spends most of its time in the bag un-used.
These days a combination of more experience using the historgram, only using on camera flash and attending one of Neil's course I don't see a lightmeter fitting into my photography especially when shotting weddings.
I was thinking of selling the meter and putting it towards a new lens.
However recently I got a present of a Lastolite Ezybox kit and started to look at off camera flash and also more studio like work. I'm not torn into keeping the lightmeter and looking at picking up some Pocket Wizards Plus or the cheaper Interfit triggers and learning manual flash using a lightmeter.
I had the chance to sit and watch a couple of studio photographer at work and was impressed the way they used a lightmeter and manual falsh to set up there shots.
For me I don't see me doing much studio photography in the future, it will be more working with model to work on ideas so I have something in the bag for the wedding work.
So is more value to be got from putting the resources (time and money) into learning and using manual falsh with a lightmeter, or do I continue with using the historgram way of doing things and put the resources into something like Nikon's CLS or the Pocket Wizard Nikon Flex kit?
Appreciate your help,
John -
As a hobbyist, I have getting by with PocketWizard Flex units and Nikon CLS, even in situations where manual flash would work. However, I accept the fact that my exposures are going to vary on every shot.
I know Neil uses manual flash for wedding formals, but he is so experienced at wedding photography that I think he uses the camera histogram. -
I find a Handheld meter is invaluable, it gives you much more consistent exposure.
So If your doing people of different skin tone you'll find much more even exposures.
I have seen so many pics where skin tone have gone dark because the in camera meter biased for the brighter sky or wall
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Thanks for the input, I guess it comes down to how much does using a lightmeter give you over how the way Neil describes using a histogram in the follow article;
http://neilvn.com/tangents/2012/01/23/simple-lighting-setup-for-photographing-the-wedding-formals/#more-9933
In both situations you would be using manual flash. The advatage of the lightmeter is you could measure the light over the range of the group and then make adjustments to ensure even lighting?
On a side topic I've never seen, or hear off, a wedding photographer here in Ireland using off camera flash with umbrellas for formal shots, tends to be more outside using ambient light or with help from on camera flash.
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In this Discussion
- jahern February 14
- Matrixphoto February 13
- Stephen February 13