woo hoo bought a light meter

[D.Rodgers]

Finally talked the wife into letting me buy another tool.
I picked up a Sekonic flash master.i only grabbed a quick shot to compare with and was very surprised.
The first is with the Sekonic incident and the second with my D300 built in reflective meter.
No more bracketing for me

[Illusions]

Congratulations! Wow, I am suprised at such a difference. I have a Nikon D300 also, and have been wanting a Sekonic. Which one did you get?

[chevyt1963]

Can't afford a Nikon D300 but I did purchase a Sekonic L358 and I have not regretted the purchase not one day. I an surprised to see that much of a difference between the two shots.

[D.Rodgers]

Originally Posted by Illusions

Congratulations! Wow, I am suprised at such a difference. I have a Nikon D300 also, and have been wanting a Sekonic. Which one did you get?

The L358

Originally Posted by chevyt1963

Can't afford a Nikon D300 but I did purchase a Sekonic L358 and I have not regretted the purchase not one day. I an surprised to see that much of a difference between the two shots.

There is such a difference because i had it on spot meter but I have used the matrix mode for macro and always have to bracket to get the same exposure.

[gaopa2]

D., there is a big difference in the two shots you posted. I have a Sekonic 308S, but don't use it much. I don't think it works as a flash meter.... or does it? I know the L 358 is the better meter. Cheers, Bill P.

[MyPerspective]

I as well have the L-358, having it for a little over a month now. My success story didn't start out so well as I didn't realize that you've got to calibrate the meter to your camera and lenses! Therefore, purchased Lastolite's collapsible calibration disk, which MADE A BIG, BIG DIFFERENCE! Since buying the Lastolite collapsible calibration disk, am now also for the first time doing on-site custom-white balancing, which I stayed away from as I thought it was too complicated to mess with. But on the contrary! Custom-White-Balancing is very easy to do!!!

The Lastolite collapsible calibration disk, called EZBALANCE, is basically a Lastolite collapsible reflector with an 18% gray "card" on one side that has white cross-hairs in the center (like looking through a rifle-scope). The disk has a black-outer ring on the "reflector" giving you the three main calibration colors; 18% gray, white, and black, giving you 3 spikes for easy exposure calibration in your camera's histogram. It really works great, making for an easy, inexpensive, and accurate exposure / white-balance calibration. Westcott makes a similar (and MUCH BETTER) collapsible calibration disk, but its priced accordingly.

Anyway, after calibrating the L-358 light meter to my camera and lenses, find that I'm using the light meter for all-of my portraits and other close-up shots of things as it's just so much more ACCURATE than the reflected meter. I simply cannot believe what a HUGE DIFFERENCE that an incident meter makes on black objects! I never knew that my camera was over-exposing dark objects till I started using the L-358! WOW! What a DIFFERENCE! BLACK-things ARE NOW BLACK like they're supposed to be! And colors? EVERYTHING is dependent on correct exposure -and- white-balance!

[Take12]

Congrats, D. That's nice kit. I think the first time I used them was back in the late seventies/early eighties.
I'll be interested to hear how you cope with the extra fiddling and time loss involved in applying it IRL.

My way to get an itsy bitsy more saturation and detail is by standard underexposing by 1/2 F/stop if I shoot JPG. But if I shoot RAW I can of course adjust the aperture any which way I want, after the fact (not affecting the DoF)!
For me these m.o.'s work considerably faster and less stressfull than hand metering with a Sekonic does. With, especially in the case of RAW, boatloads more flexibility. Which translates in convenience and markedly higher IQ.
But if you work off of a tripod, and time and stress levels are inconsequential, maybe it adds some romantic "je ne sais qoi" to the process. Unfortunately I rarely have those luxuries.

Have fun!

[Worm324]

Congrates David I just got 1 of these meters as well. It arrived yesterday and it's really cool!! I think I know how to use it, but what I don't understand is how your D300 was so far off?? That is just insane to me. How did you actually use the meter for the shot above? Ambient mode in aperture priority mode?

My perspective,
I'm curious about this calibration process? What exactly did you do to calibrate it? Meter the black and then tell the L358 meter it was black or something? Or are you just shooting that EZBalance at every shoot for reference?

Thanks,
Jay

[D.Rodgers]

Originally Posted by Worm324

Congrates David I just got 1 of these meters as well. It arrived yesterday and it's really cool!! I think I know how to use it, but what I don't understand is how your D300 was so far off?? That is just insane to me. How did you actually use the meter for the shot above? Ambient mode in aperture priority mode?

My perspective,
I'm curious about this calibration process? What exactly did you do to calibrate it? Meter the black and then tell the L358 meter it was black or something? Or are you just shooting that EZBalance at every shoot for reference?

Thanks,
Jay

i haven't calibrated as of yet but its so close That its not really necessary .
The d300 in my opinion has a poor metering system mine came presest from the factory at -2 compensation,I set it back to neutral ,that's why it reads so bright.
i would like to hear how you calibrate your's..

[Danlphot]

Originally Posted by Take12

But if I shoot RAW I can of course adjust the aperture any which way I want, after the fact (not affecting the DoF)!

Regardless of what tricks you can perform on the computer you will never get an image as good as one that is properly exposed in the first place. These fixes always involve compromising on quality. There is no magic bullet that will let you shoot on the fly without worrying about exposing accurately.

Dan

[MyPerspective]

Our camera's metering system is TTL .... Through The Lens. It takes a meter-reading of the light that is coming through the lens. Poorly made lenses have a lot-of light reduction. In severe cases, such as the kit-lenses, the optical viewfinder even looks dim! Where with PRO lenses, the viewfinder is very bright, much brighter than our naked eyesight! Well, the light meter, no matter what brand or model, the light meter doesn't know how much light is reaching the sensor. It doesn't know if you've got a circular polarizing filter on the lens that is reducing the light by -3 EV. It doesn't now if you've got a ND filter on your lens. All the light meter does is give you a very, very accurate reading of the light that's actually there. It is your job to compensate for the lens and any filters that you might be using.

I know that you're thinking this is too much hassle. But it's simple to do. Using a incident light meter is much, much more ACCURATE than even the very best camera. Now that I'm past the learning, I am sold on light meters!

To calibrate the meter, you merely take a reading with the light meter, set the camera to that value and take a picture of the exposure disk or any 18% gray card or cloth. Then you look at the histogram of that image, and adjust the light meter or camera till the spike is centered in the middle-of the histogram. (18% gray is dead-center of our histogram. If the spike is not centered, the exposure is off). I find it EASIER to calibrate the light meter so that I don't have to fuss with the camera's exposure settings as I switch from "M" manual-exposure to "A" aperture-priority mode (which I also use. You cannot use a light meter for distant objects that you cannot walk up to and take a meter reading of). MOST of my photography is of people. (still life portraits in their every day atmosphere. Whether I use ambient lighting or supplement it with flash, the light meter is the most accurate way of getting the exposure correct! And that's true no matter what brand of camera you are using. Light meters are by far more accurate than a camera!)

Once the meter is calibrated to your lens, you don't have to recalibrate it. As long as all of your lenses are pretty close, or if you mainly use one lens for all of your portrait or still life photography, you don't need to recalibrate. And if you do have lenses that are different, just remember the setting you used and quickly set it to that value for that lens! Our PRO lenses are close enough that the same setting works for either lens.

I was shocked to see how much of a DIFFERENCE that a light meter makes on an image! Check out Sekonic's info, which isn't merely a selling point, but quite frankly, the TRUTH! (You'll probably have to highlight, copy and paste the link into your browser's url www address bar as the links might-not work).
Sekonic Classroom: Metering Techniques

As far as whether one can "fix it" later in software, here's a very informative guide I personally found interesting:
http://www.sekonic.com/images/files/...rkTogether.pdf

*** Pay special attention to the part on the histogram of the "fixed" RAW file. Even though the image appeared to be fixed, the correctly exposed histogram looks completely different than the histogram of the "fixed" image!!! I am CONVINCED from that illustration that we cannot "fix" it later. A digital image just doesn't have as much dynamic range as film, and film does not anywhere near as much dynamic range as our eyesight! Therefore, if a digital image doesn't have anywhere near the dynamic range of our eyesight, then any exposure-error means that we've lost what little bit-of dynamic range that our camera has! Therefore, its all the more IMPORTANT to get he exposure CORRECT when we take it! Agree?

By the way, we use a D300, and never had any exposure problems with any of our lenses until we bought the 18-200mm "kit" lens. As long as the lens is wide-open, the exposure is fine! (Or at least acceptable). However, it works "fine" only when the lens is wide-open. We've had nothing but exposure-trouble with the 18-200mm lens. GREAT image stabilization, but beyond that, we've had too much exposure-trouble with this lens. And it causes the same exposure problems with other Nikon cameras! So from what we've found, there's something crazy about this lens (or at least ours). The D300 has had no exposure problems for us with other lenses. Only that 18-200mm kit lens.

We all have different levels of expectations. (Which is fine! We're all got different expectations!) If close-enough is good enough for you and your exposures, then I'm sure you're happy with your images. But if you want the best-possible image and details, then like me, you'll want a light meter!

[Illusions]

Thank you for the info and the links, very interesting.

[Take12]

Originally Posted by Danlphot

Regardless of what tricks you can perform on the computer you will never get an image as good as one that is properly exposed in the first place. These fixes always involve compromising on quality.

If you're talking about plug-in editing filters you're right: they degrade IQ, because most of them subtract image data. But if you refer to RAW processing – which may involve blending a number of different exposures, a.k.a. 'HDRI' – you're dead wrong, Dan! Because with HDR/blending you add image data! A well processed HDR image is the result of X exposures, so it is the aggregate of X times the image data of just one exposure (which apparently is your m.o.).
But then you would need to have first hand experience to know the difference IRL, of course.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, you see...

Have fun!

[Loa]

Hello,

I'm relatively young (never had to hold a light meter in my hands), but I absolutely don't understand how (external) light meters could make such a difference...

I simply take the time to learn how my camera meters (moving from a D70 to a D300 was a very surprising experience in that department!), and learn where it fares well and more importantly the situations that will mess it up. The D300 is known for exposing on the bright side as in the example you showed. But once you know that, you just have to compensate for it.

Except for the times when I'm taking quick snapshots for a family gathering, I rarely get way-off exposures. Nothing close to what you showed us in the original post.

If I take the time to think about the scene I'm photographing and the appropriate metering method (which usually takes about 2 seconds), I'd say that nearly all my images using the A mode (Av for Canon I think) turn out nearly flawlessly exposed.

Of course that's 2 "nearly". Then again, I don't think a light meter will garantee 100% good exposures either.

Also, for those very complex scenes with high overall DR and high local contrast zones... Well, we have a LCD on the back don't we? And a bracketing mode, no? (Although while I used to love the bracketing on my D70, I find I never use it on my D300.)

A good light meter will cost you a few hundred bucks, and will more importantly add time for each of your shots. Why bother with that instead of learning how your particular camera meters?

To get an image so far off with a D300, you either have to set the metering to the wrong mode for the scene, or spot meter on the wrong part (or tone) of the image. Or, of course, have a malfunctionning metering system on your camera.

I just don't get why light meters are still so popular.

Loa

P.S. It's dark outside and I don't know where I could find such a plant/fruit outside in November in Quebec, but I'd really like to let my D300 meter try its luck. Quick guess: don't spot meter on the dark stems or darker zones in the background.

[Eero Makela]

Nikon D300 matrix has issues with some lighting situations. The D50 Matrix was way more accurate.

I have started using CW and sometimes Spot to get much better results.

My D50 compared to the D300 in the very same event and same lens (mind you 1 year apart ) is off by as much as 2 stops (darker) then by D50 was , but using Matrix

The light meter does not care about the back light on the subject when you are using it for incident reading.

Also the L-358 (or any meter) needs to be calibrated to your camera. Mine was off about 1/3 of stop when compared to another Sekonic. Mind you his was also calibrated to his camera where as mine was at factory default.

I did some tests at first and it seemed to be off by 1 stop in my gray card test shots, I recently did more tests and used both a gray card with color full objects to do a real world test and I think it was only off by 0.1 stops. This error could be a result of the flash I am using (SB800) as they do not have predictable results. I will need to do the calibration using my 400BX strobe to be 100% sure.

[Eero Makela]

Originally Posted by Loa

I just don't get why light meters are still so popular.

The only way to meter in a studio setting with Strobes is to use a Light Meter, The camera meter can not used at all for measuring the light from a Flash or Strobe.

Also a Light meter can not be fooled by back lighting as it is not measuring that, where as the camera is, unless you move to the correct mode ie Spot or very small CW circle.

[Take12]

Originally Posted by Loa

I just don't get why light meters are still so popular.

95% nostalgia.

[Loa]

Originally Posted by Take12

95% nostalgia.

Hehe, that's what I thought.

Eero: my way of dealing with strobes and metering: strobist.com. Maybe if I did nothing but studio work I would think differently, but I don't have and don't want a studio.

My way of dealing with backlighting: you said it: spot metering. Bringing a light meter close to your subject is very similar to using spot metering through the lens. Why bother: unsure about exposure? check the LCD and adjust. Voilà.

The matrix metering is indeed not as good as it was in the past (which I find really strange) mostly because it's not as predictable. Maybe Nikon will do a firmware update (or downdate?) to give us back the D70 or D50 matrix metering? But even with a good matrix system I was usually using spot.

Loa

[D.Rodgers]

Originally Posted by Take12

95% nostalgia.

100% flash metering...nuff said?
I also shoot plants as can be attested in my galleries ,these present problems with TTL metering systems on most DSLR's however using incident metering works so much better.

[Songman45]

IF you change the calibration of the meter to match your camera aren't you defeating the prupose of the meter in the fist place? This makes absolutely no snese to me in the least. Make the meter match the camrea means the camrea was right in the first place and you have wasted the money on a meter and the extra energy to meter the shot. If the meter is the benchmark of accuracy how about setting the exposure of the camera to the output of the meter.