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Anonymous
Is a light meter really worth the money?

I have a Nikon d80, and I've never really felt the need to use one, but a lot of people do. Why?
>> Anonymous
I only really use it when I'm shooting in the studio. It can be helpful for outdoor portraits though.
>> Anonymous
You need an external light meter only for some complex or blinking/changing lighting; however, since you have a digital camera, you can switch to M mode and just go by trial and error in many of these cases.
>> Anonymous
>>91632
Yes, that's what I usually do. Since I never turn off manual mode, I just wondered what I would want a light meter for. Thanks, mates.
>> Anonymous
So pretty much, a light meter will tell you the correct exposure settings?

I'll be honest and say I don't know how to figure the right exposure and do it by guesstimation.

So is this some magical tool or more of a guideline to follow?
>> Anonymous
>>91634
Basically, yes. But you still have to think if using a light meter is applicable or not and where do you point it.
>> Anonymous
>>91634
The two most useful parts of a light meter are flash metering (where the meter reads only a bright flash of light) and incident metering so you can measure the light falling on a subject instead of the actual subject. Your camera only does reflected metering.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>91639
But you can chimp and set the exposure however you want. It's a digital camera. Shoot/Chimp/Adjust/shoot is always going to be at least as fast and probably more accurate than fiddle-with-light-meter/adjust/shoot. Especially since the external light meter option will also probably involve a /chimp/adjust.

Light meters were useful when you couldn't just look at the picture you took a second later. In the era of digital, the in-camera light meter is all you need, if that.
>> Anonymous
preview mode and histogram > light meters
>> Anonymous
>>91653
That only works on 40D and olympus, and it's useless for flashes and stroboscopic lighting...
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>91655
Chimping and histogram > light meter, though. And chimping works just fine with flashes, whereas you need a special flash light meter if you want to go that route.
>> Anonymous
>>91658
Lighting ratios are rather difficult to achieve with any accuracy using chimping and histogram.
>> Anonymous
with digital its hardly necessary.

just shoot raw and adjust later as necessary.
sometimes light meters just arent practical;
street photography anyone?
>> Anonymous
>>91682
Why not? I don't use a handheld lightmeter, but whenever I'm doing street photography (most of my work) I at least CWA on the midtones whenever I walk into a new lighting condition, and usually put it to spotmeter on the shadows, midtones, and highlights and take a test shot to test the histogram. The last bit's essential if one is using the "expose to the right" exposure technique, which I try to do when I can.
>> Anonymous
>>91684
i think he was talking about a handheld light meter. the meter in your camera is like a reflected light meter, and an incident light meter isnt all that feasible.
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
>>91668
Then you're doing it wrong.
>> Anonymous
>>91687
Ok.
>> Anonymous
It is if your still shooting film, since we don't have the luxury of shooting until we get the right exposure.
>> Anonymous
>>91729
/thread

or get a cheap digital camera with a meter
>> Anonymous
If you do any type of studio photography you need a meter.. Unless you're doing shit work, and don't know dick about lighting then you do the histogram bullshit.
>> Anonymous
>>91769
For studio photography you can hook up the camera to a PC and get detailed histograms with clipping indication. If even THAT is not sufficient, a light meter won't help too.

Also, studio lighting is both grossly underrated (by novice photographers) and overrated (by many studio shooters).
>> Wow Erik
I am thoroughly amazed that there are this many people who don't know why a light meter is invaluable. While it is perfectly obvious that none of you have ever done any studio or strobe work, I would have expected that you would have at least tried to read something about how your camera captures and reads light. If you go out on a shoot and bring only your camera and your pc, the camera can only tell you what it sees. It cannot tell you the way the light is falling or bouncing in the scene you are shooting. If you have a light meter it can tell you what the light reading at the camera is but it can also tell you about the amount of light falling on the subject and even what angle the light is coming from. Most decent light meters also have an incidence meter which work like a greycard and give you the average overall exposure. I'm sorry to rant but this board is turning into a group of nerds in their parents basement who can afford a D-slr because they are saving so much money not paying rent.
>> Anonymous
>>91819

hey now, i take offense to that. i, for one, live with my parents and still can't afford a dslr thankyouverymuch.
>> Anonymous !MjcMqTX/iM
>>91819
I, for one, cannot afford a dSLR, however, I already mentioned falling / reflective light in another thread.>>91534

..However, I'll still admit I am a nerd in my parent's basement.
>> Anonymous
>>91819
>If you go out on a shoot and bring only your camera and your pc, the camera can only tell you what it sees.
The camera also can only capture what it sees. If I can get a properly exposed picture as a result, does it really matter if I measure the light by the book using an external meter or just blindly guess it?
Of course, a light meter is useful when setting up multiple light sources, but still, many people do it by intuition and get better results than the others with all the light meters in the world.

By the way, if pskaught is reading this, do you use a light meter?
>> ac !!VPzQAxYPAMA
I honestly can't see how anyone could think that an external light meter is useful with a digital camera, to the point that I'm going to stop arguing and just assume you're all trolls.
>> Anonymous
>>91832

You don't have to use it if you really don't want to, but if you read magazines and talk to those in the trade, you will see that people do still have a use for them. Even with digital cameras.

If you've got a system that works for you then stick with it though. As long as you are happy with it.
>> Anonymous
>>91832

there's that new sekonic that you can map to the dynamic range of your camera, so you can figure out if you're going to clip without ever taking a picture.

plus, i'll repeat my previous statement in the previous thread that minolta color meters are the supar win.
>> pskaught
>>91826
only with film. there doesn't seem to be a point with digital and that handy histogram. That and the strobes kind of work out to an equation with distance and power distribution.

and my meter is in desperate need of calibration.
>> Anonymous
>>91819
an incident light meter tells you how much light is falling on the subject, unlike a reflected light meter, which is like the camera, which tells you how much light is bouncing off the subject. its not "like a graycard"