Light Meter
Have you ever tried to take a photograph of a snowy scene and later realized that your shot was underexposed, maybe with an overwhelming orange or blue hue, or just lacking a certain "something?" Frustratingly, and surprisingly, snow can be one of the trickiest environments in which to make a correct exposure. But, with a few tricks and techniques in mind, hopefully you'll be able to make easy work of these trying conditions.
It All Begins with the Light Meter
The culprit behind these wrong exposures is likely your light meter; but this light
Nowadays, making a proper exposure with your digital camera is simple and straightforward: set your camera to A, S, or P and let the camera do the work. It’ll work most of the time and, in those instances where it doesn’t, you might pull out an external meter for a bit more precision. In all of these cases, you always have the rear LCD to double-check your shots if you’re unsure and, for the fanatical, you can even use a live-exposure histogram while shooting. When you’re using film, however, the luxury of being able to check your exposure by
If you’re into analog film cameras, by extension you’re also into light meters. This is because while most modern cameras contain excellent TTL metering systems, if you use film cameras made prior to the 1970s and ’80s chances are: A. the camera has a meter but it doesn’t work anymore; B. the meter works but it’s no longer accurate; C. they stopped making batteries for your meter when Jimmy Carter was President; or D. the camera never had a light meter in the first place. If you resonate with any of the above and your film camera has an
Almost every camera sold at B&H contains a light meter designed to calculate extremely accurate exposure readings, typically with a choice of Spot, Average, and Segmented metering modes. Good as they are, handheld light meters still have the upper hand when it comes to analyzing light.
For starters, the meter in your camera only reads reflected ambient light. If you’d prefer to take an incident reading, i.e., measure the light falling onto you subject rather than reflecting off your subject, you can’t do it without having to add
Take control of your lights with the just-announced C-800 SpectroMaster, from Sekonic. This superb color meter has nearly every color-measuring option you could imagine, including becoming the first to support SSI (Spectral Similarity Index). This setting allows you to set any measured light as the standard with which to compare other lights. Also built-in are CRI, TLCI, TLMF, and TM-30-15. This makes the C-800 the most comprehensive
953 Views ·Posted 08/23/2018
In this video, photographer David Flores highlights why using a dedicated light meter will yield better results than you’d get from your camera’s built-in light meter. Handheld light meters are fast, can read exposure with flash, and are often programmable, giving you the ability to actualize the image that’s in your head more accurately. Check it out!
Considering how accurate your camera’s light meter is, selling a light meter to a photographer sounds as weaselly as selling ice cubes to an Inuit or Yupik person. In terms of accuracy, the new Sekonic Speedmaster L-858D-U Light Meter can calculate ambient and flash exposures to within 1/10 of a stop, which would be pretty impressive if Sekonic’s entry-level L-308S-U wasn’t equally accurate at 1/3 the price. So, what more do
Pleasing photographers and filmmakers alike, Sekonic has released its newest flagship light meter: the Speedmaster L-858D-U. Succeeding the L-758-series of dedicated photo and cine meters, the new L-858D-U meter offers a comprehensive set of photo and filmmaking measuring capabilities, ranging from the ability to read flash and ambient light using incident or reflective methods, and present exposure data in various ways to