Recommend a lightmeter?

[timparkin]

I must be honest Tim, as I have been using a lightmeter since the age of 14, when I got my first "real" camera (a Practika L2) thinking in both f stop values and speeds (including the old 1,2,5,10,25,50,100,300 system my first TLR had) it is somewhat second nature, and thinking in both half stops (as my L2's 50mm Tessar lens had) and my later Olympus equipment where one can use third stops, this too is second nature.... which came in very handy in Spitsbergen this Summer! As for EV values....

PS: Perhaps you should do one of your blog's excellent videos on the basics of using EV... I found your one on QL film unloading very helpful! On the EV front, I'm willing to learn, and the Sekonic does allow you to work in EV values if you want.

Good idea - I'll add it to the list. I imagine it would be quite interesting see how other people read exposure too...

Tim

[patawauke]

You could check out the Sekonic 558, £408 from Microglobe, cheaper than the 758, but with most of the functions, much more complete that than the 508. I've had one for two years, offers all one could want. What you are paying for with the 758 are the advanced functions to calibrate several different digital sensors if you use various digital slr's at once.

[Bogdan_B]

You could check out the Sekonic 558, £408 from Microglobe, cheaper than the 758....

You can get a L-758 for about £270 including shipping, on the famous auction site.

[DJ]

My Sekonic L608 is the precursor to the 758, i.e. has all the in-viewfinder readings etc, 9 averaged readings, but not so much digital calibration stuff. Obviously it's been superceded now by the 758 but if you found one secondhand, it's a worthwhile buy.

I have worked out a way of using it which might not be perfect, there might be a better way, but it's worked ok so far and makes sense to me, I'd be interested to hear how others use theirs.

I pretty much shoot Velvia for colour so work on the basis of 4 stops, I use it in EV mode to look at the scene, I work out the darkest part and the lightest part. I try to get the lightest and darkest area within 4 stops of each other, then find somewhere in my scene that's at the midway point. When I've found something that's metering at the midway, I switch to aperture mode, dial in my aperture and put any compensation into ISO2, then meter continually on my midpoint location whilst I'm waiting on the light. That way I'm all setup and ready for when the light "happens" and I can react fairly quickly.

e.g. If my sky is EV9, and my blackout point is EV3, I can put a 2 stop ND Grad onto the sky to bring it down to EV7. I then find something metering at EV5 and use that to take my final readings from.

It's relatively simplistic, but seems to work fairly well.

[patawauke]

Funnily, the more I learnt about metering techniques for colour and b&w (on this and on the Large Format forums), the less useful all the capability of the Sekonic is for my purposes. The same would apply no doubt to top of the range Gossens and Kenko's too I imagine. I used to take multiple spot readings from highest, lowest and mid reading areas and then average them out. The digital readouts are very good for this, working either in EV or aperture or speed modes, and provide easy visual understanding of the contrast range of the scene.

However, for b&w, if you use the accepted method of metering for the shadows and adding 2 stops to determine mid-point, and for colour, if you use the method of metering for a mid-tone, then suddenly much of the rest of the information is nice to have, but superfluous. If one accepts that, and if you are not deeply into multiple tethered flash metering, then the Pentax spotmeter gives all the key information you need. I can see why the Pentax has such a faithful following.

BTW, I have and use both the Sekonic 558 and the Pentax (at different locations), and like them both a lot. If I had to have just one, I would choose he Sekonic however, despite the foregoing, because it also offers incident readings, and the second ISO, which I find very useful either for filter corrections, or for a second body/back loaded with different film.

[dave_whatever]

...and for colour, if you use the method of metering for a mid-tone, then suddenly much of the rest of the information is nice to have, but superfluous.

For colour reversal film unless you're absolutley sure that everything in your scene is within the range of your film, which is generally isn't, then some measure of the highlights is essential. If it wasn't, we'd all be happy metering landscape shots on velvia with a £15 weston master rather than spending three £igures on a spotmeter!

[patawauke]

Which was the meter Ansel Adams was accustomed to using in earlier years of course!

[Thingy]

Which was the meter Ansel Adams was accustomed to using in earlier years of course!

Adams bought the best equipment available at the time, which the Weston lightmeter was for many years, until reliable (ie post cds sensor) spot meters became available. His original zone system was developed for using with the Weston, and is essential to getting the best results using that meter.

Were Adams around now he's be using a bespoke Ebony camera, computer designed lenses and a modern digital spotmeter.