Hello - and pls help!

L

lumpy

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sam
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Hello!
I'm new and the reason I joined is because there are so many times I need some common sense advice!!

My query at the moment is about a light meter somebody bought me for a present...its a basic hand held one and I have no idea how to use it - I know how to take a reading but what do I do with the rendom numner I get??

If I take a reading and it tell me...77...what good is that figure to me? is there a calculation I then need to do that converts it into an f stop - or shutter speed or both?

the only thing the meter does is provide me with a number and I just dont know what to do with it. I realise I am probably being dozy...

please put me out of my misery!!
 
I have a canon 550D and the light meter is a Pocket Light Meter - CEM DT-1300

:-)
 
I dont have multiple accounts on this website!
 
Thanks for the link to the chart - but I dont understand what it means. Is it staring me in the face and I am being dense?

:'(
 
Sorry Lumpy seems we have 2 Sams both with 550D's got you mixed up.

Why would you want to use a meter when the camera has it's own system ?
 
well....

I am doing a course that talks about using a light meter - but it explains about a advanced one where you put you f stop and shutter speed in and then you take a reading - and I got bought this hand held one - so I just wanted to figure out how to use it - I thought it might help with portrait pictures...but as I dont have a clue what the reading means in terms of the setting on my camera - it seems pointless - I was hoping somebody could explain to me what I should do with it!
 
Unfortunately the meter you have been bought isn't what you need for photography, it's a LUX meter so just measures the strength of the light.

What you really need is something like the Seconic meter in Donuts post.

Photographic light meters have some basic settings

ISO or film speed ( in the days of film used to indicate how fast the film was exposed but now just given as a setting to simulate film speed )
AV or TV mode ( this says whether your aperture will change or your shutter speed will change )

So in simple terms with a meter like the seconic.

You set the ISO setting in the meter ( lower numbers less grainy pictures, Higher number more grain )

You set the camera meter to AV to set the aperture, so if you wanted a blurred background ( bokeh ) you would set the meter to something like F5.6 then take a reading, the meter would give you shutter speed.

Likewise

If you set the camera and meter for TV or shutter speed, say to freeze motion you would take a meter reading and the meter would give you the aperture or F number to set the camera to.

Sadly whoever got you the meter with the best of intentions got you a meter that just measure LUX or light level.
 
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Why do you need a meter? If your shooting digital? Keep it simple, LOOK at your pics, if too dark more exposure and too light less exposure.

I get students turning up with all this stuff and i tell them to put it away. You are your meter. Why put your art in the hands of a meter anyway? Go out and get a feel for what you like and not what the meter tells you.

I only ever use one in the studio or now and then on a location shoot where i have to mix light. Most of my gallery shots are without a meter ..... the harder the shot, the less i trust them.

Tom
 
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