Light Meters?

Wissel

Wissel

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David
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Hey guys, I need to photograph a lot of products for my own company and need the images to be as true to life as I can get them.
Products will be shot under studio conditions, using a variety of light sources, with mainly white backgrounds.

Do you think a light meter would be a good investment for this?

If so, is the Sekonic 308s a good choice?
 
the 308s is a good choice. You don't NEED one, but I do have one, and I do find it handy to use in fairness. I would say if you think you will get the use out of it then go for it. Your camera (should) be able to meter it quite well without one.
 
I agree with that. It's easy to use for ambient, flash or mixed lighting. Just read the manual carefully for the flash modes, they're not entirely obvious.
 
Wissel said:
Do you think a light meter would be a good investment for this?
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For the most basic operation you don't have to spend much money at all and can get any old basic meter, it'll help you a bit with learning as you'll be able to measure the output of each light or combined but perhaps more importantly it'll give you a way to get more consistent results quickly.

You could just wing it if you're happy with the results but if you intend to to do this on a regular basis and can't leave all the equipment in place it should let you more easily reproduce the same conditions if you note down what you were using. At least until you're familiar enough with the equipment to know what to to expect but it's not a bad thing to bring some discipline to your approach.

gremlin16 said:
Your camera (should) be able to meter it quite well without one.
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The camera won't help meter in a studio setting but I agree with your other points.
 
Having read your other thread, my advice to you is to forget about the meter until you've sorted out the lighting side, which is much more important.
If you end up using the continuous lighting that you already have (which isn't the best idea) then your camera can do the metering for you, with the addition of a simple piece of grey card.
If you go with flash, then a meter will help, or at least will speed the process up a bit.
 
Thanks for the opinions guys - very helpful.

I think a light meter is something I'll invest in once I move to studio flash, but as Garry said above, as I'm using continuous lighting at this point it will be simple enough to expose with a grey card.

I have a grey card on the back of my ColorCheckr so for now I'll add this into my workflow.
 
gremlin16 said:
Rather than just a grey card, perhaps consider a colour passport. That will help you no end :)
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That's what the ColorCheckr is. Just the version made by Spyder along with it's software for LR (I use the Spyder screen calibrator as well).

Great piece of kit.

EDIT - actually called a SpyderCheckr - apologies
 
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