Recomend me a light meter

SpikeK6

SpikeK6

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Whilst on my studio course last week the guy was using a light meter to set the lights to the right power for the settings we had in our camera's.

Now the one he was using he pressed a button and it set the lights off, trouble is he is a pro with a studio business so spending nearly £400 on a meter is worth it to him.

I want one that will set off my lights with no cord attached for a lot less, my lights will be used only a few times a year so no need to spend hundreds.

I looked at the sekonic L308s and it says it needs to be used with a synch cord to set the lights off, I can see this being a pain if you have 2 or three lights set up and want a reading from each light individually.

So is there a light meter that with trigger the lights but without a cord for around the same money??

Thanks

Spike
 
How are you triggering the lights when you shoot?

If you use a radio transmitter, just take the hotshoe transmitter off the camera and use the test button. That's what I do, with the Sekonic.

I'm only starting in studio work, but it's my understanding that if you want to meter each light individually, the others need to be turned off anyway, so why not just plug the end of the sync cord in, when you go to turn them on and off. I might be worng on this though? Would seem to be the least expensive route.
 
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Wireless trigger is reserved for expensive meters. If in a studio a sync cord will work fine, the other lights set to slave. Or as said use it in Flash without Sync mode and just use the test button, either on the head (an assistant) or on a trigger. You never want to meter lights individually,
 
Thanks guy for the quick responses.

Just found a video on WEX site that says it can trigger the lights without a sync cord.

I use a radio transmitter to trigger the lights, so looks like this will do what I want it too.

Thanks again
 
Digitalize said:
Wireless trigger is reserved for expensive meters. If in a studio a sync cord will work fine, the other lights set to slave. Or as said use it in Flash without Sync mode and just use the test button, either on the head (an assistant) or on a trigger. You never want to meter lights individually,
Click to expand...

You might, if you were worried about ratios.

The L308s is a fantastic little meter, and it's really no hassle to plug a sync lead into it.
 
Digitalize said:
You never want to meter lights individually,
Click to expand...

The guy that took the course did when he was looking for one light to lighten the subject and another to just fill, he used the meter to make it a few stops different to the main light so as not to impede it so to speak.

Thats what I meant about using the meter on different lights
 
learningtofly said:
You might, if you were worried about ratios.

The L308s is a fantastic little meter, and it's really no hassle to plug a sync lead into it.
Click to expand...

If it can trigger the lights with no cord is there a benefit to using the cord?

There are a few models of the L308 and I am talking about the latest model the L308s which can do it with no cord
 
learningtofly said:
You might, if you were worried about ratios.
Click to expand...

I think it's more than might. Knowing the overall level from all the lights combined is essential to get the right exposure but you will almost always want one to be the main light with the others dialed down a bit.

A meter measuring individual lights is the best way to do this. It's also useful to know how a background light is going to illuminate the background e.g. if it is going to render it as white or grey if you are going for a high key look.


Steve.
 
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SpikeK6 said:
If it can trigger the lights with no cord is there a benefit to using the cord?

There are a few models of the L308 and I am talking about the latest model the L308s which can do it with no cord
Click to expand...

What, with a built-in trigger? I'm not aware of one but I could be wrong (and often am).
 
Some of the Sekonic meters have an optional module that will trigger Pocket Wizards.

I have that on my 358 (I think it's that model) and it works very well.
 
I have RF-602 wireless triggers (£24 a pair) and a Minolta Meter which I bought of eBay for £50 and thus set up has served me well. The Minolta meter is old but a great cart horse and has all the features you'd ever need. Trigger the light with the RF-602 and then measure with the Minolta meter. One of the RF-602s needs to be mounted on your camera but that isn't an issue for me.
 
If your future's Elinchrom, get a Gossen Digisky.

Inbuilt Total control of Eli lights (inc new D-Lites) - the sekonic requires a digital card at extra £, digital display at far less than Sekonic etc etc. SWekonic seem to have better marketing among US celeb photogs who probably get them free from MAC group.

For £250, it's a superb meter. What's not to like?
 
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I also run a wireless trigger on my hotshoe to trigger my lights. Use a Sekonic L308s (£130) & seems to work fine.
 
Digitalize said:
You never want to meter lights individually,
Click to expand...


What?

You serious?


Sekonic L308


A great meter... cheap as chips, reliable, and I've had mine for over 10 years now and never let me down once. A great little light/flash meter.
 
The major disadvantage of the 308 is the lack of flash / ambient comparator readout. Outdoors, this is essential imho.

A lot of people buy the 308 and never (need to) replace it, so don't experience the flash / ambient balance The Gossens and more expensive Sekonics offer this, and once you use it, you wont want to lose it.

I much prefer the Gossen method of displaying flash / ambient by the way - i.e. to just give the actual photographic f-stop for each, rather than the less obvious Sekonic method of giving percentage (e.g. 80/20 as a percentage).
 
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Pookeyhead said:
What?

You serious?

Sekonic L308

A great meter... cheap as chips, reliable, and I've had mine for over 10 years now and never let me down once. A great little light/flash meter.
Click to expand...

I don't see why you would, always meter the scene with all flashes active, as spill light may affect a reading in a way you wouldn't expect. If setup properly the model flash won't effect the BG flash etc.
 
Digitalize said:
I don't see why you would, always meter the scene with all flashes active, as spill light may affect a reading in a way you wouldn't expect. If setup properly the model flash won't effect the BG flash etc.
Click to expand...

Meters are most useful for setting individual light levels. The only thing you don't need a meter for is exposure for the final image. LCD/histogram/blinkies are more accurate for that.
 
Digitalize said:
I don't see why you would, always meter the scene with all flashes active, as spill light may affect a reading in a way you wouldn't expect. If setup properly the model flash won't effect the BG flash etc.
Click to expand...

So how do you set ratios if you do not meter individual lights?

:thinking:

Mike
 
Digitalize said:
I don't see why you would, always meter the scene with all flashes active, as spill light may affect a reading in a way you wouldn't expect. If setup properly the model flash won't effect the BG flash etc.
Click to expand...

You are probably right but seeing as I have only used my lights once and went on a course to find best ways of getting the best out of what I have then i will not know exactly where to set lights etc so metering my main light/lights and setting my background lights will be either trial and error or I meter them all to get an effect i would like so to speak.
 
I have put a wanted add in the wanted section for one of these if anyone has one??
 
308S won't trigger the lights as there is no radio onboard. I am triggering my lights by cheap radio triggers (Yongnuo) at the price its easy to justify an extra one to keep in your pocket to set them off
 
Aspock said:
308S won't trigger the lights as there is no radio onboard. I am triggering my lights by cheap radio triggers (Yongnuo) at the price its easy to justify an extra one to keep in your pocket to set them off
Click to expand...

Yes done another search and you are right.
Sorry guys I was mistaken, but i can still fire my lights from the trigger that fits to the hotshoe
 
Digitalize said:
I don't see why you would, always meter the scene with all flashes active,
Click to expand...


Then how do you arrive at a lighting ratio should you need to?
 
Yes done another search and you are right.
Sorry guys I was mistaken, but i can still fire my lights from the trigger that fits to the hotshoe
Click to expand...

Yes. The meter senses the flash from the lights and measures this, regardless of how they were triggered, be that by pressing the test button on the remote trigger, taking a photo, having an assistant fire the flash manually or whatever.

I guess (and I might be wrong, as I'm just learning about studio flash) that the facility for the meter to incorporate a wireless trigger is just for convienience rather than anything else.

Having said that I would guess the cost of a 308 plus a spare transmitter is significantly less than a meter that can trigger wirelessly.

If I'm wrong, then that'll be something else I've learnt.
 
HoppyUK said:
Meters are most useful for setting individual light levels. The only thing you don't need a meter for is exposure for the final image. LCD/histogram/blinkies are more accurate for that.
Click to expand...

Except that the results there are not entirely accurate, they are a guide, just like using the light meter as a guide. If you are shooting RAW then what you seen on the screen is the results from the embeded JPEG and not the RAW file which will contain a lot more info.

Mike
 
mike weeks said:
Except that the results there are not entirely accurate, they are a guide, just like using the light meter as a guide. If you are shooting RAW then what you seen on the screen is the results from the embeded JPEG and not the RAW file which will contain a lot more info.

Mike
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That's a real nit-pick Mike, and a hypothetical one. The histogram/blinkies is an extremely accurate guide, far more accurate than any meter reading.

The JPEG is derived from the actual Raw file, not an estimate of that, which is what a meter reading is. And if you know your camera and processing regime, then there is a direct relationship between the two and it is constant.

The main thing to be aware of is the contrast setting in picture styles. If that is increased, it stretches the histogram slightly and blinkies will flash earlier. But if you turn contrast down, the correlation between the Raw and JPEG is very close and entirely predictable.

Furthermore, using Expose To The Right technique, the method for obtaining 'optimum' exposure with digital (as opposed to merely 'technically correct' exposure), then only the histogram/blinkies can help you there. Meter readings are useless for that.
 
mike weeks said:
Nothing hypothetical as the JPEG is the in camera conversion i.e automated, working from RAW can generate a vastly different image. Well aware of expose to the right etc. The meter reading is an estimate of the lights, not the image.
Mike
Click to expand...

Sounds like you're agreeing then.

And while the in-camera settings can generate a misleading exposure, the point is they can also be adjusted to give an extemely accurate representation - in fact more accurate than you can actually adjust exposure, ie in one-third stop increments.
 
With regards the cheap youngnuo triggers, which I use. The rf603 cannot be used off the hotshoe as a transmitter, so you need to have the camera with you to use the test button. I took one apart and reworked it to be permanent transmitter.
 
mike weeks said:
So now here is a challenge for those that think "flashing blinkies" are the answer to metering - let us talk low key, how would that work? Could you really use the preview shot on the rear of the camera to see detail in the dark elements? I think not, sometimes a good light meter has no alternative.

Mike
Click to expand...

Blinkies are incredibly useful, but so is the histogram. Even low-key subjects have plenty of mid-tones that wouldn't be hard to reference on the histogram and it would be very rare for there not to be any bright tones at all, so there's your blinkies reference.

But if you follow an incident light meter reading for such a subject, all the important tones will be blocked up against the dark end, ie full of noise and with little tone separation. This is exactly the kind of subject where pushing the histogram to the right would yield dramatic image quality benefits.

A reflected meter reading would attempt to pull everything into the mid-tone area and that might make better job of it than incident, but without a histogram reference you'd be rather stabbing in the dark (sorry :D) and far from optimising exposure.

No cigar.

Edit: some cameras also have shadow blinkies as well as highlight blinkies to warn of clipping at either end of the tone scale.
 
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Try pushing the histogram to the right when you want out of camera results, sorry but not the answer - each case has to be dealt with properly, and more importantly the use has to be understood. Look at the work of Paul Rogers, you will see no noise, effectively exposed in camera and not based a flashing indication of clipped tones.

Mike
 
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