Hand held Light Meters

Interesting, what would the advantage be, over using your camera's inbuilt light meter?

Cheers

Brian

 

Certainly worth exploring - I am genuinely curious, and it would be interesting to read a comparison if you do go down this route, between an external light meter and the camera.

Cheers

Brian

 

Here is the dilemma: what takes longer - using a separate meter or taking several shots and checking playback, histos etc to lock the best exposure manually?

Some situations to think about:

- Low contrast, full scale subjects are handled easily by the camera.
- High contrast subjects with small areas of brightness can also be handled with the spot reading on a camera like the GF1, though a separate spot meter could be more reliable (but bulky to carry).
- Subjects that fall on only part of the gray scale (say a gray cat on cement or white dog in the snow etc) could be compensated for using the camera meter, but would be faster and more consistent with incident readings (meters with white dome).
- Constant ambient light (say a cloudy day or evenly lit interior like a supermarket) is also best handled by incident readings, though the camera can do the job too albeit slower. It's faster to take one manual incident reading and set the camera than have to "acquire" exposure each time and possibly make compensation decisions across a series of shots.

Gossen makes excellent digital meters, some with spot attachments that can do both incident and precise reflected light readings. Minolta used to be the gold standard in spot readings but that's quiet a commitment to carry around.

In general, I believe that carrying a meter makes more sense in situations where it would either speed things up or make exposures more consistent in a series of pictures.
It's too bad that the GF1 doesn't have manual dials for f/stop and speed. The little thumb wheel that can be pushed and turned often gets pushed before it gets turned. There are benefits to setting exposure manually and then a meter starts to make sense!

Antonis

 

I have a Weston Master III which I have had since Nikon F camera days. I originally had the Nikon without a meter and later got a clip on coupled meter for that camera.

I also have a Robot Star IIa which doesn't have a meter but haven't used that camera for more than 10 years.

I don't really use the Weston Master III but keep if because it is a great looking little tool and isn't worth selling.

 

BBW,
you may find that focusing old lenses through the EVF is a breeze. Depending on your vision, you may find that the screen on the back is not always the easiest focusing "aid". I don't know how Olympus does it but on the GF1 one click magnifies enough to focus precisely, a second magnifies even more and is useful for wider lenses. If anything, the EP2 has a better EVF than the GF1.

The EVF on these cameras is also a much better way to focus than looking through a DSLR viewfinder which offers no help with magnification. In that respect, your experience with the Nikon does not apply to m4/3. I wish all the makers of mirror-box cameras would learn a few tricks from micro 4/3, even if they didn't adopt the mount. And I don't mean Live View, I mean getting rid of mirrors and offering bodies with EVF like the GH1.

On the subject of metering for old lenses: My comments earlier apply to any lens manual or not. When you mount an old lens you have a choice of all-manual or aperture priority. In the latter case the camera decides for you regardless of lens used. You control ISO and compensation - and in that sense exposure "decisions" are identical for any lens. If you feel the need to go manual, that's when a meter comes in handy -- or not! :smile:

Antonis

 

Thank you.

 

Light Meters

I have a small drawer full. The two that still get used (unless I'm just being sentimental) are a Gossen Luna Lux and a Minolta Flash Meter IV (which is much more than a flash meter). I'm just in the process of teaching my 16 year old son how to shoot film, and he's stuck with an M3 so nothing is automatic, and boy, did walking around with a light meter make it all click. (But I diverge, and also, no pun intended.)

Interesting point about just braketing a bunch of shots and picking the best one, and yes, it might not take any longer. I actually did use the Gossen during the first few outings with my GF1. I do this with new (to me) cameras to get a sense of how their meters work. Meters like the Gossen and Minolta are great because they can take incident as well as reflected readings, and basically, an incident reading tells you how much light is on a given scene, rather than how much light is reflecting off of it. This is important, because the two have less in common than is immediately apparent—it's the old black horse white horse question. A reflected light meter (like the one in any camera) just doesn't know how light or dark (the "zone") what you're metering is—and just assumes that it is a medium value.

So by paying attention to the light and dark areas, I can get a better sense of how a given sensor responds. Histograms should do this, but so far, I don't find I trust the one on my GF1.

I think another related question is what metering mode people have settled on. Once I felt like a had a grasp of the camera, I was using spot and the exp. hold button, but lately I've been using the center weighted more.

 

Sekonic meters

Prices of incident light meters seem to vary a lot depending on where you are. In my part of the world, examples of slightly older versions of the Sekonic "Studio" meter -- the design whose top half can be twisted 180 degrees relative to its bottom half; no battery -- are very cheap. They're good meters but I find them fiddly to use in a hurry. Actually they're so cheap that I have at least two of them. The little Sekonic L208 "Twinmate" is much faster to operate but pretty useless in low light. Used examples of the simpler among meters with LCD readout (e.g. L308) can be very good and they tend to be very cheap if you find them, perhaps because they neither are the latest and greatest nor have "retro" appeal.

 

gossen sixtomat digital
incident light and object light
straightforward and easy to use.

 

I have a Minolta Flash Meter IV for use with my studio lights. Works great as a light meter too.

 

The use of a hand held light meter (depending on the subject) can be beneficial.
It forces you to slow down the process a little, take a little time, perhaps put a little thought into the process and perhaps see things from different angles and allow you more time to compose.
To me, it can make the adventure a little more enjoyable....

 

I have and use a Sekonic L-358. What can I say, it's one of my tools.