Light Meter

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (More info?)

In article <fk9l01t17fkepbj2obmut3tl3mgek974oi@4ax.com>,
stator <fullcamo@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:

> About a month ago I purchased a Sekonic L-508 light meter for use with
> my 35mm camera.
> But since then I have purchased a Minolta 7D digital slr....I
> wondering if there is any need to keep this meter or sell it since I
> have the dslr now.
>
> Joe

Thats a flash meter also right?

Do you want to do portraiture with flash or any other flash
photography, if so the answer is keep it. If not sell it to me
dirt cheap :-)

--
LF Website @ http://members.verizon.net/~gregoryblank

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (More info?)

>Giving you the benefeit of the doubt you may not be a troll. What
>exactly changed between cameras where you cannot think of a use for
>the meter now that the images are recorded digitally rather than on
>film?

Well, given that I can bracket to my hearts content with the dslr and
get the results immediately...
With the 35mm that method just wasn't cost effective....hence the
purchase of the meter.

Gregory made a good point about keeping it for use as a flash meter.
If I'm doing a portrait, the last thing a subject would want is to sit
there frozen while I snap off 20 pics to insure at least one is
usable.

By the way, what exactly about my question would make you suspect I
was trolling?

Joe

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (More info?)

ZONED! wrote:

>
> Giving you the benefeit of the doubt you may not be a troll. What
> exactly changed between cameras where you cannot think of a use for
> the meter now that the images are recorded digitally rather than on
> film?

One advantage of digital is you can use it as the lightmeter. Shoot. Examine,
adjust, delete the test file and move on. The only area where it would be
needed is to set stuido strobes.

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (More info?)

>If you found it useful for your film SLR it will be just as useful
>with a digital SLR. An good incident meter is always handy to have
>available, I'd keep it if I were you..
>Ron
>http://borealphotography.com


Thanks for the opinions guys...I think I will keep the meter. It does
work fantastic and seeing it used by professionals inspires me to use
it more.

Joe

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (More info?)

George wrote:

> Or, if there were a need to work more quickly than a bunch of test
> shots...or, if you
> wanted to see what "zone" range was in your composition. <I feel so dated!>
> But, I
> use my meters quite a bit...actually more than I did with film because I
> find I am shooting
> more often.

For zones, one can use the histogram quite handilly in an analogous fashion. I
wish the histogram was in fact setup as AA Zones, but the scales used apparently
are not.

An incident meter is dandy. A spot meter is candy... but that's built into both
my film camera and my eventual 7D in any case.

The 7D (and probably others) have a mode to show where the highs are over the
top and where the lows aren't even turned on. This is surely better than
spotmetering the scene element by element.... like having 6 million spot meters,
really, and the camera does the mapping.

Cheers,
Alan.

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (More info?)

"Alan Browne" <alan.browne@freelunchVideotron.ca> wrote in message
news:cuglq1$hko$1@inews.gazeta.pl...
> George wrote:
>
> > Or, if there were a need to work more quickly than a bunch of test
> > shots...or, if you
> > wanted to see what "zone" range was in your composition. <I feel so
dated!>
> > But, I
> > use my meters quite a bit...actually more than I did with film because I
> > find I am shooting
> > more often.
>
> For zones, one can use the histogram quite handilly in an analogous
fashion. I
> wish the histogram was in fact setup as AA Zones, but the scales used
apparently
> are not.
>

How so? That is, how many steps translate to a "zone"? Does one horizontal
value equate
to a zone, or 1/2 zone or 1/3 zone or ??? I realize that is it displaying
similar info, but am too
new to (useful) digital cameras to think in terms of what appears to be
non-standardized
brightness steps (i.e., does 1 Nikon horizontal histogram step equal 1 Canon
horizontal
histogram step).

George

> An incident meter is dandy. A spot meter is candy... but that's built
into both
> my film camera and my eventual 7D in any case.
>
> The 7D (and probably others) have a mode to show where the highs are over
the
> top and where the lows aren't even turned on. This is surely better than
> spotmetering the scene element by element.... like having 6 million spot
meters,
> really, and the camera does the mapping.
>
> Cheers,
> Alan.
>
> --
> -- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
> -- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
> -- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
> -- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (More info?)

Mac Tabak wrote:
>
> "stator" <fullcamo@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message
> news:fk9l01t17fkepbj2obmut3tl3mgek974oi@4ax.com...
> > About a month ago I purchased a Sekonic L-508 light meter for use with
> > my 35mm camera.
> > But since then I have purchased a Minolta 7D digital slr....I
> > wondering if there is any need to keep this meter or sell it since I
> > have the dslr now.
> >
> > Joe
>
> Keep it Joe. What happens if you ever use studio lamps????
> The cameras meter
> is no good to meter 1/125 sec exposure with lamps.

with lamps, at 1/125, it works perfectly, but you get hot.
with strobes, the 508 works well, and the camera does not.

>
> Regards
> Mac

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (More info?)

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 05:24:40 -0500, stator <fullcamo@NOSPAMgmail.com>
wrote:

>>Giving you the benefeit of the doubt you may not be a troll. What
>>exactly changed between cameras where you cannot think of a use for
>>the meter now that the images are recorded digitally rather than on
>>film?
>
>Well, given that I can bracket to my hearts content with the dslr and
>get the results immediately...
>With the 35mm that method just wasn't cost effective....hence the
>purchase of the meter.
>
>Gregory made a good point about keeping it for use as a flash meter.
>If I'm doing a portrait, the last thing a subject would want is to sit
>there frozen while I snap off 20 pics to insure at least one is
>usable.
>
>By the way, what exactly about my question would make you suspect I
>was trolling?
>
>Joe
>
>
Sorry, been busy. It seems as most of my reply is duplicative...
One can only succesfully bracket when the scene is fairly static and
does not need external flash (studio). I guess it depends on one's
level of photography. The troll reference was a knee jerk reaction to
a question that struck me as obvious when it is not that way to all.
As a professional who has used digital on and off for over 8 years, I
have purchased and frequently used 2 meters AFTER digital. I cannot
rely on a postage stamp sized LCD readout to insure proper exposure of
smaller areas and a laptop is often a bit cumbersome when added to all
the gear that I may bring to a shoot...