I always go look for and take advice from those who have knowledge that I do not have.
I am setting up a home studio and I have bought the things listed here STUDIO EQUIPMENT

I have an opportunity to purchase a brand new Sekonic l358 for $250.00.

Many youtube videos I have watched to learn how to do studio photography show the photographers using a light meter.. many times I see the sekonics in their hands.

Thing is, I do not know if I need a light meter for sure or not?
Your opinions are greatly valued... help please.

No.
Back in the film era. Light Meter is a must have for every photographer. there is no second chance to captures and all will have to wait after that film is developing.
Now and days I more depend of the Histogram and LCD back of every digital camera
to make adjustment for exposure.

It depends on how ambitious you are.

Personally, I couldn't imagine (or don't want to imagine) doing studio or architectural work without one. It's useful for lots of things, from checking the evenness of the illumination on seamless, to checking lighting ratios, to setting levels for hair and kicker lights.

You can get by without one for a simple two light portrait setup, but even then, it's a good learning tool and a timesaver. When your setups start to get more complicated, with more lights and modifiers, it becomes pretty much indispensible.

The histogram on the camera tells you when you've got the base exposure right, but it doesn't tell you about the balance between the various light sources on your subject and background.

I agree that you can get by without one, but it's a great "learing tool and timsaver". If you get serious with lights, you'll appreciate having one. I have a 358 with PW module and also an L-308S for walk around stuff.. The 358 is excellent if you can fit it in your budget and worth the bit extra over the 308 IMO.

First you need to understand the goal of the exposure exercise and what defines success. The broader goal beyond the technical stuff is to make a photo look real and create the same emotional response in the mind of the view as seeing the same content in person. In other works making it seem real. With respect to exposure making a photo seem as real as possible requires recording detail everywhere the eye sees it in person. That makes the exposure both optimal technically and perceptually "normal".

That goal can be met quite simply with studio lighting with just the camera and two towels; one white, one black.

1) Start in a dark room, set camera to the desired f/stop. Place a light stand at 8ft from camera and drape the towels over it.

2) Place one light (the fill source) just over or under the lens of the camera. Raise its power as you make test exposures until you see the fuzzy texture of the black towel visible in the playback, pegging fill intensity to the darkest shadow detail you will encounter on your portrait subject standing in the same place a few minutes later.

3) Place the second light off axis. For a full face view a good starting baseline is to either place it directly above the camera so it hits the eye line of the subject at a 45° downward angle (butterfly) or is placed so it hits the nose at a 45° angle from the side and a 45° downward angle. For oblique and profile views maintain the same 45°/45° angle relative to the nose (with key light winding up 90° and 135° from the camera axis respectively).

4) Turn on the key light and raise its power, while making test exposures, until the white towel target on the stand begins to visibly clip in the playback warning show by the image blacking out and sometimes blinking in areas of blown out detail. Adjust power until the warning is just barely visible in the brightest parts of the towel.

What you will have done is meet the technical and perceptual goals of exposure with just your camera with very little effort. With a bit of practice and experience knowing the power of your lighting gear it will take you about 30 seconds, a minute at most, far less time than metering each light with a hand incident meter.

The lighting ratio numerically, is not important in meeting the goal of matching scene to sensor range. In fact the ratio numerically needed to do that varies from camera-to-camera with digital because the range of the sensor varies due to physical design of the light capturing sites. The sites are like buckets and those with the largest overall volume have the longest ranges. Full frame cameras with larger sensor sites will usually have longer ranges than those of cropped sensors. Within a die size lower MP sensors generally have longer MP ranges that higher MP sensors. My 1.6 crop 8MP 20D has sensor sites the same size and range as a FF 5D. My 15MP 1.6 crop 50D has smaller sensor sites than the 20D but similar overall volume due to clever design changes and a range that is slightly less than my 20D. Optimal exposure in the technical sense is fitting scene detail to whatever range your sensor has and the best way to determine that is photographic a dark and light object matching the extreme of any scene you will encounter.

Once you obtain optimal "scene-matches-sensor" exposure by adjusting fill and key power visually based on shadow and highlight detail your photo will look similar to this:

Just try to do studio work without one. Once you get into using the "chimping" method it is hard to go back, but no amount of "chimping" is going to get your images perfect every time and lighting ratio's are precise with the use of a simple meter. Built in camera meters are decent for certain applications, but are fooled quite easily. I never miss my mark with a light meter and for the price you are able to buy the Sekonic L-358 for (same one I use) you would crazy not to IMHO. The L-358 will let you balance your ambient and fill light with accurate readings displaying the percentage of flash being used, try that with the "chimping" method.

I can't imagine not having one for my studio lights, it's not the same as using a flash on your camera which is a bit more automatic. You can try to use your lights without the meter, but you might not get the results you are looking for, if that is the case, the lightmeter solves the problem easily.

for serious studio work with more than say 2 lights, yes, it's good to have. If its a simple one-light setup, no.

It just depends on how much control you want to have over your work.

You can certainly get by without one and chimp all day long. Also, in the studio, you could rely on your camera's reflective meter and a gray card to read values comparatively ... but both get to be a PITA.

But here's my big rub with relying on the histo alone ... while the histo can show me the range and amount of my light values ... it CAN'T tell me what PART of the scene is associated with those values. On my Kodak SLR/C, I can chimp down to the pixel and get an RGB value reading, so I can distinguish the difference between a shadow area vs. a black fabric area and decide whether I'm over/under where I want to be. Most camera histograms don't have that ability.

There's an old saying that says something like "Your best second lens is a good tripod." Likewise, I believe that a good light meter is a very wise LIFETIME investment. To me, it is the tool that provides the stability and confidence in your lighting technique, similar to what a tripod does for your glass, i.e. "Your best second light is a good light meter."

I don't always use a tripod and I can adapt and overcome without one in many different ways ... but a rock solid tripod is a foundational piece of gear. A rock solid light meter is much the same (imo) ... there are other ways to get by without using one (bracket, sunny 16, histo, etc.), but when you want to produce your best work, use your best tools/techniques. Of course, when you're trying to balance multiple lights, your choices are fewer, i.e. trial & error/chimp vs. meter and adjust.

So whether it is the convenience of using a handheld meter that you prefer (vs. chimping), its usefulness at being able to place it in specific portions of the scene or the ability to get different forms of information (EV readout is my favorite), it is a tool I highly recommend.

Will it make YOU a better photographer just because you buy one ... not necessarily. Will it allow YOU to have better precision & control (if you so choose) ... I think so.

You can certainly get by without one, but you can certainly do better with one ... your call.

HINT: Borrow or rent one for a few days ... then you'll have a better understanding of how it can help you.
LensRentals (et al) can hook you up ... but at $250 for a new one, consider this. BUY IT ... use it for as long as you want. You'll either love it and keep it, or you'll wind up not using it. THEN, you can always re-sell it. The money you 'might' lose won't be that much different from a rental fee ... but you'll have unlimited time to play & learn with it.

BUY IT ... money well spent.

HTH

Also, if you tether, you probably don't need it.
Histograms are pretty useless when you try doing high key or low key styles because they show the entire frame. Sometimes you do want blown out whites...sometimes you want zeroed blacks.
And LCD on the back of cameras aren't accurate enough...some are better than others.

So get a decent lightmeter. You don't need an expensive one...even an older Gossen Luna Pro F is fine, but you'd probably feel more comfortable w/ a digital Sekonic one since everyone seems to use it

Since I see in your equipment list you have a couple of alien bees and are looking to get triggering equipment you might consider the Buff Cyber Commander ($180), which has a built in flash meter and his Cybersync triggers Rcvrs ($90). Not only does that give you a light meter but also remote triggering AND remote control of your alien bee lights. And it will be cheaper than the PW and Sekonic combination.

Rick

This is like the UV filter debates, its one of those things that there are strong feelings about the necessity of a meter these days. Some people can't imagine life without one and other see no need. I have at least two or three and they saw daily use when I shot medium and large format film. The meter served as a starting point, before shooting Polaroids, then film. But i guess shooting polaroids were a early version of chimping which is often looked down upon around here.
Today's cameras have a few tools for exposure, the internal meter, blinky clipping alerts, the histogram, and the LCD. For me those work pretty well. I use my hand held meter once or twice a year, partly to see if it still works.
If you wil use it as an incident meter it makes more sense than using it as a reflected or spot meter since you already have a good one on your camera. If you can get a good new one for a couple hundred, buy it and see if makes sense for you, then either sell it or keep using it.

A hand held meter isn't a magical problem solver, it simply gives you basic information and it's up to you interpret that info.

A flash meter is a great time saver, especially if you're doing multiple-light setups and wanting different ratios.

You can do it using the camera's histogram, but it can take multiple shots and trial-and-error. Do you really want to be wasting your shutter's limited lifetime and your memory card's space?

Here are some sites you may find helpful:

http://www.sekonic.com/Classroom/WhatIsaHistogram/WhatIsaHistogram.aspx

http://www.sekonic.com/Classroom/MeteringTechniques/IncidentvsReflected.aspx

and a PDF download:

http://www.sekonic.com/images/files/HistogramsLightmetersWorkTogether.pdf

Choosing between fiddling with the histogram and working with a precise instrument, the choice is obvious.

RustyBug wrote:

You can certainly get by without one, but you can certainly do better with one ... your call.

BUY IT ... money well spent.



+1

You won't regret buying a light meter. The Sekonic web site has lots of tutorials on using their equipment.

alaskalive wrote:
I am going to be an awesome studio photographer

I think you'll find that the light meter is absolutely going to be part of your arsenal en route to your goal. The only part of the equation that is variable (imo) is not "IF" ... but "WHEN". We all have to make such decisions along the way, and when they are being coupled with other decisions ... the "WHEN" isn't always an easy one to answer.

You've got a lot of ground to cover and learn (which is fine, we all start at the beginning). So even if "NOW" isn't in the cards for you, it won't prevent you from progressing "NOW" through other methods/approaches. Ultimately, it is YOU that will make you "awesome" and you'll pick & choose the tools that you prefer to use.

To me, a studio photographer without a light meter is kinda like a carpenter without a tape measure ... skilled carpenters may be able to work without one, but most skilled carpenters still have one in their tool chest. You can either "measure twice & cut once" ... or you can "cut, check for fit, re-cut, re-check for fit, re-cut, re-check for fit, etc."

If you've only got one board to cut, either way might be okay. But when you are trying to put together multiple boards (or lights) to achieve a specific outcome (i.e. square or evenly lit, etc.) ... it can be a tough gig to get the additional pieces to fit together properly by way of "cut & check" as your methodolgy / approach. And, to pour "salt in the wound", your camera's histo & LCD screen can't remotely match what you are going to find on your monitor or in the print ... it really stinks to THINK you got it the way you want it, only to later realize otherwise.

A meter is indeed a precision instrument but it's accuracy in determining exposure and ratio hinges on the operator's ability to use it correctly and how accurate the ISO indicator of the camera is.

The correct procedure for measuring exposure, per the manual, is to place the meter in front of the subject dome up and point the dome at the camera. If the meter reads f/8 and you set the lens to f/8 more often than not the highlight detail in the subject is not expose correctly. The reason is that ISO 100 selected on the camera isn't always ISO 100 per the calibration standard the meter is set to in the factory. My Canon cameras are 1/3 of a stop off. That's why Sekonic has included two different compensation registers on the L-358 meter and others.

To get the meter in sync with the camera you need to first set Custom WB off a gray card then shoot a bracketed 1/3 step increment series around the meter reading of a textured white highlight — like a terry towel — then open and look at the files on the computer and visually, based on the highlight detail, determine which has the best exposure.

Here's one of my L-358 meter calibration test shots. Meter reading was 5.6 but this 6.3 exposure from the bracket test was better exposed in the highlights per inspection of the detail:

For portraits, I use a lightmeter to set the key/fill ratio and the "blinkies" to set exposure. For tabletop, I use the blinkies for maximum exposure of each light source, then combine frames in post.

Frank Doorhof says "Yes"

"Watch fashion and glamour photographer Frank Doorhof do a demo shoot with a gorgeous model in his studio in the Netherlands. Also, learn why the Kelby Media Training instructor and lighting whiz never goes anywhere without his Sekonic light meter."

I've been using light meters since the late 1960's, and while I wouldn't be without one, the only time I use one today is shooting copywork in the studio or shooting film. You simply don't need one for the vast majority of digital shooting anymore. It's faster and more accurate to just see your image, and if you're in the studio, you're probably going to be tethered anyway. I see a full res 1DsMKIII file on a MacbookPro screen in about two seconds. It's so much faster to make a quick adjustment of either aperture or strobe power than take the time to measure.

With just a little bit of experience, even shooting outdoors or on location and only using the rear LCD, you can quickly learn to correlate what you see on the back of the camera to what your final image is going to look like. Not unlike using Polaroid back in the day. Even then, black and white Polaroid was a better indication of your exposure than a light meter ever was - once you learned how to use it.

I was just up in Montana shooting with a Mamiya 7 and realized I left my meter back in L.A. Whoops. No big deal. Modified sunny sixteen - more like sunny eleven for black and white, figure in the three stops for the 25A and bang. Perfect exposures that scanned like a dream.

I honestly can't remember the last time I used a meter in the studio, other than for flat art. I do use an electronic tuner for my guitar though. Go figure.

My favorite meter of all time is the Minolta Flashmeter VI. The best overall meter I've ever used. Not only works great for flash and ambient, reflected, spot and incident, but it's beautiful to look at and feels just right in your hand.

I guess what I'm saying - and this comes from thirty plus years of studio experience and shooting digital for at least ten, is that a light meter would be the least of my worries at this stage.