My L-358 Sekonic with a radio trigger is more convenient than chimping for the initial set up of studio lights before shooting, especially for balancing background and accent lighting to key and fill which is difficult to gauge by eye.
Once \"in the ball park\" I put the meter away and rely on the over-exposure warning and a textured highlight target (e.g. white terry towel) to tell me how the camera is exposing the scene and my brain to tell me whether the lighting set up \"by the numbers\" is appropriate for the age and gender of the subject and the intended mood / message.
I will also use the OEW to judge how evenly a background is illuminated by opening the aperture until it starts to clip first to evaluate so I can locate the hot spots. The OEW is also quite useful for checking and balancing foreground / background exposure to avoid clipping the background.
The histogram is more useful for showing underexpose in highlights and shadows. A gap on the right indicates highlights are under. I\'ll raise exposure until the towel highlight proxity starts to clip in the OEW then back off 1/3 stop. Testing has shown me that correlates to optimal exposure in the RAW. If I see the curve running off the left side I know more fill is needed.
So if there is a tool available I will use it for the job it is best suited for. The camera playback, correlated to previous results with testing, is the best predictor of the end result I will see on screen.
Nov 15, 2008 at 08:50 AM
Previous versions of cgardner's message #6384417 « who still uses a light meter? »
