Re: Light Meter for collodion
I don't use meters for wet plate. The chemicals all age at different speeds and effect the exposure times just as much as the light. Consistent use and practice will get you in the ball park for a first plate. Make adjustments from there and you are usually good to go.
Re: Light Meter for collodion
Im familiar with using flash and how it works. Figuring out the needed flash output for proper exposure via bracketing and then keeping everything consistent, or making adjustments in distance via inverse square etc is all well and good if I only want to shoot one light setup. If I want to use more than one set up, multiple lights, etc, having a meter would still be a great time/money saver. I mean if I use a meter in the studio with digital, which is fast and costs nothing to shoot as many test frames as I want, why wouldn't I try to use it with a much slower more expensive process?
As for different collodion being different speeds, and other factors like age affecting speed etc, I am also aware of that issue, but that is the case regardless of whether or not I meter the light with a meter or estimate based on experience, so I guess I don't quite see it as a reason to not use a meter.
@bieber thanks for those starting points. In continuing my search for information on the subject I also found another post buried on a different collodion forum that mentioned very similar starting points for flash.
Re: Light Meter for collodion
I use a meter with collodion and strobe. Mine goes down to iso 3 but if I get a reading of f/11 I'll have enough light to shoot at around f/5.6 with some wiggle room for under/over developing in the darkroom.