But still even the best light meter must be calibrated.Originally Posted by Paul Ron
But still even the best light meter must be calibrated.
Nothing beats a great piece of glass!
I leave the digital work for the urologists and proctologists.
Anyone really should have their meters checked by one of the few service centers left, because once they are no longer here, (and techs retire), you have to find another older meter that might need service too, but a fresh calibrated working meter should last a long time (if not damaged)... Probably will not be made again...
Take advantage of service people who will do a good job for much less than an average car repair, and use with confidence for years to come...
The same goes for your shutters, bellows + other stuff (there are a # of resources now, but maybe not so much later), and keep a win-win situation for the shops and yourself...
Your gear will sorta stay the same, get worse, but not better unless serviced as time goes on, and might even become more important to you later, and you will be glad you did in the past (now)...
Steve K
Any of those would be good. I've never actually seen the 778, but it is supposed to be really good. The Sekonic meters that do both incident and spot are nice to have, the 508 and up. Gossen also makes some good meters but they are pricey. The Minolta spot meters are good as well. As far as I can remember the F is just an M with flash capability. The Pentax digital spot meter is the most popular now it seems.
You don't need a spot meter either. I never got along with spot meters, too much pfaffing around, but I've been doing it a long time so I kinda know. Spot meters are best if you want to be a zonie.
If $150 is too pricey for you right now, there are incident meters that are really good and don't cost that much. A Gossen SBC for example.
I think though that the best thing to do is bite the bullet and get a meter you can live with for a long time. it is worth it.
Hope that helps you.
Actually George no longer has that office. Instead you can ship to the FedEx store at that address or take to that FedEx store to drop off and later pick up.
Nothing beats a great piece of glass!
I leave the digital work for the urologists and proctologists.
Well, I've made the jump. I went ahead and bought the Sekonic L-778 Dual Spot meter for $150 from an avuncular elderly photographer in SoCal's Inland Empire. The meter looks fairly new and hasn't been used much. I've read the instructions twice now and have a fairly good understanding of how this thing works.
What I wanted to ask is how can I calibrate this for accuracy, without having to go to Quality Light Metric Co. in Hollywood? I've spoken with George over there and it'll apparently cost between $75 and $90 to calibrate this, if it actually needs calibration. Being a student, that's quite a bit of money for me. Is there anything else I can do, short of testing and using up film?
Also, does anyone have any tips on using this thing? If I meter several places and store them in the memory, can the meter calculate the average?
I would highly recommend a Asahi Pentax Digital Spotmeter used in mint to excellent condition which you can find on Ebay for about $400. It is an invaluable tool if you are into the Zone System and even if you are not. It has one degree of angle which is a must for metering more distant values. It should come with a lens cap, strap and soft case. For studio work with tungsten or flash one of the higher end Sekonic meters are useful. Happy hunting. Well hope that new meter works out for you.
OK, here is something to get you going to help you get started... You can give the meter a basic film test exposing just a few sheets of film... There are more advanced techniques, but this will give good results with standard films (color & B/W) under most normal conditions...
The advantage of a spot meter is you can measure the range of brightness in a scene, and see if you can match your film's range into it... (Other types of meters average the exposure to a tone in the middle of the scale) but you have an advantage... You can easily measure the brightest spot in the scene and read the value, then you can measure the shadow areas to see if you can hold detail there... You don't have to use the calculator in the meter, but you can also, but follow this...
If you read and note the bright highlight you want to hold detail in (out here in the Cali sun), with normal films and processing, one stop or EV setting under that will be middle grey/middle exposure, and just like a grey card exposure... B/W, color neg, and slide/chrome films will generally expose normal bright highlights well... Now you can read the shadow areas...
With standard B/W films,the 2 f stops under the middle grey setting will record on the film well, and then there is one more f-stop below that, that will record on the film with some form but little detail...
This is the metered range the film can see...
For color neg, you have two f-stops under middle grey to fit your shadow range... For chrome films, you have one stop under middle grey for shadows...
If you sit or walk outside with the meter, read a lot of scenes (before you shoot some film) to get the hang of it... Read highlights, read the middle bright areas so they are about 1 stop or EV # under that, then scan the darker areas watching how low the reading gets and see if can fit into the ranges mentioned above... Then try a couple of sheets, develop, and look at the neg in the light, and you should see detail in the shadows, and just see some step/separation in the highlights... If too dense, there is overexposure you can cut down, but if clear in the shadows, not enough exposure... (Always take notes, and # films/holders...)
This is for normal ranges, but some scene details will exceed this sometimes (like sun bouncing off oceans, windows, metals, chrome, ice etc), and the shadows might be too dark, but you will know from reading when this happens... You might have to choose what is more important to record, so you might have to add or cut exposure at the expense of one or the other (but you will know when this might happen)...
There are many more advanced techniques to expand the range you can record, but this will give good results you can use now and in the future... This will also work in non sun situations, like indoors, studio lighting, even night shooting!!!
YMMV, and these are gereral settings, but are pretty close, and you can refine them to your shooting style or mood (hi-key/lo-key etc)...
Down the road, you should calibrate the meter, shutter, film, development, printing etc, but if everything is working ok, you should be getting good results!!! You can fix other stuff
if it comes up, but it should be fine...
Good luck, and have fun!!!
Steve K
I am far from a "zonie" (as someone else in the thread called them) but this is exactly how I use my Sekonic L-508. I'm sure the 778 works differently, but with the 508, I put it in EV mode, point at the darkest part of the shot, press the meter button then the memory button. Point at the lightest part of the shot, and again press the meter then memory button. Finally I point at some part of the subject or where I think is the mid point. And meter (but not memory.)
When I look at the LCD, it will show me my selected shutter speed, and along the aperture graph at the bottom I'll see three markers--one each fro high log and middle. If I adjust the shutter, the three marks will slide up or down the scale but remain the same distance to each other. But looking at the distance from high to low I can see the dynamic range. I adjust until the center mark is where I want for depth of field and set the camera for that aperture and the shown shutter speed, unless the center is way offset and I'm afraid the high is too high or the low is too low.
This has so far worked quite well. A few weeks ago I shot a few tests of Fuji Provia (my first time trying this with slide film.) The range showed 5 stops (which a bit of googling suggested is about the range for most slide film). I set the camera to exactly halfway between the high and low, and the results were great.
it‘s been a while since this thread was opened, I know. but this question of yours hasn’t been answered in the previous replies, as far as I can tell after reading most (but not all) posts.
you said you have only the S dial …which stands for Schwarzschild / reciprocity failure. the scaling of this dial is made to take
the Schwarzschild effect into account, thus the readings will not correspond to what you‘d expect, as far as slow shutter speeds are concerned. my guess is yes, you have the wrong dial, and this is probably what caused the trouble.
On the good side, your S.E.I. Photometer might not have been working... today pretty much impossible to acquire a good working one or even parts for it... been there and tried.
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