Inexpensive Light Meters

drewmaw

drewmaw

Well-known member
I'm wondering if anyone can recommend any good, inexpensive light meters that I can use with the 7D and 16/35mm Film/movie Cameras. I'm seeing some fairly inexpensive ones on Ebay (about $100-150). I currently studying for my masters cinematography, but have yet to get to specific light metering practices, and would like to get a leg up on the competition. Please don't reply saying "why do you need a light meter... blah blah blah". Thanks in advance.

Preferably one with incident AND reflected (aka spot) light meter.

Oh, it's for moving images, not so much for stills.
 
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sekonic 398a
not a cine but new its about $180


EDIT: I don't own it ... yet! I'm shopping around same as you but this is the best I've seen without going up to the price of the Sekonic 758c cine
 
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J Davis said:
sekonic 398a
not a cine but new its about $180


EDIT: I don't own it ... yet! I'm shopping around same as you but this is the best I've seen without going up to the price of the Sekonic 758c cine
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From what I'm seeing here: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cach...ers&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a


  • Combination incident / spot Meters (Not recommended though some DPs and gaffers go this route; the advantage is one meter provides both incident and spot; the disadvantage is these are nearly impossible to use with the Zone System)

      • Konica Minolta Flash Meter 6 -- $430 + $18 for flat disk
      • Sekonic L-558 Dualmaster – Digital 1° Spot/Incident/ Flash light meter, weatherproofed – about $500
      • Gossen Starlite -- $500 - $640 depending on features – can be made to read Zone
Anyone use or hear anything about these meters? Is the "Zone System" something that a burgeoning cinematography should be concerned of?
 
drewmaw said:
Anyone use or hear anything about these meters? Is the "Zone System" something that a burgeoning cinematography should be concerned of?
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Here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/zone.htm

It's good to have a light meter and know how to use it, but honestly you will get much more information from looking at your histogram in one second than in 5 minutes of moving your meter around. The main benefit of a meter is it makes it easy to control your contrast on the foreground subject.

With a camera like the 7d (and many others) that lets you have some user settings in the picture styles, you might possibly find it useful to have one user style where the settings are pushed way too far for normal use, like very harsh contrast and/or saturation. Sometimes switching to deliberately ugly settings will help you quickly identify if part of your image is out of control. Like, you think it looks OK when you are shooting but you are worried if you will hit a problem in post, turn on the ugly high-contrast setting and straight away you see that your actress's face is too shiny or something like that.

Uuuuh...of course, then go back to the normal settings. Just in case that is not clear :-)

I learned this while studying up for After Effects, it seems to be common practice in the VFX world to do a 'slap comp' every so often to see if your color correction is really working or if you just want to believe it's working. When you kick the contrast way up you see the flaws more obviously.
 
I've got an old Sekonic 398 incidentmeter, and an old spotmeter, and I still like lighting with them.

I think meters help you light faster, and give you the ability to actually know your contrast ratios so that you can have a good base to start with.

If you are using a camera with no zebra stripes, a spot meter can tell you if your highlights are clipping, which is important.
 
The zone system is a 10 stop exposure system developed by Ansel Adams.

Modern digital cameras with built in meters are going to auto expose for the midtone gray value at zone 5. You as the cinematographer need to determine if this is the exposure that you want, along with the contrast ration that you want.

You also need to keep in mind that Digital video that isn't RAW tends to have about 7 stops of exposure, so you should adjust to a 7 Zone system.

Modern film has more than 10 Zones, the newer stocks have closer to 12 or 13.
 
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I have this guy, a JTL LM-8. Originally got it for 16mm work, but I've mostly used it for video shoots. Does incident and reflected readings and has settings for cine, a backlight, some memory settings, and a viewfinder. Not quite as fancy as a Sekonic, but it gets the job done.

$210 which includes shipping. Get it here: http://www.jtl-lighting.com/light-meters.html
 
I have a Sekonic L758DR which I love, but it's 600... I carry it to every shoot with a good grey card and a mini Greta Macbeth chart so I can shoot chips on every lighting setup - I put this all in the sekonic carrying case on my hip...
It's nice to be perfectly exposed and a have a reference for color correction for every lighting setup...
 
I'd look used on eBay and camera shops too- light meters are relatively uncomplicated devices and can easily last decades with zero defects if well-treated.

Noah
 
visugeek said:
I've got an old Sekonic 398 incidentmeter, and an old spotmeter, and I still like lighting with them.

I think meters help you light faster, and give you the ability to actually know your contrast ratios so that you can have a good base to start with.

If you are using a camera with no zebra stripes, a spot meter can tell you if your highlights are clipping, which is important.
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Does the 398 have settings for film and video? I see them on Ebay selling for so cheap! Why?
 
good luck judging the contrast on a face using a histogram. :-) light meters are not just for setting exposure, but for measuring light. it's also a nice tool when lighting since you don't have to look in the camera or the monitor all the time. (oops, somebody else posted almost the same reply, ah well, i second it)

i like the 398 because it's analog. i like to move it around and create an educated average in my head. it has a "setting" for 24 fps 180° but it's not like it's hard to calculate the shutter speed for other values and just use that. cine mode in a meter is overrated.
 
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