Light meter recommendations

chrislockerman

chrislockerman

Active member
To all y'all pros, I've found that a light meter on set can make all the difference in the world.
What are some recommendations for high quality light meters? I love the sekonics because you can get spot readings with them as well.
Any additional thoughts?
Thanks so much.
 
Can't go wrong with a sekonic. To save some money depending on where you are you can try some photo shops and see if they have any used ones
 
I just got the pentax spotmeter V from ebay for $120 and it seems pretty good. the nice thing about a spot meter is that you can check what your shadows are doing and your highlights. and this can help you set up the lighting in those areas.
 
I'm "old school" and I fall back on a "Sekonic L-398A Studio Deluxe II - Analog Incident and Reflected Light Meter" from my old days in TV news shooting 16mm mag stripe film
 
Thanks for all of the suggestions. Anybody use/like/hate the Sekonics L-558? I'd like to get the L-758, but I found the L-558 for half the price and would like to save a couple bucks.
 
chrislockerman said:
To all y'all pros, I've found that a light meter on set can make all the difference in the world.
Click to expand...

What ever happened to the waveform vs lightmeter arguement? What is the value of the lightmeter....and why did I get sucked into buying DVRack?

not that i dont like dvrack.
 
When time and speed are of utmost concern, I find a light meter can save the shoot. Waveform and vectorscopes are great, but they take time to set up and calibrate and even monitor correctly. At least if I can grab a spot reading from someone's forehead or the shine off of a car hubcap I can make sure I am exposed correctly. A light meter is like having a little peace of mind in your pocket.
 
The spot meter for video always get poo pooed before anyone has a chance to detail this thing for its video value. id like a comparison of the light meter's strengths against a decent waveform set-up as a DVRack set-up is.
 
bwest said:
What ever happened to the waveform vs lightmeter arguement? What is the value of the lightmeter....and why did I get sucked into buying DVRack?

not that i dont like dvrack.
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Ok, this is mentioned often when discussing light meters and video. The real reason why a light meter is superior to a waveform has everything to do with precision. When you look at a waveform, can you honestly tell me how the right side of an actors cheek will look after post processing? Can you? Nope.... I didn't think so. I use a Sekonic Digital Cine Master (L-758 if I remember right, its their top of the line meter), and I can use that meter to check very subtle details in the image, like falloff for example. When I light a face, I sometimes want a very specific type of fall off effect in the final product. Knowing in advance how much dynamic range my preferred look will have after color correction, I then use my 1 degree spot meter to make sure that I achieve the right amount of light reflectively from highlight to shadow in order to render this effect in the final product. You simply can't do this with a waveform.

I think the "argument" only exists because waveforms are far more simple to understand and use where as a light meter takes far more skill to use properly, especially spot meters. I think its well worth it to learn how to use one though. Don't get me wrong, I love waveforms, I just think they have a very different purpose, like determining a cameras ISO rating, dynamic range tests, etc...
 
Thought I'd add one more tidbit:

Light meters are used for lighting. Waveforms are not, at least not my book. Like I said earlier, they just have a very different purpose, which is more diagnostic for the overall image. A spot meter can let you focus in on isolated areas of the image.
 
cardmaverick said:
The real reason why a light meter is superior to a waveform has everything to do with precision. When you look at a waveform, can you honestly tell me how the right side of an actors cheek will look after post processing? Can you? Nope.... I didn't think so.
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ok, but doesnt the RGB parade give me alot of info on latitude, and the dvx has a spot that i use, and DVRack display is an after compression display, so I'm closer to the rendered look [if I got that right?].

Dont get me wrong Card, Im waiting on your tutorial "to get me out of the dark" you could be my next biggest hero...hehehe
 
bwest said:
ok, but doesnt the RGB parade give me alot of info on latitude, and the dvx has a spot that i use, and DVRack display is an after compression display, so I'm closer to the rendered look [if I got that right?].

Dont get me wrong Card, Im waiting on your tutorial "to get me out of the dark" you could be my next biggest hero...hehehe
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LOL, well as for the tutorial, I've been busy, BUT I'm happy to say I now own a camera so I can now really start cranking out material for the site I'm working on. I bought an Andromeda system :Drogar-Happy(DBG):

Ok, as for the RGB parade, again, its the same idea as a master waveform (all channels displayed at once), just on a per channel basis. It can be useful in determining channel clipping. Basically, you can have one channel completely blown out, and the other two are not, BUT, can you really look at that and pinpoint easily what is clipping in the red channel? As for dynamic range, I'm not so sure its to useful, as a gray scale chart is neutral in color, so all channels will display the same level of brightness, and dynamic range measurements already take into account all 3 channels combined, so if you just go by dynamic range measurements using all 3 channels, you shouldn't need to worry about channel clipping. Now if your building a camera and your testing out the imaging block, oh yeah, its useful to have an RGB parade (to make sure all your sensors are equal in sensitivity, range, etc..), but your not doing that, and I would hope that the manufacturer made sure all three sensors were working right. Like I said, waveforms are used for a LOT of diagonstic reasons, but not so much for lighting a set.


As for the after compression factor. DV does limit your range, and its good that you are measuring it after the compression, however, once you color correct, your range can get even smaller via crushing your blacks or blowing your highlights. So I suggest you shoot a gray card, then apply curves. After looking at that, you'll know how much range you really have to work with. Sometimes its helpful to just light up a room real evenly and have someone hold the gray card, this way you have another reference to go by in terms of how your color correction looks for an image.

Not sure what you mean about the DVX having a spot.

Hope that helps!
 
One more note on waveforms, I'm not so sure if they average all three channels or not, which can be a potential problem for a multi color image (ie, a set) (this isn't an issue for neutral color gray scales though, just do the math, its obvious!). I bring up this note because many people who shoot with DSLR's go by their histograms for exposure information without realizing that the histogram is an RGB AVERAGE... so in post they discover way to late that they have clipping in one of their channels. Now having mentioned this fact, it makes using a light meter seem even more useful, and dare I say......more safe.
 
cardmaverick said:
Not sure what you mean about the DVX having a spot.
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I'm not sure if the dvx's spot is a true spot, but I do use it to measure light units on the face when Im doing my light set-up. I believe it borrowed from the dvx's big brother the varicam. It measures units from 0 <--->100 in single unit increments. Its found along with the customizable zebra switches, 80 zebra, 100 zebra, spot. It gives you a tiny window to zoom into detail with and it kicks out a number.
FYI.
 
Oh, now I understand. I never knew about that. I don't know for sure, but it sounds like that is just giving you IRE values, which isn't really all that handy from a DP point of view, as it doesn't really give you the same measurement as an f/stop. I suppose you might be able to figure out how many IRE equals a stop, but I'd rather just use my sekonic LOL.
 
Thanks for you post Cardm. I'm always looking to learn something different. Your one of my top Mavericks
 
and Im not trying to convince you to use the waveform, I'm trying to get you to convince me I need a light meter. I'm about to purchase another Arri fresnel or 2, the 650w's... about the cost of that sekonic!
 
bwest said:
and Im not trying to convince you to use the waveform, I'm trying to get you to convince me I need a light meter. I'm about to purchase another Arri fresnel or 2, the 650w's... about the cost of that sekonic!
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LOL. I use waveforms regularly when color correcting.

As for the Sekonic I own, well thats a power user light meter and not meant to be an introduction to the world of meters. Metering is an actual skill (sorta like juggling, it takes time to learn). I started with a Konica-Minolta Auto meter VF and my small cameras built in spot meter. I later stepped up to the spot meter attachment for the auto meter, but it was only 5 degrees and I never liked it, so I just started using my D70 with an 85mm prime on it as a really expensive under featured spot meter years later. After a while I was like "this is stupid". By that point I was already more than capable of putting a meter of this caliber to work, so I bit the bullet and spent the $750 bucks for it.

Never looked back :thumbsup:
 
I use the spectra IV incident meter and a very old minolta m spot meter when I'm doing film shoots. I rarely ever use them for video shoots. Sometimes If I'm lighting a set without a video camera I might use a meter but I don't find it that usefull anymore. If you drop that sekonic combo spot and incident meter you'll be breaking 2 meters at one time.
 
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