PhotoTeach2
Veteran Member
I think the OP stated he may LATER do outside/flash work.
And no one has argued that FLASH meter can be very valuable, (and possibly "essential" as the fastest method of balancing ratios of light).
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LIght meters are they essential for todays needs?
- Thread starter A_SCY
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And no one has argued that FLASH meter can be very valuable, (and possibly "essential" as the fastest method of balancing ratios of light).
Leonard Migliore
Veteran Member
As you have noted, the OP has an Olympus, which contains within itself all the tools he needs to get perfect exposure by whatever standards one may want to apply.
I, like you, grew up in the age of meterless film cameras. And I was shooting 4X5 chromes, which is probably something you did too. You hate to waste a 4X5 chrome. So I got pretty good at using a meter. That's why I still hang one around my neck. It's like being one of the Chevaliers du Tastevin except you can't drink wine out of it. And every few weeks I have to use it to set up some strobes, which is good because otherwise I'd forget how to operate it.
Now some of the contributors to this post still promote the use of an external meter. I understand this. If you're good at getting exposure with an external meter, you may want to continue doing this. You can get perfectly good pictures this way and it would only mess up your groove to do it any other way.
But with today's digital cameras, I just can't see where a separate meter will give me any better exposure than I can get without it.
PhotoTeach2
Veteran Member
Whatever. Doesn't matter what you're outputting it to. The point still stands.
Again, no matter how much you say otherwise, the point still stands.
PhotoTeach2
Veteran Member
Times CHANGE ...
The OP's question is are they essential TODAY ???
Are you denying times CHANGE ???
Are you denying MirrorLess offers TOOLS never before available ???
PhotoTeach2
Veteran Member
Your point was accurate before MirrorLess ...
Times CHANGE ???
Are you denying MirrorLess offers TOOLS never before available ???
I used meters since 1959 .... (reflected/incident & flash).
NOW (today) I use better TOOLS never before available ....
PhotoTeach2
Veteran Member
Well, it really does matter what you are outputting to ...
If on a computer-monitor, a near-saturation image will indeed be "white" ...
BUT .... if given to a commercial printer, it may come out gray unless you advise him it is white. Depends on the type of printer.
But the POINT is that even if a gray, (or even black), which is ETTR exposed as close as possible to saturation, will have less noise if outputted back to gray, (or black).
No, and no. Yes, he was asking if it was essential. I never claimed it was. I'm pushing back against the absurd notion--read through the posts--that handheld incident meters have been rendered obsolete. That is incorrect. Also, handheld incident metering, in many situations, is going to provide a quicker more efficient flow for those who have learned how to use them to attain a vision. I'm saying that the more you get right in camera, the less pp work you will need to do. That is undeniable. That is factual. Period. One of the most efficient ways of getting it right in camera is to use a handheld incident meter.
Yes, you can use your camera to capture as much data as possible and hash it out in pp. The approach of throwing enough crap against a wall and some of it will stick works for many people. But knowing how light works, how to use it via a handheld meter is still a viable, and for many, optimal option.
Since we're diving into hyperbole, I can play that game too.
Are you denying that a handheld incident meter can be very useful in many circumstances?
Are you saying that they have been rendered obsolete by modern technology?
Are you saying that reflective metering is the way to go in every circumstance and that there is no place for incident metering?
Oy ...SMH.
PhotoTeach2
Veteran Member
The OP's question is if they are "essential" (TODAY) ... (I stress "TODAY" because the OP has a MirrorLess with histogram and "zebras".
"Obsolete" means that something has been supplanted with something with more capability. I suggest (today's) MirrorLess histograms/"zebras" indeed have more capability.
I suggest they can be "useful" with dSLR's, (but not "essential").
But obsolete relative to the histogram/"zebras" in (todays) MirrorLess.
I agree that in B&W days an incident reading could ALWAYS be relied upon.
But with narrower DR in digital, they cannot always be "relied" upon. Therefore it is still only a TOOL.
But an obsolete tool compared to histogram/"zebras" in (today's) MirrorLess.
Absolutely correct ... and I want to use the best TOOL to achieve that.
NO ... because ALL it does is provide an "average" exposure for an "average" (18%-gray) scene. It CANNOT even begin to know how to set your camera for "near-saturation" for the best and lowest-noise image.
NO ... by capturing more data in camera, you can make PP easier and with LOWER NOISE.
With a "spot" reflective meter ... YES ...
But "zebras" can be much more accurate than a spot meter since it can indicate down to individual pixels.
PhotoTeach2
Veteran Member
"Useful" yes ... and especially with older cameras and dSLR's.
But the OP's question was "essential - TODAY" ???
The OP has a MIrrorLess, (w/ histogram/zebras), and has a meter "ordered" to use ONLY IF IT IS A "BETTER" tool.
Relative to MirrorLess histogram and "zebras" .... YES.
Reflective of specific "highlights" ... YES ... is better as incident CANNOT detect high-dynamic range scenes properly.
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bobn2
Veteran Member
Misdiagnosis. I write so clearly that you know that you don't understand. From what you write here with other writers you think you understand but are wrong.
Well, you know my views on the useless term 'proper' (or 'correct') exposure, but in terms of precisely determining exposure, the principle is right. Reflected light metering is always based on guesswork, reflected light metering isn't. That's not to say that you can't make an informed and accurate guess, and if you get good at it, you can do it most of the time. Plus, of course modern cameras are filled with technology and heuristics to make good guesses, but they are still guesses.
So, that's a poor formulation of what you ask me to clarify below, what is an 'ISO nominal' exposure. One in which the exposure of an 18% grey object is 10/ISO lux seconds.
Which is simply a way of saying that the ISO number is a guideline, not an absolute thing. Still, it still comes down to this whole presentation of exposure as a black art. Apparently the most important thing is to 'nail' 'correct' exposure, except in the cases when 'correct' is incorrect. When are those? Well that just comes down to how good a photographer you are, apparently. So the whole thing instead of helping beginners understand how to manage exposure comes down to "look at me, I'm so clever I know when incorrect is better than correct".
A_SCY
Veteran Member
Thank you for your answer.As an amateur camera user i paid some money to buy an olympus camera with some very good lens.I am interested in ANYTHING will improve my skills. understanding the light is the key to improve much more my lever skills. as my camera, lenses are able to make great things , i have good composition eye ( i believe) so if i learn to read the light in each situation for me is the key to go further. I learn some post processing in lightroom but most of the time post processing is a post processing. is not real think. and who knows what will happens in the future? i am not willing to stop here. i bought this camera because i want to go further. maybe i make a small studio in my home, with strobes, who knows? Portraits is not white or black wall. she will smile to you once you have to take the correct composition and exposure. then she turn her face and she smile you again, some times is bad to say , wait wait i make mistake lets do it again. If the light meter is not essential and a camera meter is able to produce similar results but the light meter helps you to understand better then this will improve my skills. thank you for the answer . I read all the answer here very carefully and i try to learn from you. from people they know more because they have experience more.
A_SCY
Veteran Member
Hello) my question was about light meters . but you learn me to use histogram and blinkies
that is my purpose to get to know more each time . thank you
A_SCY
Veteran Member
A_SCY
Veteran Member
A_SCY
Veteran Member
Thank you for sharing your experience with light meter. as you said you never had light meter and when you bought it you improved your photography. but why you do this? i guess that your camera is clever enough to produce good results , so you said that with light meter you save a lot of time. By saying you save a lot of time is this the main reason that you like light meter? or do you found that the readings in light meter is different that your camera spot metering and not only saves you time but show you the correct settings each time to improve your photography skills?
A_SCY
Veteran Member
Hello bob.Hi Andreas,HelloWHY are you sending "me" this ???hello
Let anyone who thinks the camera's built-in meter is accurate take a photo of a white wall. The camera's meter will see all that white and reduce the exposure enough that the wall will come out mid-gray in the image. Do the same for a black wall and the camera meter reading will increase the exposure so that the black wall will also come out mid-gray.
Incident meters, which is what a flash meter is, measure the amount of light falling on the subject. This means you get the same reading from a white wall or a black wall and if you expose at the meter reading the image will show the white wall as white and the black wall as black.
Whether you are in a studio or out in a field an incident meter used correctly (aimed at the main light source) will give you an accurate reading for your exposure. A reflection meter like that built into the camera will be wrong more than it is right."
Are you trying to teach "me" something you don't think I know ???
I was using hand-held meters since 1959, (a Weston Master that was the "pro" meter at that time). Later I used a Gossen Luna-Pro which was also the most-professional and sensitive enough to meter moon-light. And I have had the Sekonic 385, (used for "flash" in studio).
So I know meters, their advantages, their limitations, and when/how to use them.
And what he said was true, as far as it goes, and indeed was the reason I stated that many photographers carried (18%) GRAY-CARDS so they could do and "incident" type reading in "reflected" mode.
But that does NOT change the FACT that an incident type reading will NOT ALWAYS WORK (best). It ONLY works when the scene is still fairly average without extreme (absorbent) blacks and (shiny-reflective) whites, (OR LIGHT SOURCES).
There will always be times when YOU HAVE TO USE YOUR HEAD & EXPERIENCE. A "meter" is not always the end-all exposure.
And the FACT is that the "tools" in todays cameras, (histogram & "zebras" like your red-box), can be better and give YOU more information for YOU to make the correct/best decision.
The poster above mentioned "matrix" type metering which indeed is also pretty smart and will give the best exposure many/most times. BUT ... even with "matrix" ... there are times when YOU must make a, (EC or manual), correction.
Spot metering can also be beneficial, (WHEN YOU KNOW HOW TO USE IT PROPERLY).
Instead of you bragging about your new "meter", you SHOULD be asking questions about HOW to meter and use the, (now better), TOOLS in your camera to make the best decisions.
An "incident" reading is NOT always best, (today), albeit it may have been back in B&W days and even wide dynamic-range color, (but not "slides" nor todays digital which has less dynamic range than older B&W).
You also have the advantage today of Post-Processing (PP), so you can take advantage of ETTR, (Expose To The Right), to get a better IQ image with LESS NOISE than if you had relied on "incident" metering.
You seem to be arguing with almost everyone here that simply says you DON'T NEED A METER "today", the "tools" (and PP), can be much better.
To quote your OP question ... "NO" a meter is not "essential" TODAY !!!
You are better off using the "tools" in TODAY's cameras, (todays cameras are not your grandpa's cameras).
Note that I am not saying you always (100%) trust your camera, but you can use its "tools" to get a better exposure with a non-average scene than a, (reflected or incident), meter trusted 100%.
But have fun and do whatever you like.
Surveying the answers you've been getting, I think that your question has stirred up the pot of mystery, misinformation and mistakes surrounding 'exposure'. It's not surprising people get very confused when so many of the 'experts' are confused. It's not hard to get confused because almost every single photographic web site will misinform you about exposure and exposure management.
First, a simple confusion that will creates further confusion. Most photographers confuse 'exposure' with the brightness of the output image. It isn't. 'Exposure' is the amount of light energy (strictly density not amount - but the difference doesn't matter so long as you're not comparing different sensor sizes) impinging on the sensor. This confusion arises because most photographers have learned to control the output image brightness by adjusting the energy impinging on the sensor, so much so that they think that's all 'exposure' is about. Frankly, that's a mug's game. It was even in film days if you did your own processing, even more so in digital where processing is so much more accessible.
Why is it a mug's game? Well, it involves you having to be very precise about how you set exposure without the tools to do so. So, if you use ISO 100, for instance, that means that you need to get the exposure of an 18% grey patch in your scene to be 0.1 lux seconds at the sensor (a bit technical, I know, but that is literally what 'ISO 100' means). You use an exposure meter to help you, but your meter has absolutely no way of knowing what in the scene is 18% grey so setting whatever it is to produce the required 0.1 lux seconds is guesswork. Spot metering can help, because you can put the spot on a patch that you think should be 18% grey, if you like, giving the meter a strong hint. Otherwise, modern meters use all sorts of heuristics to try to recognise common scenes and work out what the overall exposure should be so that 18% grey patches get 0.1 lux seconds. The outcome of all this is that 'nailing exposure' has become a black art. People can fill threads like this giving all kinds of circular 'wisdom' without ever telling you how to do it.
What's a more sensible way of doing it? Use processing to get the right output brightness rather than exposure. It means that you need to shoot in raw, but that's what raw is all about. Now you adjust exposure to make sure that you capture the maximum amount of information about the scene. That really just means cranking up the exposure as much as you can within your constraints of shake and DoF until just before you clip the highlights. This is, in fact, what 'ETTR' is all about. Here the JPEG histogram is serving as a highlight meter - it's not perfect but it works.
Even if you can't be bothered with that last bit of optimisation, I would recommend forgetting about 'nailing' exposure. As I said, it's a mug's game. Shoot in raw, use processing to get the image as you want and then just brag on web forums about how brilliant you are 'nailing' exposure. They'll never know that you tweaked the brightness at your leisure with the help of a nice big computer screen.
--
Bob.
DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT?
Thank you very much you take a time to answer me.
your information is very technical for me
. Yes i admit that now if feel that i am in the middle of the deep ocean about light meters i confused more and more reading all these answers by the all users ( thanks all the guys that answer here is trully amazing to try to help). So if i get your meaning camera metering method is a mostly trying to get the scene to get the " correct" exposure." i know about matrix and spot metering method. spot metering is to focus on specific place to get an exposure. for example taking photo of landscape used matrix method is better because you care about all the image to be well exposed. but taking a photo of face - portrait is better to use spot because will take in mind the face skin and not the background.using matrix metering in the up portrait will give me darker skin because of white background. using spot metering will give me well exposed skin tones but maybe a background of overexposed. (by the way now i am asking you some simple question to understand how it works) So first my priority is to choose not a background with a lot of light and second i have to light up face with diffuser or flash so to succeed better lighting on skin and to achieved the 3d feels that the portait is different than the background) that is correct? also when i come again to this scene. that there is bright light behind using a spot metering method i will take the correct skin tones but the backround will be overexposed and will be impossible to bring back any details. So in this case what is the " correct" metering method? matrix and or spot? and in this case how a light meter work? i guess similar like spot metering right? I know that most important is not to get is this situation- better to find a place that have sweet and interesting background infomation. But i saw on internet photos that took in bright light but the bright light looks kind of soft -pleasant to the eye and the portrait looks realistic and have this 3d look. ( i guess this achieved with speedlights).Also how the spot metering to the grey card works? ( sorry if i make stupid questions -but i am not shame to ask if i dont know ) do you have this grey card with you in the place of photoshoot and you spot metering on the the card so the camera take the correct exposure according this card? then you lock the exposure , you focus on your portrait and you shoot?. thank you again.
Michael Fryd
Veteran Member
Your statement is also true if you replace "handheld incident metering: with "in-camera metering". Essentially you are saying that people work better when they use the tools that they understand.
This is true, but it doesn't tell us whether or not the tools they are using are essential.
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