L-358 SEKONIC CRAZY VALUES??

Still getting used to my Sekonic L-358 light meter.

I have had very good luck so far with getting good measurments with Ambient light mode in both Shutter Speed priority and Aperture Priority settings. Everything seems to calibrated well.

The problems arise when I am using a flash. This is the most common time I would want to use the meter in the first place.

First, using flash settings mode seems to ONLY allow me to select Shutter Priority mode. This might not be a problem but F stop reading I get are unrealistic and seem totally uncalibrated.

I am using a 28-135mm IS USM with a 580EXII speedlight. I shoot with an ISO between 100 in bright conditions to at the very top range of about 2000 ISO in very poor lighting conditions. I shoot at F3.5 at 28 and F5.6 at 135mm. I will shoot at an F stop of 8 to 10 depending on certain conditions such as if I am needing greatly increase DOF.

Getting back to it.. My L-358 gives wacky values using a flash. First the L-358 starts at F1.0. My starting point is commonly at F5.6 because I am fully zoomed. Because I cannot seem to select Apperture Priority mode to gives me a host of strange values. Lets say I am assusimg SS 1/250 with an ISO of 800 for dark condtiions. The meter might give me an outlandish value of 80 for the F stop. I can of course adjust my ISO and or my Shutter Speed to get me down to realistic F stop values however it leave me something which is horribly overexposed.

I understand there is a calibration mode you cet get into on this meter which might help but I am unsure if this calibration will effect both ambient light and also flash priorty settings. Also I am not sure if I am using the correct dipswitch settings on this meter but under the advice on Youtube I am using 1-2 OFF 3-4 ON.

Have my remote flash trigger on order and should get it next week. I hope this meter wasn't a 350 dollar paperweight. Advice here? Pleaes help!

The thing you need to remember with flash photography is that

• The shutter speed controls the amount of ambient light that reaches the sensor
  
• The aperture controls the amount of flash light that reaches the sensor
  

• change the amount of flash light being output
  
• move the flash light relative to the subject
  

Are you metering ETTL or Manual flash output?

I keep my speedlight alway on ETTL and use highspeed sync IF I am shooting action photography.

What the meter mode did you use? Sounded like you were measuring the ambient light in low light situation, of course you would get f1.0 reading.

You need to read your Sekonic L-358 Instruction Manual to understand how to meter for flash exposure. If you haven't got the book handy, here is the PDF file: http://sekonic.com/ima​ges/files/L-358.pdf

It would be nice if you could just set the maximum and also minimum F stops for your lens so it doesn't give un-realistic values.

Also I have found that ambient meter reading works well but my flash metering doesn't work well unless I am very close to my subject.

As stated above, please read the manual.

As a basic concept, when metering flash you are ALWAYS in a Shutter and ISO Priority mode. There is no such thing as aperture priority when measuring flash. You set your ISO and shutter sync speed and the meter calculates the correct aperture.

BaghdadFred wrote in post #12344325
I keep my speedlight alway on ETTL and use highspeed sync IF I am shooting action photography. That really on the setting I use on my flash.

There are two MAJOR problems that you have because of a total misunderstanding of your equipment.

First of all, if a Speedlite is set to operate in ETTL mode, it emits a pre-flash so that the camera/Speedlite can determine what the output of the flash should be for the scene in front of it. This pre-flash is what the light meter is reading, and the resulting reading means absolutely nothing. There is no possible way to set up the meter to read the main flash burst when using the Speedlite in ETTL mode.

Secondly, when used in ETTL mode, the output of the Speedlite cannot be manually controlled to match the level suggested by a meter - even if the meter could read the main flash burst. Using ETTL is a fully automated way of controlling exposure with the flash. The ONLY adjustment the photographer can make is Flash Exposure Compensation. This is not manual adjustment of the flash output, but an offset for the automatic system.

In order to use the Sekonic meter with the Speedlite, both the camera and Speedlite MUST be in fully manual operation mode. Then, and only then, can you measure the light output with the meter and then make adjustments to the aperture (and/or ISO value) to control the flash exposure. Changing the shutter speed has absolutely no effect on exposure due to level of light from an electronic flash source, but the shutter speed must be kept at or slower than the camera's "maximum sync speed".

Wow this certainly sheds a ton of light on it "pun intended". I understood the need to use Manual mode on the camera, which I use, but didn't realize the pre-flash was throwing off my values. In all fairness I found the user manual skimpy on content. They give you the basic settings but don't explain what mode you would want to use in a certain situation.

I need to really read up on Manual mode on my flash.

Photographing a small event this evening at 6PM so I need to get crackin!

I don't have the links on hand but Sekonic has a channel on YouTube and there are many videos there that may make it easier to understand some of the functionality of your meter.