Should I consider a light meter?

Wilt wrote in post #18091990
ETTR may get better alotment of 4096 tones into lower level zones, better utilitizing them without clipping at the high end, but the true deficiency of ETTR is that you do not get things captured 'at their inherent tonality' necessarily, but artifically bright.

If you then print and frame the Morgan Freeman portrait and hang it in a room with dim light, doesn't the inherent tonality get restored?

hmmm...have you just started a hot debate?

And what about lighting Glyneth Paltrow's shot with an arc light? And if you do the same with the JLo shot, will you think she is a fair skinned Finn?

Also, if you are going to get a light meter, you may as well learn about the Zone System. Your meter reads everything at zone 5. A typical cloudy day with some sun breaking out...that kind of tonal range. If you need to expose a dark skin subject, take your light meter reading and to underexpose it by another stop or a bit more..says lower zone 4. If the subject is really, really dark, zone 3. Additional 2 stops. If the subject is brown or tan color, lower zone 5. A lighter skin color person would do fine at zone 5 even zone 6 if the subject is really, really super light skin.

Your lighter meter reading is a reference point in which you can add or subtract light and exposure settings.

Wilt wrote in post #18092089
hmmm...have you just started a hot debate?

And what about lighting Glyneth Paltrow's shot with an arc light? And if you do the same with the JLo shot, will you think she is a fair skinned Finn?

Haha, this debate might one day stand next to the other great debates like Canon vs Nikon.

I'm just suggesting that there is another factor to the "inherent tonality" equation. That being brightness of viewing medium. But I agree that a subject appearing brighter in an image than what we're accustomed to, relatively speaking, seems unnatural. But I just click a button once or twice in Lightroom to fix that after shooting ETTR.

Heya,

I picked up a light meter a while back after researching it and getting advise in the lighting forum, and it really was a game changer for me. While I already used my in-camera meter and learned my meters to each camera as they all behave a little different in terms of the outcome, and I was able to generally get what I wanted out of it reliably, the light meter adds a whole new depth to it. Granted, I don't just do natural light, I use mine a lot with mixing ambient & lighting and that's where it really comes in super handy to take out the guessing factor, and being able to incorporate two exposure values into a single exposure. A basic light meter can help you dial in natural light and/or just lighting. The more advanced meters can do more functions, like ratios, and different blends and different kinds of metering. You'll find landscapers using light meters with spot meters to basically measure the dynamic range and know where to be exposure wise to get most of the range into their single RAW exposure. Same can be applied to portrait, etc.

I picked up a Sekonic L478-D, used, on Amazon for about $250. The warehouse deals are great. I would shop for a 2nd hand or refurbished meter to play around with.

One of my favorite tools, really made a difference in how fast I could get to a good exposure with unwilling subjects (ie, 2 year olds!).

I love being able to meter the ambient scene, then meter a light, get a blend and set everything, without ever actuating a shutter on my camera and getting it right the first time. It makes shoots with the kids so much faster and easier for everyone.

Ex:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/KbUY​7n

For non flash, incident light only I really like the Sekonic L398A meter, this is a traditional selenium cell meter, with the easy to read circular slide rule interface. What I like is that once you have set the ISO value, and taken a reading, you can see all the possible shutter speed/aperture combinations in one go. It's not a bad price, but the L-208 is basically identical in operation, but smaller and lighter, and is nearly half the price.

If you want to do flash as well then you need to look at one of the digital readout meters, the basic L-308S Flashmate seems like a very good basic meter.

Alan

Hey, I never use one, less stuff in the bag, less stuff to mess with.

I do though "get" the potential usefulness, though, especially with close-up stuff and an "incident" meter, sure...

But on a lighter note, I can imagine how some people would react to me running around with a light meter, like this young lady who was waiting for a bus...

Have never used one...prefer to use the displayed histogram displayed on my LCD LV screen for ETTR in manual mode.
Taking into consideration that the LCD screen images is a jpeg representation of the image, one must neutralize their picture style settings beforehand.
It's a simple matter to ETTR using SS, ISO, f/stop. Color correction is accomplished by using an X-rite color picker.
Works every time with my black children.

IMAGE LINK: http://s329.photobucke​t.com …43/media/my-baby.jpg.html

I own a Sekonic L-758DR. There are several things a meter can do that the camera can't do.

Incident metering is a given... but there are other things such as flash metering, flash contribution (for mixed light such as daylight fill flash), the ability to find middle exposures from multiple metered samples, and high end meters can be calibrated to your specific camera so that the meter actually understands the dynamic range of the camera and can provide warnings when the meter detects that the exposure needs for a shot exceed what the camera can handle without loss of data.

I don't often need to use the hand-held meter, but it's very nice to have it handy when the situation needs one.

I previously owned a basic incident meter (but it did include flash metering) and used it enough that I decided to upgrade to the L-758DR. I gave the basic meter to my niece who was struggling with flash photography exposures.

TCampbell wrote in post #18098404
... and high end meters can be calibrated to your specific camera so that the meter actually understands the dynamic range of the camera and can provide warnings when the meter detects that the exposure needs for a shot exceed what the camera can handle without loss of data.

No need for an exposure meter to do that - just look for blinkies.