sekonic L-358

I am considering buying one .
There is a site for how to use that says to hook up a cable to fire flash .
Does it come with meter ? what does it look like?
I have an XTI and a 380 EX and a 580 EX II .
Thanks .

The cable should come with your lights, the flash meter doesn't include one. It won't help with a speedlite anyway, what you need is a PC to hotshoe connection if you want to fire and meter speedlites. Get one from www.flashzebra.com. Or just fire the flash with the test button - in manual mode only. You might need long arms.

Thanks , I know it has a pre flash thing on camera , but with sekonic meter ?

Unless you intend to use your flash units in fully manual mode (in other words, NOT using any form of ETTL modes), it makes no sense whatsoever to use a light meter with them.

In any of the ETTL modes, the camera/flash combination programs the flash for how much light to emit based on analysis of the pre-flash. In addition, the meter would be reading the pre-flash burst and not the main burst.

Thanks you just saved me a couple hundred .
I have not really played with the 580 II , but the 380 - I have used but mostly on the AE-1 before I got the Nikon 7 seven years ago . Like going from a stick shift to Automatic .
I have a wedding next month in Mexico and would like some good shots . I am shooting in either AV or TV mode . Raw + jpg .
Thanks again and any other advice is more than welcome .

Read this many times:

http://planetneil.com …h-photography-techniques/

You should really consider getting into manual mode on your camera. ETTL is fine on the flash units.

Thanks , I read
http://planetneil.com …ts/flash...hy-techniques/
Will read a few more times . The more I read , the more I understand - sometimes - if nothing e;se I ask better questions .