Sekonic L358 Overexposing?

I picked up this baby last week and have only used it a couple times, but it seems to be giving me readings that lead me to overexpose my shots. I read somewhere that it should give reading equall to the Sunny 16 rule, so since yesterday was a clear sunny day I tested it, and it was spot on. Later that day I went out ot take some shots with strobes and it overexposed by about a stop. This is probally operator error; does anyone know what the problem could be?

How are you setting up the camera?

How are you using the meter?

One flash camera right a 45 degrees to model w/ umbrella. One flash 180 degrees form the first flash. I metered at the models left cheek (closest to key light) w/ lumisphere pointed towads the camera. The meter was on T and set at 1/200; I shot at the aperture the meter gave me, f/4.5.

Here is how it turned out, I dialed down the exposure 0.29 in Lightroom.

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=539517

How was the camera set up? What mode, what settings?

Was the ISO setting the same on the camera and the meter?

Did you do anything specific to match up the exposure for the background and the model? Mixing daylight with flash isn't something that everybody gets right at first.

OK, so you had to turn it down a third of a stop, correct? Assuming that you read the meter correctly (it's easy to forget that it also displays tenths of a stop after the aperture reading in some modes), then your camera and your meter disagree by one third of a stop. If you shoot with Canon, there's your answer - they tend to be more sensitive (higher ISO) than their display would indicate, but roughly a third of a stop, funnily enough. Even if you don't shoot with Canon, each camera can be slightly off (even the meter might be slightly off), and it's not a big deal to calibrate the two of them so they work well together.

SkipD wrote in post #5947362
How was the camera set up? What mode, what settings?

Was the ISO setting the same on the camera and the meter?

Did you do anything specific to match up the exposure for the background and the model? Mixing daylight with flash isn't something that everybody gets right at first.

ISO on camera matched that of the meter. As far as the mixing goes I was under the imptression that the Sekonic L358 took the ambient light into account even when metering the flash.

Rudi wrote in post #5947389
OK, so you had to turn it down a third of a stop, correct? Assuming that you read the meter correctly (it's easy to forget that it also displays tenths of a stop after the aperture reading in some modes), then your camera and your meter disagree by one third of a stop. If you shoot with Canon, there's your answer - they tend to be more sensitive (higher ISO) than their display would indicate, but roughly a third of a stop, funnily enough. Even if you don't shoot with Canon, each camera can be slightly off (even the meter might be slightly off), and it's not a big deal to calibrate the two of them so they work well together.

Well, this would explain it. I think I will do acouple more shots before calibrating to make sure I'm getting consistantly overexposed shots.

As far as calibration goes, is this done by using the exposure compensation feature on the meter or is there a better way to do this?

Dome in or out?
How did you "aim" the meter?

Image looks good.


edit: If by "exposure compensation feature" you mean: "Hold in both ISO 1 and ISO 2 simultaneously and turn the JOG WHEEL to exposure compensation needed", that's what I'd do if you only use it for one camera.
Otherwise I'd just set ISO 1/3 stop higher on the Sekonic for that camera.

René Damkot wrote in post #5947413
Dome in or out?
How did you "aim" the meter?

Image looks good.

Dome out and pointed toward the camera. The image looks good now, but I dialed down the exposure by 0.29 in Lightroom.

Try aiming the meter halfway between subject and camera.
For flat subjects (repro work), retract dome, and meter parallel to subject.

The Sekonic light meter will show you the proportion of flash to ambient light.

Rarely does a light meter match your camera so there is usually a need for calibration or simply determining the offset and making sure you apply it to the meter's reading, but since the meter has the ability to make that adjustment by dialing in that offset then you at least know the meter is calibrated to your camera. Remember, this is only your camera and if you start shooting with another make or model you may have to determine the appropriate offset for that camera.

The process of calibration can be simplified down to this:

Shoot a gray card that you know is 18% gray. Bring that image up on your computer and look at the histogram. Since you were shooting a gray card with nothing else in the frame you should only see a single spike right around the center of the histogram.
If the spike is to the right of center then you know your meter is giving you readings that are a little too hot. If to the left of center then you know your reading a little under.

If you have a RAW editor that tells you how much you are changing exposure then adjust exposure until the spike is dead center. Note the amount you moved it. If you adjusted by +.3 (1/3 stop) then you now have the offset to dial in to the meter. It's important to remember that if you need +.3 on a Sekonic L-358 you must enter it as -.3. The reason is because you're not telling the meter how much to compensate, but rather how much it was off and in what direction, and it was in fact underexposing by 1/3 stop, thus -.3. It's a little confusing and what makes it a little more confusing is that it changed in the L-558R ad L-758DR. On these meters you are actually entering the offset amount and not the amount you were off. So if you're underexposing by 1/3 stop on an L-758DR you want to make the offset +.3.

Robert, Thanks for the information.

Sure thing.

In case it's not obvious, once you have the offset you need to take another test shot and look at that histogram to make sure you're gray spike it centered. If it's slightly off then adjust another 1/10 stop or the appropriate amount until you end up with a dead center gray spike.

Excellent advice Robert

Thanks Robert, I should be able to get sorted now.