How often do you use a light meter

[jett]

For general/casual shooting. Whether reflective, incident, or spot built-in your camera or handheld.

 

[oftheherd]

I didn't vote since I didn't see a choice for 'depends.' Not that am able to devote a lot of time to photography, but whenever I am using a camera without a built in meter, I use a hand held.

 

[tomalophicon]

I meter every single shot I take.

 

[Livesteamer]

It depends. With my M6 I pay attention to the light meter. Now that I've been carrying a IIIc almost everyday for a year, I often leave the light meter at home as I shoot color negative film and I am getting better at knowing the light. A IIIc with one lens and an extra roll of film is very liberating. Joe

 

[jett]

I guess it does depend, so I edited the poll for general shooting as I'm sure that most people would meter for weddings, portraits, and serious landscape shooting.

I just started a few months back and my cameras don't have meters so I use an incident meter with every scene. I find this a bit annoying at times so I want to develop a better sense of lighting so that I can leave my meter at home.

 

[hatidua]

I only pull out the light meter when I remove the camera lens cap. Otherwise, I don't really see a point.

 

[andredossantos]

Never if I'm using a meterless camera (I don't own a hand held meter). Back when I was using a DSLR I shot it in A priority, though.

In general and for the work i do, I find metering to be superfluous. I used to meter relentlessly and I was petrified of not getting readings. When I first began using MF, i was faced with a meterless camera and I decided to let go of my fears and start estimating. It took some practice but after a while it became second nature, even indoors, in low light, at dusk, whenever. Everyone should give it a shot, it's really not that daunting and most importantly it's liberating!

 

[Matus]

Most of my shooting is done with Mamiya 6, but I find the buit-in meter so hard to predict that I use always my Digisix even though one of the reasons why I got the Mamiya was the AE.

 

[msbarnes]

My cameras don't have meters, but I too want to get away from this limitation.

 

[JayM]

I check when I think the exposure is going to be a little trickier than the couple types of lighting I have memorized (if there's time.) Sometimes I just check as I'm walking around and no one is around to photograph to help gather educational data for my built in light meter.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I ALWAYS use a meter. Why bother guessing? I need my photos to come out perfectly, and guessing doesn't do that. Sometimes, it does, but that's luck, not consistency.

 

[farlymac]

If there is a meter in the camera, I'll use it, but I've been trying to learn the Sunny 16 method with my meterless cameras. I'll pack a meter anyway, just to check myself, but I'm not even sure they are accurate due to their advanced age (like me).

PF

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

It depends... For slide film I use my incident meter always. For wild pushing too, if I got the time for that or if I'm not doing fast street shooting... For direct sun I never meter... For soft but good light I'm OK at guessing, but for low light I'm not, so I use my incident meter or one inside my cameras when light is (kind of) low... Sometimes I use AE... So, I guess I meter most of the time...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[pobe]

Most of the time I use an incident meter. Not for every shot, but when the light changes. I sometimes guesstimate, but I'm really not that good at it so I usually try to check with the meter if it's important.

 

[nonuniform]

I meter when I need to. I've gotten really good at estimating exposure, and Portra 400 is super forgiving if I'm a half stop off. If I have time, and I'm not sure, then I use a light meter app that I downloaded for my iPhone.

It works, and it saves me extra gear.

 

[thegman]

I meter most of the time, except with my M3, which I pretty much only use at night, that means I shoot at 1/15 and f/2 and it's still underexposed. So metering would just tell me that it's underexposed, something which I can't avoid unless I stick it on a tripod.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

An incident meter, about 90 percent of the time, even though the Canon digitals I shoot have good meters built in. The incident meter just gives far more consistent exposures, which makes post processing a lot of exposures much faster.

 

[ruby.monkey]

Whenever I'm unsure of the light conditions. Sometimes that means every shot, other times it'll be very occasionally throughout the session, and every now and then the meter will stay on the shelf.

 

[hlockwood]

I voted "less than half the time" because metering with the M7 is so accurate.

Harry

 

[maddoc]

I use a meter to check my guessed exposure and if the meter readings differ more than two stops I check what is wrong with the meter ... 😀

Seriously, except for 4x5 sheet film and larger where every single photo can be developed according to the light conditions and exposure adjusted to the planned developing process, exposing roll-film (mostly 135-36) is only possible under very consistent light conditions over the time of the photo shooting (studio). Everything else can just be an average exposure process covered mostly by the lattitude of the film.