Recommend Me A Light Meter?

[Vincent.G]

I need to have incident and reflected light metering. Able to spot meter is a bonus. General usage indoors and for street use. I will not be using it for flash photography.

It must be reliable and accurate because I need it for shooting slides occasionally with my meterless cameras - Nikon S3 and Mamiya C220.

Thank you! 🙂

 

[sebastel]

i like to use both the sekonic L-208 twinmate (compact!) and the old gossen sixtomat digital.
no spot metering, though.

 

[divewizard]

1) Gossen digi-six - small, accurate, inexpensive
2) Pocket Light Meter (a free iphone app) - It meters a movable spot on the screen. ISO, Shutter, & Apature are all adustable in full, 1/2 or 1/3 stop increments. It has a calibration function. The results match pentax spot meter and gossen dig-six within 1/3 stop so long as a portion of the screen is not blown out. and it is free!

 

[WDPictures]

I was able to get a good price for the sekonic 758. Has tons of features like a DSLR that I don't really use but also does the general stuff conveniently so I don't get lost in menu screens and buttons. Price may be offensive. http://www.sekonic.com/products/Sekonic%20L-758DR%20DIGITALMASTER.asp

 

[Debusti Paolo]

gossen digisix or digiflash,and can be mounted on shoe adapter...

 

[martin s]

I like the Sekonic L-508.

martin

 

[dacookieman]

Get the Sekonic 308s, its compact, easy to use and affordable. Very handy, does incident and reflective metering.

You can try it out if u want to🙂

 

[Steve_F]

I had a Sekonic 308, there was nothing wrong with it but I sold it to buy a Sekonic L508. The spotmeter is really, really useful once you've learnt how to use it properly.

Steve.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Another vote for the 308s.

 

[chrismoret]

Got a Kenko KFM 1100. Suitable for both ways of measuring. Great meter!

 

[Richard G]

I like the Gossen DigiPro F. It's flat and light but not tiny. I can carry it in the inside pocket of a jacket and it sits there so easy to whip out for a brief reading. It is chiefly an incident meter, as a reflected reading requires the cone to be unscrewed and removed. It has swivel head so an incident reading can be made with the head facing the camera and the user, and a reflected reading can be made with the top of the meter directed with the meter held flat so as the readout can be read. The LED display is big but not backlit. The controls are brutally minimal. Aperture priority, shutter speed priority, EV, flash and setting the ISO and any exposure correction value are the modes selected with the left and right arrows, and the up and down arrows change the correction or ISO or run through the read out values for the different shutter or aperture combinations depending on the priority selected. The M button is to take the reading. All buttons are on the face and it is just as easy to use left as right handed.

 

[CSG123]

Anything bigger than the Sekonic L-208 and it will stay home so that's what I got although I usually just trust my experience.

 

[John Lawrence]

Sekonic L-308s or Sekonic L-608 Super Zoom Master (if you want a spot meter as well).

John

 

[Vincent.G]

I had a sekonic twinmate L-208 but I find its readings unreliable at times. Its incident light function had grossly overexposed some of my shots. For outdoors i depend on sunny f16. For indoors (which i shoot most of the time), i depend on light meter. For a middle tone object, its reflected and incident light readings differed by 2 stops and sometimes 1 stop. At least with a reproducible error, I can compensate. But its unreliability frustrates me. Currently I am using Nikon F3 as a glorified reflected light meter.

 

[mwooten]

I've used a Polaris for the past ten or so years. It's not tiny, but it weighs very little. The battery seems to last for years and years. Easy enough for me to use too. 🙂

 

[Vics]

Get the Sekonic 308s, its compact, easy to use and affordable. Very handy, does incident and reflective metering.

You can try it out if u want to🙂

Plus 1
Vic

 

[Jason Sprenger]

Of my meters, I like the Sekonic L-308s best overall with a hand-held camera. The incident metering isn't as tricky as a L-208, sensitive enough for indoors unlike my Dad's old L-398 Studio, and more portable than my Gossen Luna-Pro F while as capable for my needs.

Technically, my L-508's spot makes it more capable, but the L-308s is a hair bigger than a deck of cards. In my RF kit, it's in a Domke F-5xb with a camera and 3 lenses until I wear it. The Luna-Pro F or L-508 would crowd-out too much for me.

And using a flash, the meter takes a AA battery as used by portable flashes and that's available everywhere.