What are you using for a light meter?

Stdon said:
I guess you've never done a shoot mixing strobes, reflectors, ambient light and shadows. Without a light meter you'd be faffing and waffling about. With a meter you can easily set your ratios and with a couple of minor adjustments of the lighting using the meter - bam perfect exposures.

I agree, simple stuff one should develop the ability to read the light, but when on a shoot and things start getting complex a meter is an tool I wouldn't want to be without. I even use it for one light setups particularly when I want to nail the ratio between strobe and ambient natural light. It's faster, quicker, easier and far more accurate to use a meter.
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Totally agree ... but for casual shooting that doesn't involve any form of artificial lighting I'm happy to meter by estimation. For anything complex I have a 308s that I rate very highly ... it's a great meter.
 
I usually have a Leicameter MR on my M4. With other meterless cameras, or when it's getting dark, my trusty Lunasix. I have a Lunapro, but it's just too large. Lunasixes are plentiful and cheap on ebay, but you need to get the seller to confirm its accuracy. Old Weston masters are found in huge numbers on ebay, but at least 90% read way low or not at all. As with all ebay purchases, "untested" means it almost certainly doesn't work. "I don't have a battery to test it with" is especially amusing with the selenium Westons.

Cheers,
Dez
 
I had a little CV meter for a while but often found that when I used it in the accessory shoe I'd forget to alter the cameras settings after adjusting the meter. Some sort of mental block but it used to drive me mad and I eventually just used it as a pocket meter ... generally reading incident light of the back of my hand.
 
for my M4 or MF's I carry a VCII, small compact and easily "lost" but incredibly accurate even in low light situation. I do, however, try to guess the exposure most times where I have time. good practice to read light and shade.
 
Like a few other folks here, I use a Sekonic L-308S--small and accurate. Oh, and someone gave it to me for free, so that's its main advantage!

But, really, I usually only break it out if I'm shooting slide film. For black and white, I also habitually use Sunny F11 (opening one stop as I'm living in grey old London).

If you do get a nice hand meter, a fun exercise to play is to walk around with it and mentally estimate your exposure. Then pull out the meter and measure it to see how close you were. After a few days at most, you'll become quite expert at estimating the light, and you'll find that when shooting BW, your brain works faster and more conveniently than the meter--and just as accurately.
 
I was about to purchase a Sekonic 208 when I stumbled upon a Leica MC for $20

For the price, it was a no brainer even if it was a risk that it actually worked properly. I've been judging it's exposure readouts by the Pocket Light Meter iPhone app as well as my x100s. So far it is pretty accurate! Only thing I'm unsure of is how to change for different ASA films. I'm using 400 at the moment, but if I move to 100 I'm not sure how to compensate.
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I've been shooting with an M8 & 21mm f/3.4 Super-Angulon recently which is in effect meter-less. So I've relied upon careful consideration of the scene and lighting conditions and have found (by reviewing the histogram) that I am generally within a stop of the exposure that I would consider optimal. Of course this only works within limitations (no really complex lighting situations) and becomes more problematic in low light when eyes adapt rather too effectively, but it is really liberating not to have to carry yet another bit of photo paraphernalia around (I've become a real minimalist).
 
mdwsta4 said:
Thanks for some of the suggestions.

I do like the Voigtlander, but it's over $200. Seems excessive to me. Same with the Gossen at $175.

Some of the other meters are extremely large and that's what I was hoping to avoid. I like to travel extremely light and having a giant light meter in my pocket isn't feasible. I know I wouldn't carry it.

Shame to hear about the Luxi not fitting properly. For the price-point that would have been hard to beat. Doesn't sound like anyone has the Lumu yet.

I'll keep my eyes open for a used (cheaper) gossen and voigtlander. I'll also do more testing with iphone apps and cameras with built in meters to see just how close/accurate it is.

Eventually I'd love to be able to be spot-on with my exposure and in general I can get close most of the time, but the advantage with digital cameras is that if I'm off I can easily delete, adjust, and reshoot. Not confident enough to do that with film just yet.
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I do like you're attitude. In time you'll develope a "feel".
 
Sekonic L-308s, Minolta Auto Meter VF, and - on occasion my iPhone 5 running the Pocket Light Meter App. The latter is always with me so...
 
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