All posts about light meters.

Extra note on calibrating lightmeters

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Something a lot of people struggle with when calibrating the light meter is the calibration… on this blog I have a special selection on light meters (check it out :-)).
When I teach my students to calibrate the meter to the camera I always use an 18% gray card and shoot this in a as flat as possible light situation and make sure that in the workflow I use the values for this card are 128.128.128

 

Here is where the confusion starts.
Some cameras are calibrated different, cameras use reflective metering and are set in values between 12-18% gray. Meaning that some cameras will yield different exposures, which can be compensated. A lot of this has to do with the gamma curves and different colorspaces. For example when we look at LAB a gamma curve of around 2.47 will Yield a 128.128.128 value, but mostly gammas of 1.8 and 2.2 are used in colorspaces like sRGB and ProPhotoRGB.
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A small tips video on the lightmeter

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Because there are so many questions about the light meter, we shot a small video covering the basics.
And actually everything you need to know I think to start using the meter.

All people that …… are ……. WORD!!!

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Must be the weirdest title I ever used for an article.
You can fill in the blanks yourself, but let me start by doing one that I wrote this article about.

 

All people that don’t meter are stupid……
And before you explode and start mailing me, please read on.
Every week I get a few mails from people that have seen me using a meter and they are always in 2 camps. 1 group will try to convince me that they love the work I do but advise me to stop using a meter, the other group wonder why there are so many people out there on the web, on youtube, on training sites etc. who still struggle without a meter.


It’s no secret that I love to use my meter, in every workshop there is some attention to the meter and how to proper use the tool. And there we go already please do remember that the meter is just a tool. In the end it all boils down that we tell a story with our images, move people with our images or/and make something interesting for other people to enjoy, endure or love. That’s photography. Using a meter is just a tool to get to that end result.

 

First things first
Don’t read this as if I say that you shouldn’t use a meter, no way.
I strongly (and really read STRONGLY) believe that if you’re into photography, and you don’t even have to be a pro, you will have to use a meter to get accurate and constant results. I really don’t care if people say that they get great results without meter, my answer to them is “you will get there quicker and probably even get better results when you DO use a meter”. But in the end, and please do remember this…. you can make shitty images with a meter and great work without. But let’s look at some things I want to clarify.

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Light in light….. metering tip

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During our trip to Vegas PSW I will of course keep you updated with small videos and photos and a few questblogs, however I will also start a new series with small and quick tips, I hope you guys forgive me that I won’t write long blogposts during these two weeks, but I will make sure it’s still very interesting to visit the blog every day.

Do you also reach for the fill slider often ?
Do you also find that there is to little detail in the shadows ?
If so…. maybe this quick tip will help you out.

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