Light meters are a professional photographer's best friend --- after his assistant.
Light meters are invaluable tools used by nearly every professional photographer. Modern cameras have built-in light meters, it's true, but none can ever be as accurate or as versatile as a dedicated model. These meters allow a photographer to quickly assess the necessary exposure to produce an image under any sort of ambient light just by pressing a button. Studio photographers also employ light meters when setting up a shot with flashes. In corded flash mode, when the lights are connected to the meter by a PC cord, the meter triggers the flashes and simultaneously takes an exposure reading.
Instructions
1. Light the scene you are about to photograph. It's important to position the lights the same distance from the subject that they will be when you take the photograph.
2. Turn on all your lights, battery packs and your light meter.
3. Select the ISO/ASA that you are shooting at in your light meter.
4. Set the light meter to take an incident reading. If necessary, attach the white semi-sphere used for incident readings, which resembles a halved ping-pong ball. This dome evenly distributes the light across the meter's sensor and is designed to approximate the exposure on a curved surface, like an apple or a human face.
5. Set your light meter to corded flash mode. This is usually shown as a bolt of lightning with an arrow at the bottom (the universal symbol for "flash") with a "C" nearby. On most light meters it is accessed by pressing the "Mode" button several times --- your meter's User's Manual has exact instructions.
6. Plug the PC cord that connects the flashes to the camera into the light meter. This connection allows the light meter, rather than the camera, to trigger the flashes.
7. Shut off the room lights, if there are any.
8. Hold the light meter directly in front of the subject with the measurement head pointed back toward the camera's lens.
9. Press the button to measure the exposure. When you press this button, the flashes will fire and the meter will take a reading in the fraction of a second that they are lighting up the scene.
10. Check the meter's LCD screen for the appropriate aperture setting. You don't need to consult the shutter speed as it won't have any effect on the exposure of a scene lit solely with flashes.
Tags: light meter, your light, your light meter, corded flash mode, flash mode, light meter, light meters
