There are various types of light meters suitable for shooting indoor portraits.
There are several options for metering light when shooting indoor portraits with the Pentax K100D. There is a built-in meter, a handheld reflective meter, handheld incident meter and a handheld spot meter as well as viewing the image on the LCD screen and adjusting camera settings to reach the correct exposure. Each has its benefits and drawbacks.
Built-in Meter
The Pentax K100D has a built-in light meter that measures the light reaching the sensor in the camera through the lens. The K100D meter is mutli-segmented, meaning it measures light from various parts of the scene to calculate the proper exposure. This type of metering is very accurate in most circumstances.
The K100D meter can also be switched to center-weighted meter, which measures the light of the whole scene but puts more emphasis on the correct exposure in the center of the scene.
The meter can also be switched to a spot meter, which measures just the center, allowing a photographer to take very precise exposure measurements of different parts of a scene.
Handheld Incident Meter
While the built-in meter of the Pentax K100D is suitable for taking indoor portraits, some photographers prefer to use a handheld incident light meter such as those offered by Sekonic. This meter measures the amount of light striking a scene as opposed to the camera's meter, which measures the light reflected off the objects in a scene. The advantage of an incident light meter is that the measurements are not fooled by overly bright or dark objects such as certain skin tones, which could fool the K100D's meter into overexposing or underexposing the image.
Handheld Reflective Meter
A handheld reflective light meter, like those made by Gossen, works in the same way as the built-in meter of the Pentax 100D. It measures the amount of light reflected back from the scene. The advantage of a handheld meter is the ability to leave the camera on a tripod while moving the handheld meter around the scene being photographed to measure various parts of the scene.
Trial and Error
Unlike film cameras, a digital camera like the Pentax K100D allows for instant review of images via the LCD screen. A photographer has the ability to shoot and adjust camera settings until the desired exposure is reached through a process of trial and error. While more time-consuming than accurately measuring with other light meters, the trial-and-error method reaches the same result: proper exposure.
Flash Meter
Many handheld meters, both incident and reflective, also have the ability to act as a flash meter. This metering method is used to measure the necessary settings when using various flashes. This is especially useful when using third-party flashes or strobes, including most studio strobes, that do not take advantage of the automatic TTL flash capabilities of the Pentax K100D.
Tags: measures light, Pentax K100D, indoor portraits, K100D meter, meter which
