Where do you point your Iight meter?

lance70 · Feb 5, 2016

Hello, wondering where photographers point their light meter and your reason behind it....I watched several videos and it shows pointing towards the main light source but then I read a few articles and it shows the importance of pointing the light meter back to the camera....

480sparky · Feb 5, 2016

If I'm taking an incident reading, I aim it at the light source. That tells me how much light I have. Aiming it at the camera may make it a shadow meter instead of a light meter.

tirediron · Feb 5, 2016

You meter the area you want the exposure information for. Generally speaking, that is the area that the camera will be pointing at. In lighting situations where you're using large light sources, it likely make too much difference, but if you're using smaller, or more controlled light sources, then it becomes critical. In this image, lit with a single speedlight driving at 24" gridded beauty dish, I placed the meter directly in front of the client's nose pointing toward the camera. This way it only received part of the intensity of the strobe. Had I pointed it directly up at the flash and it measured the full intensity of the strobe, then the shadow side would have been severely under-exposed.

KmH · Feb 5, 2016

How to Use a Handheld Light Meter

unpopular · Feb 5, 2016

Yeah. I thought you incident metered to the camera, unless you're measuring ratios, then you meter toward the source.

tirediron · Feb 5, 2016

unpopular said:
Yeah. I thought you incident metered to the camera, unless you're measuring ratios, then you meter toward the source.

That's the thing, there is no one right answer, but most of the time, especially in ambient light work, the 'general area' is close enough. Once you get into percentages of ambient vs. flash and highlight/midtone/shadow ratio it gets a little more important.

unpopular · Feb 5, 2016

and with digital its so easy to chimp that it's just as fast using a meter anyway.

at least for me. I'm sure a more experienced studio photographer would disagree.

tirediron · Feb 5, 2016

unpopular said:
and with digital its so easy to chimp that it's just as fast using a meter anyway.

at least for me. I'm sure a more experienced studio photographer would disagree.

It probably is... I still meter everything; not sure if it's force of habit, or 'cause of how cool I look using the meter!

table1349 · Feb 5, 2016

unpopular said:
and with digital its so easy to chimp that it's just as fast using a meter anyway.

at least for me. I'm sure a more experienced studio photographer would disagree.

Some of us probably would. :biggrin-93:

The point is, use what works.

snowbear · Feb 5, 2016

tirediron said:
t probably is... I still meter everything; not sure if it's force of habit, or 'cause of how cool I look using the meter!

Hipster!

tirediron · Feb 5, 2016

snowbear said:
tirediron said:

t probably is... I still meter everything; not sure if it's force of habit, or 'cause of how cool I look using the meter!

Click to expand...

Hipster!

I'm pretty sure that's the first (and likely last) time anyone has ever called me a "hipster"!!! :lol:

table1349 · Feb 5, 2016

unpopular · Feb 6, 2016

tirediron said:
snowbear said:

tirediron said:

t probably is... I still meter everything; not sure if it's force of habit, or 'cause of how cool I look using the meter!

Click to expand...

Hipster!

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that's the first (and likely last) time anyone has ever called me a "hipster"!!!

judging by the avatar, seems more likely he's a regular at the local railroad club!

decyjohn · Feb 12, 2016

Well, this blog entry was prompted by this post on a photography forum. It started off with a perfectly simple question but I made the mistake of mentioning that the meter needs to be pointed, not at the light, but at the camera.

And that started some discussion, with different people expressing different views, so I thought it might be a good idea to demonstrate why the laws of physics proves that the meter needs to be pointed towards the camera (which sees the actual amount of light reflected towards it, not the amount of light that the meter sees when it’s pointed directly at the light.

beachrat · Feb 13, 2016

decyjohn said:
Well, this blog entry was prompted by this post on a photography forum. It started off with a perfectly simple question but I made the mistake of mentioning that the meter needs to be pointed, not at the light, but at the camera.

And that started some discussion, with different people expressing different views, so I thought it might be a good idea to demonstrate why the laws of physics proves that the meter needs to be pointed towards the camera (which sees the actual amount of light reflected towards it, not the amount of light that the meter sees when it’s pointed directly at the light.

For basic incident metering,I'd think it should be directed at the camera.
But,for setting up ratios with multiple lights,it would need to be pointed at each light source individually.