A flash meter is best used in incident mode. When shooting a model, position it in an area where you want a normal, correct exposure (as opposed to a highlight or shadow), point it at the camera lens and fire your strobes. The f-stop displayed on the meter should be your exposure. To see how much light falloff or overexposure you have in other areas, you can reposition the meter and fire again. But your shooting stop should be there reading you get in the spot where you need a correct exposure.
Paul On May 31, 2012, at 3:31 PM, Larry Colen wrote: > I did some art nudes with a friend last night using my studio flash gear. As > an experiment, I pulled out the flash meter and when I'd get my lighting > dialed in, I'd take a picture of the flash meter and a grey card. > As far as I can tell, the way it works is to fire the strobe. the f/stop > that it reads on the meter is the correct aperture for ASA 50 film. Point > the arrow on the dial at that aperture, then look at what aperture lines up > with the ISO, and that's the supposed correct exposure. > > I will say that it never completely blew the exposure, but it was pretty > consistently different from the exposure that I ended up using, about a stop > or so under. In other words plenty of safe headroom for something really > bright in the picture, but not maximizing the SNR on low key digital photos. > Shooting at ISO 80 on the K-5, I think that I could feel confident that if I > used the flash meter, and didn't check the histogram, I would almost never > blow a shot. > > I am coming to the conclusion that it is a valuable tool to know how to use, > that there are situations that it can prove invaluable, but likewise, the > histogram is also a valuable tool, and I'd be foolish to rely on the flash > meter and ignore the histogram, if the histogram were available. > > For those that would like to check for themselves, fluidr shows the exif > data, so you can see the flash meter reading, and my actual exposure data. > http://www.fluidr.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157629987116526/ > > -- > Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
