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A couple years ago I began my journey into the world of Off Camera Light.  I’ve learned a great deal from Zack Arias and David Hobby, the two heavyweights in this arena (and that’s really not a jab at their size–these guys know their stuff).  I’ve been on a steady diet of David’s Strobist blog for two-and-a-half years now and attended Zack’s OneLightWorkshop in Indianapolis almost two years ago.  If you’re looking to learn off-camera light, these are great places to begin.

In all that time, I had never owned nor used a light meter.  A light meter is a little gadget that reads ambient and/or flash light levels and tells you what shutter speed and/or aperture settings to use on your camera.  With digital cameras that have a monitor on the back, you can shoot your subject and look at the histogram to check your exposure.  If the histogram is pushed too far to the right or left, you adjust your aperture or shutter speed accordingly, take another shot, and check again (this is called “chimping“).  Repeat until the histogram looks good.

I’ve followed this approach since I got started with off-camera light and always considered a light meter an unnecessary device.  Recently, though, I picked up Austin-based photographer Kirk Tuck’s Minimalist Lighting.  Kirk’s approach in this book is very similar to that of the others: use small flashes and less expensive gear when the situation warrants.  He talks about metering a little bit in the book but not a great deal.  At any rate, Kirk started a flickr group and has made it known there that he uses a light meter almost all the time.  This intrigued me, especially since the Strobist/OneLight approach typically eschewes light meters.

I’d found over the last two years that my chimping method usually produced good exposures but sometimes I’d get the images back on the computer and find I was significantly over- or under-esposed.  Not good.  I like to get things right in the camera and not have to fix them later.  So Kirk’s continual beating of the “use a light meter” drum came at the right time and finally wore me down.  I bought a Sekonic L-358, a popular model with studio photographers.

So far I’ve had occasion to use it on two sessions in the last week: an engagement shoot and a quick portrait for a podcast series I do for my employer (http://insidelccs.com).

For the engagement shot (below), I set my flash, a Nikon SB-800 connected to a PocketWizard Plus II, on the banister behind the couple and took a meter reading where I expected them to stand. I put them into position and went outside. It was really cold so I didn’t want to mess around, running back and forth changing flash power settings, chimping, etc. I shot a frame and checked the histogram–maybe a stop less than what I wanted to see. Backlighting was the culprit, I’d guess. I bumped the ISO up a stop, took another frame, and–bam!–I was in business. Very quick workflow on site, and a small tweak to the exposure in Lightroom in post-production got the photo where I wanted it.

I made the headshot below this morning. Very simple setup: a Nikon SB-800 bounced into a reflective umbrella, subject about 8 feet in front of the wall. The flash was set on 1/4 power, I took a meter reading–good to go. A dozen frames later and we’re done.

Guess what? Meters work, and they can make your life easier!  If you haven’t used a light meter in your off-camera lighting, seriously consider it.  They can save you time and help ensure that your subject is properly exposed without having to resort to guesswork.

Filed under: Photography by Michael