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That $80 light meter I bought saved my roll, or maybe it didn't?
I picked up a Sekonic L-208 TwinMate for around $80 off eBay and used it on a trip to Portland last month. Half my shots came out perfect, but the other half were way off because I think I was metering wrong in tricky light. Did getting a dedicated meter really help you, or do you just use your phone or sunny 16 these days?
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danieltaylor27d ago
Sunny 16 probably works fine for most daylight scenes but it falls apart fast indoors or in mixed light like shade. The TwinMate is a solid meter, just gotta remember to point the white dome toward the camera lens for ambient readings, not toward the light source. Mettering from the wrong angle or in tricky light is usually the issue, not the meter itself.
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jessicaw1127d ago
Wait, is that right about pointing the white dome toward the camera? I always thought for incident metering you point it toward the light source, not the lens. @danieltaylor, I've been using a TwinMate for a couple years now and the manual says point the dome toward the light hitting your subject, not the camera. If you point it at the camera, you're measuring the light coming from behind the subject, which would give you a totally different reading. For flat lighting or even portraits in open shade that might still work, but in mixed light or with a strong directional source, pointing it the wrong way is why people think the meter is bad. The dome is supposed to see the light that's actually falling on your scene, not the light bouncing off you. Just wanted to mention that in case anybody else is struggling with theirs.
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