Why does nobody talk about using a phone light for metering?

I kept getting underexposed shots indoors with my Nikon FE until I tried using my iPhone flashlight to meter off a white wall instead of the subject. It actually gave me way better readings for tricky low light scenes. Has anyone else tried this trick or got a better hack for dim rooms?

2 comments

2 Comments

oliver5231mo ago

@thea246 knows what's up with that gray card app trick, helped me out in a dark bar once too.

thea2461mo ago

Honestly that's a clever trick, metering off a white wall with a phone light basically turns it into a makeshift incident meter. Ngl I've done something similar in really dark bars where the FE's centerweighted meter just gets confused by all the shadows. Tbh another hack is using a gray card app on your phone that stays steady in dim light, you hold it up to your lens and meter off that instead of the scene itself. The FE's meter is pretty basic so anything you can do to simplify what it's looking at helps a ton in tricky mixed lighting.