Which do you use - lightmetre or screen & histogram

light metre or screen and histogram

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Tiptopsteve

Tiptopsteve

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Steve
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As above - I use a lightmetre on all shoots (inside and outside) but know a lot of people who don't. I wondered what peoples thoughts are on the subject?
 
Used the histogram. Recently someone has been teaching me studio portrait work and that has encouraged me to buy a light meter in the last month. I am intending to experiment with using it outdoors as well, to see if it saves any time messing about with exposures. Not had time to try it out yet.

I listen to a lot of photography podcasts and the 'do you use a lightmeter' question comes up a lot. I get the impression that some photographers feel they loose face a bit if they admit to using one.
 
Tiptopsteve said:
As above - I use a lightmetre on all shoots (inside and outside) but know a lot of people who don't. I wondered what peoples thoughts are on the subject?
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I use both a hand meter and the LCD/histogram/blinkies.

Meters are very handy for setting up and getting the exposure in the ball-park, but they know nothing about what happens to the light after it hits the lens. Sometimes it makes no difference, sometimes it makes quite a lot, and what matters is what the sensor actually records. Only the histogram and blinkies show that, and meter is not much use if you want to use expose-to-the-right (ETTR, of the histogram) technique.

Using a hand meter also requires a bit of knowledge and interpretation to be accurate, eg with light from the side or behind (cosine law).
 
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Tend to use both, as well as blinkies and screen, more so for my Art Nudes as for me that is more about the mood of the shot, so will set with meter then adjust to how I want it on screen :)
 
If I'm using flash then I always use a meter, more than anything so I can see what my flash to daylight ratio is and to check power of each flash. If I'm just using ambient light then I just use the histogram.
 
I use a screen and my eyes.

ETA: Perhaps that should be: 'I use my eyes, then a screen , then my eyes again.'
 
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I use both but mainly just tweak the aperture so it looks how I want when it pops up on the laptop.
 
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