Hand held light meters

Sapper44

Sapper44

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Hi all have been thinking of late about buying a light meter.My problem is when i'm out taking photos I find it hard to judge the correct exposure.I find it very difficult in very dark or light situations i'm either under exposed or over exposed.I generally shoot in raw so I can sort it out in lightroom but I would like to try and get it right in camera more often.So any advice would be appreciated.:)
 
Get a meter that can provide Incident light readings. That'll help a lot with those difficult situations.
 
Thanks for the replies.The camera is a a350 usually set to spot and center weighted.My understanding of the correct exposure is you get the little marker in the view finder central to achieve a correct exposure.I generally shot in Aperture mode.The lower the F number the more light get into the lens.The ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor.and the number on the left is the shutter speed.I adjust the F number in aperture or the ISO value to capture more or less light depending on the depth of field I'm looking for.My problem is to know what the F or ISO value should be for a given situation.Say I'm taking a shot on a very bright day my shutter speed is saying 4000 seems whatever I do cant get a correct exposed shot.If I'm in a church taking a shot of the stained glass window no flash being used I blow the picture as the window is over exposed while everything else is dark.I think I know why it's happening the censor is being fooled by the bright light making the camera give a false reading which lead to a poorly exposed shot.So if I get a hand meter will it get the correct reading I simply dial in in manual mode and get a correct exposure regardless what the camera meter indicates.:thinking:
 
Sapper44 said:
Thanks for the replies.The camera is a a350 usually set to spot and center weighted.My understanding of the correct exposure is you get the little marker in the view finder central to achieve a correct exposure.I generally shot in Aperture mode.The lower the F number the more light get into the lens.The ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor.and the number on the left is the shutter speed.I adjust the F number in aperture or the ISO value to capture more or less light depending on the depth of field I'm looking for.My problem is to know what the F or ISO value should be for a given situation.Say I'm taking a shot on a very bright day my shutter speed is saying 4000 seems whatever I do cant get a correct exposed shot.If I'm in a church taking a shot of the stained glass window no flash being used I blow the picture as the window is over exposed while everything else is dark.I think I know why it's happening the censor is being fooled by the bright light making the camera give a false reading which lead to a poorly exposed shot.So if I get a hand meter will it get the correct reading I simply dial in in manual mode and get a correct exposure regardless what the camera meter indicates.:thinking:
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A hand held meter will not help in the situation you describe (in red).

If in a church you can either expose for the window and let the inside go dark, expose for the dark and let the window be overexposed, expose for the window and light the inside with flash (need a lot of flash unless its a small church) or you can take 2 shots, one exposing for the window and one exposing for the interior of the church and combine them in an HDR type program or photoshop.

(In purple)The camera does not know what you are pointing the meter at, if you point it at something light it will try to overcorrect and you will end up with an underexposed image, of you point it at a dark area it will again try to compensate and overexpose. It will only give the correct exposure without help when you point it at a mid grey tone,

You have to adjust your exposure after taking the meter reading to get the result you want, you obviously didn't read and understand the information in the link I posted!
 
Not sure why you would want a light meter as the 350d had one built in.
 
I don't think a hand meter will help at all. There is nothing that a hand meter can do that you can't do with the camera's meter, including incident readings. You just have to understand what it's doing and how to interpret that. And if necessary, adjust it.

I suspect the problem you are having is using the spot facility. It's nothing but trouble unless you're experienced. Set it on evaluative/matrix (or whatever Sony calls it) not spot or centre-weighted, and one of the auto or semi auto modes.

That will always get you pretty close and if you don't like the result you see on the LCD, adjust it with exposure compensation. Learn to read the histogram (it's easy) and enable the highlight over-exposure warning (known as blinkies - see handbook).

Good link on histograms here - http://www.sekonic.com/images/files/HistogramsLightmetersWorkTogether.pdf
 
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