LIGHT METERS: BECAUSE “THAT LOOKS ABOUT RIGHT” ISN’T A METERING METHOD
INTRO
I’ve used a lot of light meters over the course of my photographic career. Some were indispensable, some were wonderfully specialized, and a few simply made me feel as though I knew exactly what I was doing.
Incident meters were the workhorses, particularly in the studio and on location, where consistency mattered and guessing was rarely a good business plan. Spot meters gave me a more selective way of looking at a scene, whether I was evaluating tonal values, balancing multiple lights, working out lighting ratios, or deciding just how far I could drag the shutter before things became too interesting.
Over time, using a meter became less about finding the “correct” exposure and more about understanding light. A meter gives you information. What you choose to do with that information is where photography begins.
The meters below are ones I have owned, worked with, and in many cases still use. Each found its place in my photography for a particular reason, and a few have been with me long enough to qualify for retirement benefits.
If a meter is still in my Toolbox, it has successfully avoided being kicked to the eBay curb. 😎
I also gave the graphics on this page a little more personality because, while light meters are incredibly useful photographic tools, reading about them is not generally considered a form of entertainment.
I’m doing what I can.
LITERATURE & LINKS
SEKONIC L-308B FLASHMATE & OTHER MODELS:SALES BROCHURE
SEKONIC L-488 DIGI-SPOT:SALES BROCHURE
SEKONIC L-558 DUALMASTER:SALES BROCHURE
GOSSEN LUNA PRO F
The Gossen Luna Pro F was my first light meter, purchased while I was in photography school, and I still have that same meter today. I learned studio lighting with it, which meant spending a lot of time staring at that enormous dial covered with enough numbers to make you wonder whether you were measuring light or preparing to launch something into orbit.
Once you understand it, though, the Luna Pro F is a wonderfully precise and versatile meter. Mine spent most of its working life measuring studio lighting and eventually became a backup as newer meters took over. I still exercise it from time to time and check its calibration against my Sekonic DualMaster L 558R. After all these years, the old Gossen remains right there with it.
And then, decades after I thought the Luna Pro F had mostly retired, pinhole photography gave it another job.
I keep the Luna Pro F in the studio, and its aperture scale goes all the way to f/128, making it particularly useful with the exposure calculations I use for pinhole photography. Many modern meters do not venture that far into the strange little neighborhood of extremely small apertures. The Luna Pro F does.
So it stays.
Partly because it remains a very good meter. Partly because it has proven useful again. And partly because you don’t casually get rid of the light meter that taught you how to measure light in the first place.
For anyone wanting to learn how to operate one, Michael Raso of the Film Photography Project has an excellent Gossen Luna Pro F Light Meter Crash Course video. A PDF of the original Gossen Luna Pro F instruction manual is also available from Butkus.org.
SEKONIC L-558R DUALMASTER
The Sekonic L 558R DualMaster has been my studio workhorse for more than two decades. It combines an incident meter, flash meter, and 1° spot meter in one very capable package and has considerably more programmable functions than I have ever had the desire to use.
I bought it primarily for studio lighting, and that is where it eventually found its permanent home.
The “R” designates the radio transmitter version, which can remotely trigger compatible studio flashes when fitted with the appropriate PocketWizard module. For years, that made the L 558R particularly convenient when working with multiple lights in the studio. Meter, trigger, adjust, repeat. Commercial photography can occasionally be very glamorous.
The built in 1° spot meter is also excellent, with a bright, beautiful viewfinder that makes precise readings easy. When I first bought the DualMaster, I used it both inside and outside the studio and frequently made use of its spot meter. Eventually, though, I came to prefer dedicated spot meters in the field, while the Sekonic stayed behind to do what it does best for me: measure studio lighting.
After more than twenty years, the buttons and finish show plenty of evidence that this meter has actually earned its keep. The electronics, however, just keep going. It has been dropped into camera bags, handled through countless lighting setups, and asked to do its job over and over again without complaint.
There are still functions buried inside it that I have probably never used. At this point, I think we have an understanding: I don’t ask it to reveal all of its secrets, and it continues to measure my lights.
That seems like a perfectly good relationship.
SEKONIC L-488 DIGI-SPOT
I owned three Sekonic L 488 Digi Spot meters, and for about fifteen years they were my on location workhorses for special events and corporate portraiture. These little meters did a tremendous amount of work for me, particularly when I needed to balance flash with the existing light in a room.
A typical setup might involve photographing a corporate group of twenty or more people with a Hasselblad. I could be firing four Vivitar 285HV flashes strategically placed around the group, along with a larger strobe firing into a big softbox. It was not exactly traveling light.
This is where the L 488 earned its keep.
I would use its 1° spot meter to read the ambient light on the wall or background behind my subjects and set my shutter speed accordingly. I would then meter and adjust the flashes so my subjects were approximately one stop brighter. By dragging the shutter, I could retain the warmer ambient illumination of the room while using flash to light the people. Instead of allowing the background to disappear into darkness, the existing light became part of the photograph.
The L 488 could also take spot flash readings, which made it an especially useful tool for this kind of location work. One meter allowed me to evaluate both sides of the equation: ambient light and flash.
There was, however, one thing the L 488 did not particularly enjoy.
Being dropped.
All three of mine eventually visited the repair shop after a fall compromised the battery connection. Apparently I was very loyal to the L 488, because rather than taking the hint, I kept buying another one.
Looking back, the Sekonic L 488 was a terrific professional workhorse. It was accurate, versatile, and particularly well suited to the way I worked on location.
Just don’t introduce it to the floor.
SEKONIC L-308B FLASHMATE
The Sekonic L 308B Flashmate was my Easy Peasy Light Meter. Small, simple, dependable, and refreshingly uninterested in making light metering more complicated than it needed to be.
I used the L 308B for about a decade for on location portraiture, where it proved to be a wonderfully consistent little flash meter. It did what I needed, never gave me trouble, and took up very little room in the camera bag. Sometimes that is exactly what you want from a piece of photographic equipment.
Years later, when I was teaching studio lighting full time, I chose the updated L 308S Flashmate for my students to use during studio assignments and demonstrations. It turned out to be an excellent teaching meter because there wasn’t much standing between the student and the basic concept I wanted them to understand: aperture controls flash exposure.
Measure the flash. Read the aperture. Adjust the light. Measure again.
Easy peasy.
That simplicity is what I continue to appreciate about the L 308 series. There are no forests of menus or armies of programmable functions waiting to ambush you. It gives you the information you need and then politely gets out of the way so you can make photographs.
If I needed another basic flash meter for quick on location work, I would happily buy one again.
Not every light meter needs a graduate degree.
PENTAX DIGITAL SPOTMETER
The Pentax Digital Spotmeter is for Zonies.
Are you a Zonie?
The Pentax is my most used light meter outside the studio when I am photographing with black and white film. It is a beautifully simple 1° spot meter and particularly well suited to photographers who use the Zone System to determine exposure.
I adopted the Zone System early in my photography and have continued using it as a practical method for relating exposure to film development and, ultimately, to the tonal values I want in the finished photograph. The Pentax does not try to do that thinking for me. It simply gives me an EV reading and lets me decide what that reading means.
And that is precisely what I love about it.
Look through the viewfinder. Aim at the area you want to measure. Press the button. Read the number. Now think.
I use a Zone System scale attached to the meter so I can quickly relate those readings to zones while evaluating a scene. Unfortunately, my little zone label occasionally decides it would rather pursue a life independent of the meter and falls off. Someday I really should do something about that.
For photographers learning the Zone System, the Pentax is an excellent companion because there is very little between you and the process of learning to see luminance values and deciding where you want to place them. I explain my own approach in How I Use the Zone System, and Nick Carver also provides an excellent demonstration of spot metering in his BGWG: #1 Light Meters video (starting at 9:24).
After all the sophisticated light meters I have owned, the thing I appreciate most about the Pentax Digital Spotmeter is what it doesn’t do.
It doesn’t make metering complicated.
POCKET SPOT BY METEREDLIGHT
The little light meter that developed a cult following: the Pocket Spot.
The Pocket Spot by MeteredLight is a wonderfully small dedicated spot meter designed specifically with black and white film photographers in mind. It is simple, easy to use, comfortable to carry, and small enough that when I am out photographing with my Hasselblad SWC, it simply hangs around my neck and stays out of the way until I need it.
I bought mine directly from the manufacturer around 2008 or 2009, and it has been with me ever since. Even the battery seems determined to achieve immortality. I have changed it only once.
The Pocket Spot gives its readings in EV, which I prefer, and incorporates a Zone System scale directly into its beautifully simple analog dial. Take the reading, look at the dial, and everything I need is right there. No menus. No programming. No scrolling through modes while the light quietly changes its mind.
It just meters light.
The specification sheet shown above is also the complete instruction sheet that came with the meter. That’s it. The Pocket Spot really is that simple, yet remarkably capable.
Unfortunately, MeteredLight stopped making the Pocket Spot years ago, and finding one today can be difficult. Whenever I have mentioned on photography forums how much I love mine, the responses usually begin arriving:
“If you ever decide to sell it…”
No. 😄
There are plenty of tiny light meters available today, and some are far more sophisticated. But sophistication was never the charm of the Pocket Spot. It is small, beautifully purposeful, and exceptionally good at the one job it was designed to do.
I really cannot say anything bad about it.
There may be many tiny light meters, but there will always be only one Pocket Spot.
MINOLTA SPOTMETER F
The Minolta Spotmeter F is a popular 1° spot meter with a few tricks up its sleeve. The F stands for flash, distinguishing it from the similar Minolta Spotmeter without flash metering capability.
I originally bought mine as a backup for my Pentax Digital Spotmeter. It was a very good backup, too. So good, in fact, that it spent far too much time sitting around waiting for the Pentax to break.
That wasn’t happening, so I gave the Minolta a job.
Today it lives in my Cambo Wide 6×12 panoramic kit, where it has proven to be an excellent all around meter. I particularly like its ability to evaluate different areas of a scene and quickly show me what is happening between the highlights and shadows.
And if you enjoy pushing a few buttons, Minolta has you covered.
Measure a highlight and the H button can calculate an exposure favoring the highlight. Measure a shadow and S does the same for the darker end of the scale. Or memorize readings from the bright and dark areas, press A, and voilà, the meter calculates the average.
Now comes the important part.
You still have to decide what you want the photograph to look like.
Will it be bright and airy with happy highlights? Darker and moodier with a little shadowy, contrasty delight? The Minolta provides plenty of information, but thankfully it leaves the photography to you.
That is what I like about the Spotmeter F. It is sophisticated enough to be genuinely helpful without turning the simple act of measuring light into a computer programming exercise.
And unlike my poor Sekonic L 488s, so far it has managed to stay acquainted with me rather than the floor.
MINOLTA AUTO METER IVF & MORE
The Minolta Auto Meter IV F came to me by way of a gear closet in one of the photography classrooms where I taught. It was a very capable incident and flash meter and served us well until it developed the unfortunate habit of turning itself off shortly after being turned on.
Fresh batteries did not improve its attitude.
Eventually, enough was enough, and I replaced it with a new Sekonic L 308S Flashmate, which became the meter I used with students for studio lighting assignments and demonstrations.
My experience with Minolta meters actually goes much further back. While I was a photography student myself, I had the opportunity to work with a Minolta Color Meter, which introduced me to an entirely different level of measuring light. Exposure metering suddenly seemed simple compared with measuring the color temperature of light sources and figuring out what filtration might be needed. It was an early lesson in just how technical photography could become if you let it.
Minolta built some wonderful professional light meters over the years, and several found their way into my photography, classrooms, or both. The company eventually left the photography business following its merger with Konica and the subsequent transfer of much of its camera technology to Sony, but those old Minolta meters are still very much with us.
And that seems like a fitting place to end this page.
I have used many other light meters over the years, some mine, some belonging to studios or schools, and some whose model numbers have long since escaped my memory. The meters on this page are the ones I remember for a reason. They taught me, worked beside me, solved particular problems, or simply proved too useful to send to the eBay curb.
In the end, a light meter is just a measuring instrument. It can tell me how much light is there, but it cannot tell me what the photograph should look like.
That decision has always been mine.
IMAGES MADE WITH HANDHELD LIGHT METERS
