John wrote me privately to ask this last week since he and I had been
talking about the Sekonic L-758, which I have used for several years. I
wasn’t feeling well the day he wrote and forgot to write back. Since he
asked the question here, I’ll answer here so anyone who is curious about
these meters can read the answer.
There are two things that profiling your camera does with the L-758. This
is true also of the L-858, which just replaced the L-758 in Sekonic’s
line. Its very similar to the 758, but has a touchscreen and much better
lowlight capability. I don’t like touchscreen, but I’d buy an L-858 for
the lowlight capability if I had $600 sitting around.
As I said, the profiling does two things. The first is that it compensates
for any inaccuracy in your camera’s ISO settings. Some cameras might have
a stated ISO of, for example, 100 but really be slightly more or less
sensitive than that. I use a Canon 5DmkII and I profiled it at the ISO
settings I most commonly use: 100, 400, 1600, and 3200. The meter did not
do any sensitivity compensation for the 100, 400 or 1600 settings, and it
showed my camera needed an additional 1/10 of a stop of exposure at 3200.
So, the compensation for inaccuracy in the ISO settings was not needed for
my camera. Might be needed for another camera model though; I don’t know.
The 5DmkII is the only digital camera I have profiled.
The second thing it does is that it figures out your camera’s actual
dynamic range, so you know if part of your subject will be too bright or
too dark. What it does is it displays a bar graph with a 0 in the middle
representing middle gray.
On the plus side of the graph are two tick marks. The first one shows the
point on the exposure scale that is the brightest that your camera can
retain detail in. The second one shows the point at which the subject will
render as completely blown-out white.
On the minus side of the graph, its the same. The first tick mark shows
the point at which something will be the darkest that still retains
detail, and the second is the point where it blocks up to pure black.
The way it is normally used is you take an incident reading, save it by
pushing the MIDTONE button (you have to use this button, not the MEMORY
button), then switch to the spotmeter that is built in to the L-758 and
make readings of different things in the photo that you think might fall
outside the dynamic range. The readings will show on the bar graph so you
can see where they fall in your camera’s exposure range. If a bright tone
will fall too high, you can compensate by reducing exposure. If a dark
things will fall outside the range, you can increase exposure. If the
subject is very contrasty and both highlights and shadows will exceed the
camera’s range, then you can decide what to bias for.
In my experience, at least with the subject matter I usually shoot, I have
to watch for blown highlights more than blocked shadows. The 5DmkII has a
lot more latitude in the darks than it does in the lights.
Is it worth the bother? Yes. I do not use this feature all the time, but
for shots with difficult lighting, it has saved me. It is a lot more
accurate than the histogram in my camera! I think it was worth the hour it
took to photograph Sekonic’s profiling target then run the software to
generate the profile. I think it sucks that Sekonic charges $130 for the
target; in my opinion a $600 light meter should have included that,
especially since it is needed for the meter’s most touted feature. Still,
the profiling is useful, and I am happy I did it.
--
Chris Crawford
Fine Art Photography
Fort Wayne, Indiana
260-437-8990
http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com My portfolio
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798
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On 7/24/17, 9:57 PM, "olympus on behalf of John Hudson"
<olympus-bounces+chris=chriscrawfordphoto.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf
of OM4T@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Following the demise of my Sekonic L-508 light meter I invested, rather
>heavily, in a replacement Sekonic meter in the hope that its useful life
>will at least equal that of its now departed cousin and at the same time
>outlast my photo taking days.
>
>One feature of the replacement piece is that it comes with software with
>which I can sync the meter with the "characteristics" of three digital
>cameras. I only have two in use.
>
>For those who have "synced" their digital cameras with their light
>meters is there any significant benefit in doing so or is this just
>another hyped up solution that has found a problem to solve and adds
>little, if anything, to making photos other than adding a little glam to
>light meter advertisements?
>
>To date I have found that the only necessary addition to the incident
>and reflected light meter kit is a piece of 18% grey card.
>
>jh
>--
>_________________________________________________________________
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>
--
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