DSLRUsers.com

Hello.

It has been a few weeks since my last visit here and thought I'd take a minute to ask a couple of questions. BTW, I did my first newborn shoot and the mom is happy. Here's one of the over 200 shots I took:



Question one: is there a difference in light meter, flash meter, exposure meter, and which is best for portraits in studio and on location. Also, what part does the incident dome play in all this?

Question two: what would the forum recommend for photo editing short of spending $700 USD for photoshop?

Thanks as always.
dk

dk wrote:Question one: is there a difference in light meter, flash meter, exposure meter,

Light meter and exposure meter are the same thing. A flash meter is a light meter which can also read flash (and there may be flash meters which can only read flash too, I don't know.

I have a Gossen Lunasix which can read reflected light (you point the meter at the subject), incident light (you position the little dome over the light sensor and place the meter where the subject is) and flash (You press the relevant button on the light meter and fire the flash and it gives you the aperture to use - you set the standard flash shutter speed of 1/60)

The flash capability was particularly useful if you were using a flash umbrella for example - most flash guns used to have their sensor at the front - or multiple flashes. And when shooting film, you did not have the luxury of instant feedback.

A light meter was essential for using the Zone system, something I dabbled with but never fully understood.

I now have the fabulous SC29 which is an extension lead for the SB800 and has a sensor on the hotshoe mount. With this, you can point the flash anywhere (including into an umbrella) and let the TTL metering in the camera look after exposure.

The D70 (etc etc) has an excellent light/exposure/flash meter built in. If you learn how to use it, e.g. spot vs matrix, exposure compensation etc, there will be little if any need for a light meter.

Hi DK,

There are a few different meters on the market to choose from however my favourite is the Minolta Flashmeter V (five). It does flash and ambient however the key feature that I like about it is that it beeps to confirm that it has recieved a pulse of light from the flash. This might not sound like a big deal until you get into the hang of using fill flash outdoor on location.

This meter is primarily an incident meter however it can be fitted with a spot attacment. Most of the time though I would use it in incident mode ... it is more accurate and requires less guess work.

The Minolta Flashmeter V is no longer in production however it is worth trying to get a hold of second hand as it is a great meter; the meter that they have replaced it with, the Flashmeter VI does not compare. Buy once and buy right.

Hope this is a help,
Ants

Hi DK

About Software. There is PSE for around $150. It is basically 8 bit and is missing much of the colour management plus a few tools found in PS, but otherwise is okay. Another is Gimp for Windows as a freebie. This one is all 8 bit and no native colour management - IIRC there is rudimentary colour support available as a plugin but I am not sure if it is a Windows thing. UFRaw is the raw plugin for Gimp. It is worth a look.
Maybe a SH copy of PS6 or later - IMO, PS6 is a better option than PSE - PSE started life as a hobbled version of PS6.
There are other options such as Paintshop Pro.

Cheers

do you really need a flash meter, unless you are doing a lot of studio work, as for the dome it will give you a more even reading and takes a bit of getting used to, cameras today have very good light meters which can be set to work in different ways.

for photoshop, have a look at Photoshop Elements 4, it is the little brother to PSCS2 and will do most things that you need to when working on an image

trial version here,,,,,,http://www.adobe.co.uk/products/photoshopelwin/overview.html

Greg B wrote:I now have the fabulous SC29 which is an extension lead for the SB800 and has a sensor on the hotshoe mount. With this, you can point the flash anywhere (including into an umbrella) and let the TTL metering in the camera look after exposure.

Hi Greg, sorry for nitpicking, but you can do that with any TTL flash cord (including the good old SC17), since (by definition) TTL flash metering uses a sensor in the camera.

The thingy built into the hot-shoe mount of the SC29 is an AF assist light, like the one built into the flash itself. The latter won't work with the flash off-camera, so the SC29 restores this function.

I agree that dedicated flash exposure meters are not very high on the list of must-have accessories. The in-camera flash exposure meter is surprisingly good, and with the iTTL flash systems there is plenty of flexibility in fash lighting to play with.

A normal incident light meter can usually be emulated by putting a diffuser like the Expo-Disc over the lens and pointing the camera from the subject to the light source...

Cheers
Steffen.

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments. I am bound and determined to learn to use the spot and matrix metering feature on my D70.

I'll re-post my photograph in another forum.

Thanks again.

dk

Do you have a child or are you a student?

There's always the less expensive academic editions of Photoshop.

Same product, different splash screen.

Nnnnsic,

Yes, I have six children and we homeschool.

What is a splash screen?

Thank for your help.

A splash screen is the little bitmap that appears when you load an application... like when Photoshop Academic Edition loads, a bitmap of the Photoshop logo as well as who made it will pop up, except unlike the regular versions, this will say "Academic Edition" over the top, meaning it's specifically for students and schools.

That's it.

Oh, and the box has "Academic Edition" written on it too, much like the splash screen.