Light meters, a thing of the past?

[talan]

Do light meters still get used in photography, often?

Why not just use the in-camera metering and trial and error?

Noob question :)

[PureKiwi]

meter are more actuate i spose seeings as the camera one only reads ambient light if your were to be working in a studio you would be using a manual light meter more


oh and to save time with the trial and error maybe ?

[Bigelboe]

The main use they find is in metering scenes using flash and studio lights, you can trigger your flashes while taking an incident light reading in front of the models/subjects face, allowing you to measure and therefore adjust the strength of the lights. You can also trigger the flashes independently to set up background lighting that is two stops darker than the subject lighting for instance. I doubt many professional studio and fashion photographers would be without one. Trial and error or 'chimping' as its commonly referred to is not a very professional, quick, repeatable or accurate(how accurate is your screen?) way to approach the problem :) It's also very expensive if you are using film, which a significant number of fine art portraitists and studio photographers still use.

Also if you really want to know how things will turn out in your photo before you take it by using the incident metering capabilities.

[StanW]

Not all cameras in use have buiult-in meters. My RB and Zorki4K, as well as my older Pentaxes don't.

[shades]

Lightmeters are fantastic - once you have a hand held meter you can use pretty much any camera, or box with a hole in it to take an image with minimum trial and error.

Also in camera meters work by trying to average a scene, so don't always give the reading you want. Of course I use work-arounds with the in camera meter when I'm shooting with my digital camera all the time, but the hand held is far more accurate.

[alphaein]

can be also useful if you want to measure the highlight and shadow ratio of your model or scene, I've never had a light meter but after reading up on some photography books, i think it may be time to get one...

[smurff]

i used to have a really good one, used for work, didnt think i needed it anymore so got rid of it, then started photography lol, bugga

-smurff

[nathanbarlow]

Its on my wish-list (saving for a modern digital one, rather than analog) along with a flash unit, as Im wanting to get into offcamera flash photography.