However built in meters can only measure ambient light.
Hand held light meters digital photography.
A hand held light meter may not seem to be an essential item that you need for digital photography given that all digital cameras have a built in light metering system of some kind.
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How to use the hand held meter.
Smartphones have changed many aspects of photography including metering.
They cannot measure light produced by a flash or studio lighting kit.
Hold the meter in front of your subject with the white dome facing the camera.
Additionally built in memory and comparison capabilities of digital meters enable users to quickly recall and compare readings from other lights or settings to quickly draw conclusions on your light and make adjustments.
At its simplest it calculates an aperture and shutter value that you set your camera to for a correct exposure of a given scene.
A hand held light meter is a small device that can accurately measure the light reflecting off or falling on the subject.
These early light meters were designed not to measure the light reflected by the subject but rather the light falling incident on the subject and became known as incident light meters.
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Some smartphone apps allow you to take a picture and determine the exposure based on that image while other manufacturers are making actual devices to turn phones into handheld light meters.
It can also provide all the aperture and shutter combinations that match an exposure value.
With a handheld meter the angle of coverage is usually fixed for example 40 degrees.
Available in two versions this tiny little photodiode under a diffusion dome connects to any iphone or ipad that uses a standard 3 5mm headphone jack.
It is also favored by those in cinematography too.
Handheld meters also feature many other dedicated functions and accessories including the ability to program for different camera models for increased accuracy.
A handheld light meter is a separate tool for evaluating light intensity and calculating exposure.
With in camera through the lens meters the angle of coverage is governed by the lens you re using or the metering pattern spot versus average etc.
Some people are unfamiliar with or intimated by a hand held meter.
In food photography using a hand held meter when shooting foods can help you get properly exposed images.
Enter the lumu light meter for ios devices.
Well it turns out working with a hand held light meter isn t so scary after all.
The iso range on the meter is 6 to 12 000 with 1 3 step increments and thanks to the amorphous photocell there is no need to worry about using and charging a battery or having to use an external power source.
Set your camera to manual mode and select your preferred iso and aperture.
Set the iso and the aperture on the meter to the same values as your camera.
Choosing a light meter eight things you need to know about light meters.
