How important to have Sekonic Meter ?

[tupurani]

Hi,

I'm want to take some Woww kind of pictures of sunset/sunrise/landscapes.
But often my skies or sometimes foreground get over/under exposed. I'm frustrated.

When I went through some websites, they recommend to use meter like sekonic to take correct exposure reading.

So my question is how important is to have one meter like this ? Will it really help me take landscape or any other light challenging pictures beautifully ?

If so I can plan my budget to buy one.

Thanks
sourav

[RexK_Cozumel]

First off what camera are you using? Secondly a light meter will not really help you to take better landscapes.

The problem that you are describing is due to the vast difference in lighting between the sky and the foreground. This is why a lot of landscape photographers will use a ND Grad Filter to balance the exposure of the sky and the foreground. I have several different ones that I use depending on the scene at hand. If your camera has spot metering then you can just meter the exposure for the sky and then meter the exposure for the foreground and select the correct ND grad filter to make sure nothing gets clipped on the histo.

Or another option is to setup a tripod and bracket a couple exposures and do a HDR.

Oh and Welcome to DPS.

[kirbinster]

I have no clue what meter is, but I just shoot raw and bracket the exposures and seem to make out just fine.

[PhotoNewt]

Originally Posted by tupurani

Hi,

I'm want to take some Woww kind of pictures of sunset/sunrise/landscapes.
But often my skies or sometimes foreground get over/under exposed. I'm frustrated.

When I went through some websites, they recommend to use meter like sekonic to take correct exposure reading...

Your problem is not accurate metering and a handheld meter (Sekonic or other brand) is unlikely to make your landscapes better.

Your problem seems to be that you are not taking into account the significant exposure difference between the sky and the foreground in landscapes. For this type of photography what you need is to take exposure readings from the sky and foreground separately and to use a graduated neutral density filter if needed to bring the exposure of the sky closer to that of the ground - assuming you own an SLR.

Metering the sky:
Put your camera on manual mode and set the aperture to say f/16. Point the camera to the sky making sure not to include the sun and to fill the viewfinder with sky only, set the shutter speed until the exposure is correct and take note of it. Lets say for this example the shutter speed is 1/125.

Metering the foreground:
Next, keep your camera on manual with aperture at f/16, point the camera to the ground (the feature that is most important to you) and again, change the shutter speed until the exposure is correct. Make sure only the ground fills the entire viewfinder area. Let say the shutter speed comes to 1/30.

With this information you can see that the ground will require four times as much exposure time as the sky to come correctly exposed. If you take a picture at 1/30 though, the sky will be overexposed, if you take it at 1/125, the ground will be dark. What you need to do is reduce the amount of light that comes from the sky by 2-stops (1/125 -> 1/60 -> 1/30) so that the entire scene can be captured at 1/30 and everything exposes correctly.

Graduated Neutral Density (GND) filter:
These are pieces of glass where one half is dark and the other is transparent. The dark area blocks light, they come on several strengths and calibrated to decrease light by 1, 2, 3 or more stops, but just on the dark area. What you need to do is choose a 2-stop filter, place it in front of your lens (using a mounting bracket) and align the transition line on the horizon, the dark part covering the sky. This will effectively decrease the light from the sky reaching the sensor by 2-stops, requiring four times longer exposure to register correctly - instead of needing 1/125 second exposure, it now needs 1/30 second exposure, the same as the ground.

With the filter in place, you set up your exposure to f/16 and 1/30, focus as needed and take the picture - this will produce an image where the sky and ground are both properly exposed.

Is taking light measurements with a handheld meter easier and more accurate? Perhaps, but only if you learn how to use a meter and develop a good understanding about exposure; but it can easily be done with your built-in camera meter with very similar results as illustrated above.

A few additional suggestions for better landscapes: work with the lowest available ISO, use a tripod, use mirror lock if available on your camera, use a remote release or the self-timer function, have fun!

Hope this helps...

[Taallyn]

There are a few good books about exposure and metering that you can buy to get a better handle on the concepts involved. I recommend the following:

Understanding Exposure by Brian Peterson. Get the most recent edition as it had been updated to consider digital cameras although even some of that is a bit out of date now.

Understanding Shutter Speed by Brian Peterson. It is a follow-up companion to the previous book that fully encompasses digital photography including how some exposure adjustments can be made in post processing and how to plan for using them when in less than ideal field conditions.

[I]Exploring the Light[/I" by Rick Sammon.

The Complete Guide to Light & Lighting in Digital Photography, by Michael Freeman.

The Photographer's Eye, by Michael Freeman.

DSLRs are wonderful pieces of technology that can expand your creativity and image quality. However since I got mine, I have been noticing how much you still have to know about how light works, how objects affect the light, and how your camera sees light versus how our eyes see light is still very important concepts to learn in order to get the best photographs possible. If you aren't intimidated by all of the information in the preceding posts, then get a couple of these books and you'll find that the knowledge you learn from them will improve your photography in ways that you didn't realize was possible. You really will learn to "see" the world differently as you learn more about light and photography,

[PhotoNewt]

Originally Posted by Taallyn

DSLRs are wonderful pieces of technology that can expand your creativity and image quality. However since I got mine, I have been noticing how much you still have to know about how light works, how objects affect the light, and how your camera sees light versus how our eyes see light is still very important concepts to learn in order to get the best photographs possible. If you aren't intimidated by all of the information in the preceding posts, then get a couple of these books and you'll find that the knowledge you learn from them will improve your photography in ways that you didn't realize was possible. You really will learn to "see" the world differently as you learn more about light and photography,

This is a great point; most photographers fail to relaize that you are NOT taking a picture of an object or person, but rather the light that is reflected from them back to the camera. Everything else being equal, the size, temperature, direction, hardness of light will determine the quality of the image captured.

I also second the references listed, these are classic photography texts that should be on bookshelf of every photographer.

[tupurani]

Thanks a lot for your wonderful explanation about metering. It cleared many doubts i used to have about how to do metering.

But I still have one question. Can we still adjust camera(using the metering technique you described) without using any filters to get fine shots of landscapes (or) filters are still a must to stop light from the sky and synchronizing with the foreground ?

[bmcguirk]

Tupurani, that was a very good question and Newt, you gave an excellent answer. I was a little frustrated as well on some of my landscape photos but will definatley get a nd filter or two. I have to say it again, this forum is such a great place to learn!!

[gh patriot]

Originally Posted by tupurani

Thanks a lot for your wonderful explanation about metering. It cleared many doubts i used to have about how to do metering.

But I still have one question. Can we still adjust camera(using the metering technique you described) without using any filters to get fine shots of landscapes (or) filters are still a must to stop light from the sky and synchronizing with the foreground ?

Need a filter or use the HDR technique.

[PhotoNewt]

Originally Posted by tupurani

Thanks a lot for your wonderful explanation about metering. It cleared many doubts i used to have about how to do metering.

But I still have one question. Can we still adjust camera(using the metering technique you described) without using any filters to get fine shots of landscapes (or) filters are still a must to stop light from the sky and synchronizing with the foreground ?

Answering your qwery: yes and no.

Yes, you can use the metering exercise I described above and get a good idea of the approximate exposure value (EV) of the different portions of the scene.

No, without using some sort of light filtering device to reduce the brightness of the sky and bring it closer to that of the ground is difficult to get an adequate exposure on camera. Without a filter, you will need to make a choice of exposing for the shadows or the highlights - this can certainly be useful if your objective is capturing images for HDR processing.

There is an exception though...if you wait after the sun goes down, there will be a short time where the sky and the ground exposure will be similar enough to get a good exposure. This applies when taking photos of buildings or cityscapes where the foreground is lit with artificial light. You need to take a reading from the lighted buildings and jot it down, then take a reading from the sky every minute until the exposure is same as the buildings and then compose and fire away. This twilight will last only a few minutes so you need to be prepared.

With this technique you can get a picture of a city or building with dark blue lit sky instead of the black patch most people get. Good nighttime building photography is done during this twilight and not any later.