How to Use Light Meters in Photography

Part of the Video Series Beginning Photography Tips & Techniques

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Don't overexpose your photos! Learn how to use light meters in the free instructional video for beginning photographers.

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How to Use Light Meters in Photography
Hi, I’m Scott Vallance with Expert Village.com. If you would like to see more of my work you can go to vipphotographic.com. Today we are going to talk about light meters. There are several different kinds. There are camera meters which everyone with a 35mm camera has been manufactured in the last 30 years is going to know. Basically those are real good for just average exposures. If your subject is back lit that is not so good for that. If you are going to do back light subjects you will probably need something like this. This is a spot meter. It actually goes and has a little area in it that will go in and measure just a part of your subject so that if it is back lit you can go in on just the face and take a light meter reading off just the face. There are also flash meters which are good for portable and studio strobes. A lot of the good ones such as Minolta or Gossen or Sekonic can actually do ambient and flash combined so that you know what your ratios are going to be. Then there are standard ambient flash meter which all it does is measure your constant light sources such as the sun, interior light and things like that. Those are your basic type of light meters. Hand held meters will give you a lot more versatile than your camera meters. Thank you.

About the Expert

Expert: Scott Vallance is the owner of VIP Photographic.com. He graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography. Read More