Sekonic Light Meter

[Stagecoach]

I'm waaay in over my head in here. Lol..
"What am I doing wrong?"
When I asked that, I was looking for an answer to why when I use my light meter I am getting blown out highlights.

It has not yet been confirmed if you were using your light meter correctly and the info as requested in Bill's post 44 will help to determine the 'correctness' of the procedure you used and all that led to the result you got.

It was my inexperienced thinking, that if I use it and set the settings, I would get a perfect picture.

Yes, depending upon how you used it and the information it gave you.

I see now that something in the picture has to give and it was the sky behind my children.

"Give" can some times be fully recoverable

As for "way in over my head", I would disagree, when you can already capture images as good as this one.

[george013]

I'm waaay in over my head in here. Lol..
"What am I doing wrong?"
When I asked that, I was looking for an answer to why when I use my light meter I am getting blown out highlights.
It was my inexperienced thinking, that if I use it and set the settings, I would get a perfect picture. I see now that something in the picture has to give and it was the sky behind my children.
I think...

Just don't forget that a light meter is capturing a single value of light and uses that value to calculate some camera settings. This results that this captured light value to be placed in the middle of the histogram. So if you measured the kids, they will be placed in the middle of the histogram. But if they where sitting in the shadow, their reflection of light might be more to the left, darker. When moving everything to the right, the most right side might be clipping, blinkies.
This same story also counts for incident metering. In that case you measure the light source with a cap before the meter. This cap will filter about 82% of the light. The idea behind this is that the average reflecting of light from subjects is 18%.

Some from Sekonic http://www.sekonic.com/oman/classroo...reflected.aspx

I hope you understand my language.

William was trying to tell you how to deal with this knowledge.

George

[Evertking]

I took an ambient reading just between the two of them as they played. The dome was covering the sensor.

[pnodrog]

I took an ambient reading just between the two of them as they played. The dome was covering the sensor.

With the dome facing the camera?

[xpatUSA]

Just don't forget that a light meter is capturing a single value of light and uses that value to calculate some camera settings. This results that this captured light value to be placed [just to the left of] the middle of the histogram. So if you measured the kids, they will be placed [just to the left of] the middle of the histogram. But if they where sitting in the shadow, their reflection of light might be [even] more to the left, darker. When moving everything to the right, the most right side might be clipping, blinkies.

Evert, George's description above is for measuring the light that is reflected from the kids. For that, if you followed the Sekonic instructions, you would have had to push the dome to one side and replace it with a flat disk accessory (the Lumidisk) and point it at the kids. Do not be confused - this is the method George is referring to and it is called reflected light metering.

This same story also counts for incident metering.

Incorrect and misleading.

In that case you measure the light source with a cap before the meter.

Incorrect. The convention is to point the dome at the camera, not at the sun.

This cap will filter about 82% of the light. The idea behind this is that the average reflecting of light from subjects is 18%.

Incorrect - unless George can post a link to where Sekonic says exactly that.

But did I wonder about the meaning of "cap" so I looked in the Sekonic 308 manual - no such item is mentioned. Maybe George is talking about the Lumidisk being fitted and used to measure light from several sources in a studio - not applicable in the case of your kids sitting outside illuminated only by the sky. Way more complication than you need, Evert.


The purpose of the dome is a) to collect light in an approximately cardioid 3D pattern and, internally, to diffuse that collected light evenly over the sensor. The gain is set by circuitry internally to give incident light readings either in lux or foot-candles (some models in cd/m^2) - George's 18% does not come into that calculation at all.

Some from Sekonic http://www.sekonic.com/oman/classroo...reflected.aspx

I hope you understand my language.

George

A useful one-page link for beginners.

George's English is much better than my Nederlands !!

Evert, PLEASE put us out of our misery. Did you point the dome at the kids, the camera position or the sky ??

[Manfred M]

I'm waaay in over my head in here. Lol..
"What am I doing wrong?"
When I asked that, I was looking for an answer to why when I use my light meter I am getting blown out highlights.
It was my inexperienced thinking, that if I use it and set the settings, I would get a perfect picture. I see now that something in the picture has to give and it was the sky behind my children.
I think...

Unfortunately, this is all to common an issue with many websites as questions / answers can sometimes go a bit sideways as some of the finer points of the question get discussed.

By the way, welcome to CiC. Would you mind clicking the "My Profile" button on the top of this page and at least filling in your first name and where you are from. We tend to be a fairly informal group and go about on a first name basis.

One other thing that was buried in the various responses / comments. Can you confirm how you metered the exposure. The meter you are using can be used in either incident mode or reflective mode. If you use the meter with the Lumidome extended and meter in a location that is very close to your subject and point it towards the camera, then you are in incident mode.

With the L-358 that I use, I can replace the Lumidome with a Lumidisk and point the meter at my subject while standing near my shooting position. This is reflective mode and I assume that your meter has this as well.

Which metering mode were you using and where were you taking the meter reading from?

[xpatUSA]

Which metering mode were you using and where were you taking the meter reading from?

To heighten the suspense, we should almost run a book on the outcome.

From what the OP has said so far, my bet would be that he placed the Sekonic (with the dome on it) between the kids, angled so he could read the display (probably blocking some light in so doing), probably not pointed directly at the camera's intended position, and took a reading.

Evert? . . . (over) . . .

[Cantab]

I took an ambient reading just between the two of them as they played. The dome was covering the sensor.

Evert, there are several other pieces of information that are needed before accurate assistance can be given to you. Bill posed four questions in post 16 and (I believe) 51.

[george013]

Evert, George's description above is for measuring the light that is reflected from the kids. For that, if you followed the Sekonic instructions, you would have had to push the dome to one side and replace it with a flat disk accessory (the Lumidisk) and point it at the kids. Do not be confused - this is the method George is referring to and it is called reflected light metering.



Incorrect and misleading.



Incorrect. The convention is to point the dome at the camera, not at the sun.



Incorrect - unless George can post a link to where Sekonic says exactly that.

But did I wonder about the meaning of "cap" so I looked in the Sekonic 308 manual - no such item is mentioned. Maybe George is talking about the Lumidisk being fitted and used to measure light from several sources in a studio - not applicable in the case of your kids sitting outside illuminated only by the sky. Way more complication than you need, Evert.


The purpose of the dome is a) to collect light in an approximately cardioid 3D pattern and, internally, to diffuse that collected light evenly over the sensor. The gain is set by circuitry internally to give incident light readings either in lux or foot-candles (some models in cd/m^2) - George's 18% does not come into that calculation at all.



A useful one-page link for beginners.

George's English is much better than my Nederlands !!

Evert, PLEASE put us out of our misery. Did you point the dome at the kids, the camera position or the sky ??

Without owning a digital light meter, the lumidisc is used for something else as reflective. Reflective metering is done without the dome.
Some, more modern(?), light meters have the adjustments in it self.

The discussion about the dome we had before but you seem to have forgotten

George

[Evertking]

Hello, sorry I'm a little late to the party
I didn't use the Lumadisk? I lost that little thing shortly after oi opened the package. I need to find it.
I placed the dome between my children and facing back towards the camera position.

[Evertking]

To heighten the suspense, we should almost run a book on the outcome.

From what the OP has said so far, my bet would be that he placed the Sekonic (with the dome on it) between the kids, angled so he could read the display (probably blocking some light in so doing), probably not pointed directly at the camera's intended position, and took a reading.

Evert? . . . (over) . . .

And this very well could have been the case.

[xpatUSA]

Without owning a digital light meter, the lumidisc is used for something else as reflective. Reflective metering is done without the dome.
Some, more modern(?), light meters have the adjustments in it self.

The discussion about the dome we had before but you seem to have forgotten

George

Whatever you say . . . 'bye . .

[mikesan]

I'm waaay in over my head in here. Lol..
"What am I doing wrong?"
When I asked that, I was looking for an answer to why when I use my light meter I am getting blown out highlights.
It was my inexperienced thinking, that if I use it and set the settings, I would get a perfect picture. I see now that something in the picture has to give and it was the sky behind my children.
I think...

This thread has wandered around quite a bit since your original question. Some of the information provided may well prove useful to you in advancing your quest for the "perfect picture" (with or without your incident meter). Unfortunately very little directly responds to your question: "What am I doing wrong?" As I suggested in my first post in this thread; you have done nothing wrong. On the contrary you deserve high marks for recognizing (either intuitively or after reasoned analysis) that the scene had a rather high dynamic range and that, in order to determine a proper exposure for the subjects of interest (the children), the use of an incident meter would be a sensible solution. Initially the appearance of blinkies in the highlights caused you to question your technique. I think you now recognize that, when any scene has shadows and/or highlights that are outside the range which the sensor can capture, "something has to give". The problem is determining what part of the scene can "give" and what parts cannot.

The common sense approach to this problem (when shooting in the field) is to ensure the exposure of the important part of the scene is as close to ideal as possible, and to accomplish this (imho) the use of an incident meter is a sensible solution when possible. Whether or not your use of the meter was technically correct has been the subject of some discussion and is certainly worth consideration if you intent to use this meter in future. I had no qualms about that point since it was clear from the image that the exposure of the children was nearly spot-on.

Other respondents have suggested alternative solutions to the problem of dealing with high dynamic range scenes. In particular when one desires clear results in both the highlights and shadows. Most of these solutions involve rather extensive post processing. It's nice to have these tricks in your pocket but I rather doubt that any would yield a much improved image in your particular situation.

My advice is: keep on using your meter in a variety of situations. Learn when it provides a better result than alternative metering methods (and when it does not).

[xpatUSA]

This thread has wandered around quite a bit since your original question. Some of the information provided may well prove useful . . .

The element of doubt appears, in spite of all our best efforts.

. . . to you in advancing your quest for the "perfect picture" (with or without your incident meter).

Unfortunately, very little directly responds to your question: "What am I doing wrong?"

So little . . . in spite of all our well-meaning and knowledgeable help!

Good job that someone has showed up to save the thread from all it's "wandering around", eh?

[Evertking]

Exposure compensation is something I always do in tough lighting conditions as well.

With Nikon, when I set the camera to fast burst mode, it will take the shots (I generally shoot three), it will take the shots all in a row and then stop. This gives me a good chance of getting a good single shot image, but also offers me the option of three shots that I can easily align in Photoshop. Using layer masks and the brush tool I can "pseudo dodge and burn" using data from two or three frames. This gives me a well exposed image where the shadow detail and highlights are easy to blend together and create a better looking image than one that comes from a single exposure.

I would love to learn this. This is done in Photoshop and with the merge option, right? I'm going to look at YouTube and try and find some info on this. Photoshop is intimidating and I have put it off and put it off. I need to learn it.

This thread has a lot of good information in it. Most is beyond my skill level. I thought when I got my light meter I was good to go. But it seems there is way more to it than I thought. And the saying "get it right in camera" is misleading.
But I have learned that I need to use the meter to get me in the ballpark, check the image, try and push the histogram as far to the right as possible and then in post sprinkle my pixie dust and collect my merit, right?
I was hesitant to post images because of all the talent here but than I seen how helpful this community is and if I don't post I can't learn what I'm doing wrong. Thanks for all the help.
About how long into photography did you notice an improvement?

[pnodrog]

To be fair the information provided at the beginning was insufficient to answer the question properly. In order to accurately answer "what am I doing wrong" we needed full details of what was being done. The photograph indicated that the scene had a reasonably high dynamic range so the answers were in relation to the photo that we could see rather than the exposure method we were unsure about.

The simple answer is that some sort of exposure compensation is usually required in difficult exposure situations. Readings taken in the shade will invariably overexpose the areas of the scene not in the shade unless some compensation is applied and it will be most apparent in highlights.

The main thing is that a lot of reasonably relevant advice has been given during the wandering...

[Manfred M]

Photoshop is intimidating and I have put it off and put it off. I need to learn it.

That is definitely an understatement. It is a very powerful tool and is used in far more than photography. Unfortunately, that also means it has a very long learning curve. The only way to learn it is to use it. For me the breakthrough wasn't watching videos, but buying working with it. I bought "Photoshop Classroom in a Book" which is an Adobe / Peachpit Press product and worked through the examples and that was the foundation that put all the basics together for me.

[Evertking]

To be fair the information provided at the beginning was insufficient to answer the question properly. In order to accurately answer "what am I doing wrong" we needed full details of what was being done. The photograph indicated that the scene had a reasonably high dynamic range so the answers were in relation to the photo that we could see rather than the exposure method we were unsure about.

The simple answer is that some sort of exposure compensation is usually required in difficult exposure situations. Readings taken in the shade will invariably overexpose the areas of the scene not in the shade unless some compensation is applied and it will be most apparent in highlights.

The main thing is that a lot of reasonably relevant advice has been given during the wandering...

I took the reading in the middle where my kids were sitting, in the shade" and with the bright background. I should have picked a better spot or get my light out. I'm not to the point where I can fiddle with images in Photoshop yet.

[Evertking]

That is definitely an understatement. It is a very powerful tool and is used in far more than photography. Unfortunately, that also means it has a very long learning curve. The only way to learn it is to use it. For me the breakthrough wasn't watching videos, but buying working with it. I bought "Photoshop Classroom in a Book" which is an Adobe / Peachpit Press product and worked through the examples and that was the foundation that put all the basics together for me.

Thanks. I found the "Photoshop Classroom in a Book" and at that price I'm going to do. Is it geared towards photography?

[george013]

I took the reading in the middle where my kids were sitting, in the shade" and with the bright background. I should have picked a better spot or get my light out. I'm not to the point where I can fiddle with images in Photoshop yet.

When doing an incident metering you measure the light source. If you where in the shadow you didn't measure the light source. There're some theories how to hold the meter: direct to the source, to the camera or half way. I don't know. I think that depends also on the light meter and it's drone. Read the manual for that.

George