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Old May 12th 17, 12:31 AM posted to rec.photo.digital,alt.photography
Savageduck[_3_]
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Default A New Tool For Photographers

On 2017-05-11 23:20:22 +0000, Eric Stevens said:

On Thu, 11 May 2017 14:31:29 -0700, charles wrote:

On Thu, 11 May 2017 13:59:34 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2017-05-11 20:30:30 +0000, charles said:

On Wed, 10 May 2017 14:37:09 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

https://petapixel.com/2017/05/10/illuminati-worlds-first-bluetooth-light-color-meter/



There

are

smartphone aps that claim to do something similar. No idea
how accurate they are.

I have a lightmeter app, *FotometerV2* for my iPhone, and it does a
somewhat reasonable job, but considering it is using the camera lenses
I wouldn't call it a replacement for a good incident light meter such
as a Sekonic, it probably has somewhat questionable accuracy.

The *Illuminati* uses a measuring device that is separate from the
phone, and only uses the CPU in the phone to make calculations based on
the input from the measuring device. I would say the potential as an
accurate light meter for the *Illuminati* is high. however, until it is
properly road tested we are not going to know for sure. That said,
compared to a Sekonic, in price and performance it looks very promising.



I still have a Luna Pro SBC and a Soligor spot meter from back in the
days when it mattered. For me, now, auto exposure works well enough.


My first exposure meter was a crud thing using a stepped optical
wedge. Read the lowest number you could see and feed it into the
calculator on the back of the device and that gave you an
approximation to the intensity of the light being reflected from the
subject.

I quickly upgraded to a Weston II with an incident light attachment.
This measured the intensity of the light falling on the subject and
the calculator gave you an exposure which would best capture the range
of intensity of the light being reflected from the subject. [The
Sekonic came along at about that time but I decided that for my
purposes it was more of a status symbol than a useful tool.]

All of these became redundant with advent of the digital camera. No
longer do I have to use one form of estimation or another to determine
the exposure to suit the light being reflected by the subject. All of
the digital cameras I have used over the years have directly measured
the range of light intensity being reflected by the subject and
directly calculated the necessary exposure settings to be used by the
camera. No more estimation: an exact measurement and calculation. And
of course I can always adjust the exposure up or down to suit my
intention.

As far as I can see, these days, the only real use for an incident
light meter is to assist with the setting of studio lighting.


....or when using ND1000, or combos of ND/ND grad filters, necessitating
manual exposure, and calculating long exposures. That is about the only
time I can see I would need one today as I don't do any studio work
with artificial lighting and/or gels.

Like you 99% of my shooting depends on the AE capability of my cameras.
--
Regards,

Savageduck