Sekonic Digital Master L-758 light meter

JP Distribution Press Release:

JP Distribution is pleased to announce the new Digital Master L-758 Light Meter from Sekonic. The Digital Master L-758 is the world’s first multi-functional light meter that can be calibrated to match the sensitivity of a digital cameras sensor at all ISO settings, flash/ambient or file format characteristics. Sekonic have ensured that the L-758 offers photographers the greatest digital exposure control, accuracy and repeatability.

Main Features:

  • Three different camera exposure profiles that can be stored and quickly recalled when switched from one camera to another
  • USB cable allows all camera exposure profile data to be uploaded from a PC or MAC computer to the L-758
  • Exposure Latitude Warning – this will flash on the analogue scale if a measured highlight or shadow has exceeded the dynamic range or clipping point of your camera
  • Memory mode which can store up to nine readings in both Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority Modes.
  • One-degree Spot with Digital Display
  • Preset filter compensation values.

For any additional information on Sekonic, please contact JP Distribution:

Telephone: 01782 753304
Fax: 01782 753377

This looks like a good tool for film as well as digital shooters—exposure latitude warnings would be useful no matter what—but it also causes me to ask why the hell this is necessary to begin with. It’s great that this tool fills a void, but why the hell can’t camera manufacturers make ISO 100 actually ISO 100 to begin with? The S in ISO stands for Standards, and I think that calling something a standard and not adhering to it is false advertising. Camera makers, sort yourselves out!

Via PhotographyBLOG

How to build and calibrate a photo-plane light meter

Science photographer Ted Kinsman wrote this piece on building and calibrating a photodiode-based light meter:

Being in the professional science photography business, I often get asked to photograph the strangest stuff using some very weird lens combinations. Lately, I was asked to take some motion pictures of "microscopic animals". So I set up the microscope and attached it to a 35-mm motion picture camera – but how do you measure the exposure?

A typical answer would be to use a standard film plane meter, but such a device would not fit my situation, and I would still have to perform a calibration on the device.

The answer to my problem was to simply build the type of meter I needed and then calibrate the device…

Continue reading at Microscopy-UK

Via Paul Beard of A Crank’s Progress blog