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How Many People Use A Hand-Held Meter?

Do you use a hand-held meter?

  • I always use a hand held meter.

    Votes: 164 39.4%

  • I usually use a hand held meter. It depends on the situation

    Votes: 233 56.0%

  • I never use a hand held meter. I use the one built into the camera or none at all.

    Votes: 19 4.6%
  • Total voters
    416
I use my Sekonic L-308 incident meter when I'm shooting large format and for metering studio flash.

When I'm working with a 35mm or medium format camera that has a functioning meter I'll use that.

When I'm using a 35mm or medium format camera that's meterless or has a non-functioning meter (for example, I've been doing a lot of snapshooting recently with old 35mm compact rangefinder cameras that want mercury batteries for the meter), I'll just wing it - guess the exposures from experience. But that's for negative film, mostly color neg at the moment. If I were shooting slides I'd probably dust off my Pentax Digital Spotmeter and use that.
 
I've got two hand held meters, Luna Pro and Capital spot which I tried to fix with a butter knife know I've got one.!!!
 
i always use
Minolta Flashmeter IV and Gossen lunapro
 
Luna-Pro F for 35mm stuff and a Pentax V one degree spot meter for LF
 
Several of my cameras have no built-in metering. I currently use a Gossen Digisix or a Sekonic L-508, depending on what I'm doing. I find Sunny 16 is OK for some purposes, but the Digisix is so small I generally would carry it even "traveling light."

DaveT
 
With my cameras that either have no meter or have meters I don't trust, I use either a Sekonic L-188 or a Minolta Auto Meter IIIF. Depends on the situation.

When I use a Nikon body or my trusty Minolta SRT-102, the in-camera meter works just fine.
 
Of course this poll is completely unscientific. Anyone who uses a built-in or prism with a meter would not bother the look at the thread. Would it count that I some times use my F100 as a spot meter for my Hasselblad which has a meter? The F100 is hand held. Oh, so is the Hasselblad!

Steve
 
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What's interesting is most of you are saying you use hand held meters but the poll shows that you use in camera meter s as well. Most of my cameras either don't have a meter or I choose to trust my spot meter more.
 
I use one for everything, except when I use my Olympus OM-4T. The OM-4T spotmeter is incredibly accurate, but I don't trust the built in meters in any of my other 35mm cameras. My medium format systems don't have meters so I have to go handheld with them.
 
Weston Master III and Zeiss Ikophot.

I usually estimate the exposure myself then use the meter to see how close I was.



Steve.
 
There are exceptions but I mostly use a hand-held meter (Lunasix 2 or Capital/Soligor spotmeter) as I find it gets me better images. Not sure the accuracy of metering is in cause but more likely the time I spend on the picture.
 
Hi. It depends on the situation, for me. I have two meters: a Pentax Digital Spotmeter, and a very early version of the Sekonic Studio Deluxe called a "Brockway", for the 1950s. I usually have both meters in my pocket, though I usually only bother using them if I am pretty unsure about an exposure, or if I have the time (which I usually do not).

For more formal pix, I use both to decide an exposure.

As for in-camera meters, I use them extremely rarely. I usually knock the meter into the on position and run down the battery anyhow, so they don't jive with each other camera to camera. I trust an educated guess more than my particular in-camera meters. I do use them occasionally as a last resort double check of my guessed exposure when I know for sure that they are working properly, via a grey card test. My Brockway and my Pentax almost always jive within a half or third stop. Every light meter is a bit different, and if you are calibrated to one, using another one can screw you up.

I don't have a flash meter. I probably need to pick one up pretty soon, however, as I will be transferring to a school that will make me do a lot of in-studio stuff with flash.
 
I originally had a Minolta Flashmeter III, but, damned fool that I am, I sold it to buy a Flashmeter IV; I still like the III better of the two. I also had a 1-degree flash spot, but I didn't use it much and gave it to a fellow photographer. And I still have and use my back-up, a Minolta auto IIIF. And a 10-degree spot attachment, useful on occasion.

The only in-camera meters that I use are on my Leica M6, and my Nikon digital, and sometimes I hand-meter those, too.
 
I voted always use, but I don't have one. I would if I could afford one though.
 
My 4x5 doesn't have a meter.

I use a Pentax Spotmeter V, or a Konica-Minolta Autometer V, depending on if I need flash metering or not.
 
I use the in-camera meters for 35mm, and a separate Gossen meter for everything else. I don't use the Gossen to confirm or correct exposure on the 35s--for me the whole point of 35mm is to work hand-held and to work quickly. If I were going to pull out a light meter or use a tripod, I might as well use a larger format.
 
A meter is a meter. As long as you know how to use it well, it doesn't matter whether it is a handheld or a built-in thingy. They all work perfectly fine.

I have and use separate handheld meters when i don't have a meter in the camera. I use the one in the camera (or viewfinder) when there is one. Never a problem.
 
I found myself using a handheld meter even on an electronic imaging device. Otherwise, albeit slowing (willingly) me down I could not do without (Minolta spotmeterF)

-M-
 
Hand held meter

I have a venerable Gossen Lunasix-3. I bought it in 1976, as a replacement for my original one, which I bought in 1972. The 1972 meter was stolen from my apartment.

I also have a Pentax Spotmeter, which rarely comes out of its case.
 
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