In order to get the full benefit out of this series of posts, you must use Canon and also use Canon Speedlites. For those who use Nikon and Nikon Speedlights, go buy Joe McNally’s The Hot Shoe Diaries or attend one of his workshops. You guys are fortunate, you have Nikon CLS (Creative Lighting System), which is phenomenal. For the rest of us who are already using PocketWizards, Elinchrom Skyports, Quantum FreeXWire, RadioPoppers, and/or a host of eBay wireless transmitters, let me introduce you to the world of E-TTL wireless flash and offer reasons of why you should add this to your arsenal of tools.

Canon Wireless Flash System – What It Is

The Canon Wireless Flash System (CWFS) is the system used in all Canon Speedlites that allow Speedlites to be remotely triggered wirelessly (read more information on the Canon Professional Network). There are actually two components to CWFS: wireless triggering and ETTL. The first thing you need to know about CWFS is that you can trigger mutliple Speedlites in ETTL or full-manual mode, the how will come later.

Canon Wireless Flash System is only available with EX-series Speedlites so if you own an older generation Speedlite, the EZ-series, you will not be able to take advantage of E-TTL, thereby reducing the usefulness of CWFS. At current writing, there are only three Speedlites that can act as “Master”, meaning they can control the settings and functions of the other Speedlites, which are: Canon 550EX, Canon 580EX, and Canon 580EX II. You need at least one Master-capable Speedlite to trigger other Canon Speedlites.

The E-TTL Advantage

I’m a huge fan of PocketWizards, owning three Plus II as well as the Sekonic L-358 light meter with the PocketWizard built-in trigger. You could be a block away, hide them behind doors or walls, and still trigger them. My other photographer uses Elinchrom Skyports as well as many other photographers. You can’t go wrong with either. Unfortunately, the biggest problem with remote radio transmitters such as the PocketWizard and Skyports is that you have to run in full-manual on both camera and flash. In studio environments where the lighting remain constants, it’s not much of a problem. Outdoor photography is the challenge especially when trying to balance ambient with flash as the ambient lighting is almost never exactly constant unless your flash is proving 100% of your light, otherwise known as “overpowering ambient”. Shooting in full-manual requires your subject to occupy the same constant distance from the flash or risk under-or-over-exposure. And if you have more than one Speedlite and want to use different power levels, you have to manually dial in the power setting on each Speedlite. There has must be an easy way! Enter E-TTL.

The advantage of being able to use E-TTL with off-camera flash is ENORMOUS. Here is just a small sample of what is possible with using the Canon Wireless Flash System:

• Let the camera do all the thinking, you set the aperture or shutter speed and the camera does the rest
• You can use Aperture priority (Av Mode), Shutter priority (Tv Mode), or God-forbid, Program (P Mode)
• High-speed sync (go beyond the max-shutter-speed of 1/200th or 1/250th)
• You don’t have to spend an extra $100-$200 for additional triggers on top of the ~$200-$400 price tag of each Speedlite
• Put Speedlites into Groups and trigger them at different power levels
• Control Groups, power level, switch modes on all the Slave Units from the Master Unit

© J-Chan/Flickr.com

So how does all that help you? Let’s try some practical examples. I love to use fast-glass such as the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM especially wide-open on sunny days for the beautiful subject isolation it can produce with flash for fill on the subject’s face. That usually means shutter speeds of anywhere from 1/4000-1/8000 of a second shutter speed. Using the Speedlites with radio triggers means that I’m stuck at 1/200th or 1/250th (depending on your camera) of a shutter speed or risk black bars in the pictures from the shutter curtain opening and closing at various points throughout the frame. That means instead of being able to shoot at f/1.2, I’m either forced to move to a shaded area or increase my aperture to at least f/6.3 to get a shutter speed of 1/200th or 1/250th; either cases are not very appealing. But by using CWFS, I can take advantage of high-speed sync which will let me use the flash up to my camera’s maximum shutter speed. Keep in mind, depending on how bright it is outside, you can have this same exact problem even photographing at f/2.8.

Here’s another example of how CWFS can help you. You have 10-minutes to shoot a couple’s engagement photos and they want to photograph with as many different backgrounds as possible outdoors at a park. Factoring in walking time and developing shoot locations (if you didn’t scout beforehand) leaves you with a realistic time of 5-7 minutes. Imagine how long it would take to set up an off-camera flash on a stand, take a guess at aperture and shutter settings, take a test shot, and make adjustments and then shoot a couple frames, move to another place and repeat the process. With the Canon Wireless Flash System, my off-camera Speedlite set to Slave, I set my camera to Aperture priority and decide how much depth-of-field I need and take the shots and move on to the next place and repeat.

By using E-TTL for lighting, the camera sends important information to the Slave Speedlite(s) such as distance information so the Slave unit knows how much power to fire to get proper exposure. If your subject moves further away from the Slave unit, more flash power will be applied to compensate and likewise if your subject or Speedlite moves closer together.

There are countless other examples I can give, but this gives you the general point of the E-TTL advantage.

But My Remote Radio Transmitters Do E-TTL Already

There are a number of companies who has expanded their remote radio triggers to do E-TTL such as PocketWizard’s Flex, RadioPopper’s X-series, and Quantum’s FreeXWire. Each of those remote radio triggers are amazing and they each have problems of their own. Most notably with the PocketWizard Flex is that using a Canon Speedlite 580EX II causes radio interference resulting in severely limited triggering range. Also the Flex cannot do groups (they call it zones) without an extra device. For the most part, from what I’ve seen, they seem to work well. But here’s one thing to consider: cost and product infancy. The Speedlites already cost a fortune and to spend another $100-$200 on top of that cost can get very expensive, very quickly.

Why not take advantage of a system that is OEM and offers many functions that these other radio remote triggers are selling to you? Also remember that PocketWizard, RadioPopper, and Quantum has to translate the secret code being transmitted from camera to flash that holds all the E-TTL information, necessary for the flash to fire with the proper settings. I would rather remove the middle-man and let the camera and flash speak directly to each other, less to get wrong that way in my opinion.

Also, this may seem trivial, but more detached parts mean more to lose and more to haul around. The Speedlites aren’t exactly tiny equipment and as you tack on more stuff such as transmitters, it can get cumbersome. I rather save the space in my bag for spare batteries.

The Headbanging Limitations of Canon Wireless Flash System

So I brought a few points of why to use the CWFS and it would only be fair to discuss the issues that I’ve come to experience with it also. Most people are aware that the Master unit fires the flash as part of the exposure of an image. In 99.9% of the time, I set the Master unit to trigger-only meaning that the flash emitted from the Master unit triggers all the Slave units but has no bearing on the final exposure of an image. Unless otherwise stated, what I discuss below is with the Master unit as a trigger-only.

The biggest issue is the Slave seeing the Master signal and there are multiple parts to this, so I’ll tackle them one at a time. The first obvious problem is the Slave unit’s receiver doesn’t see the flash emitted from the Master unit because it’s out of line of sight. For example, behind a model as a highlight. There are a couple of ways to solve this. If you are close enough to wall that is semi-reflective, you can bounce the Master unit’s emitted flash off a wall and position the Slave unit’s sensor towards the same wall and it should trigger. This doesn’t always work as sometimes you’re not near a wall and/or it’s not reflective enough. The second trick, devised by the clever Joe McNally, works more often than not as you put your Master unit on a off-camera flash sync cable (OC-E3 at B&H Photo Video or Amazon.com) and have it held in a position where the Slave unit will see the emitted flash. Here’s another trick that works if the above two aren’t working. You could try the two tricks again BUT zoom the Master unit to its maximum blast of 105mm thereby concentrating the intensity of the burst which may give you that little bit needed for the Slave unit to “see” the information. Trigger in blazing hot, direct, daylight sun? No problem. I have this product that I can sell to you for a very low and limited price of $199.99 each called a Sto-Fen Omni-bounce diffuser. Kidding aside, you can purchase them for $19.99 each at B&H Photo Video or on Amazon.com for $14.20. Stock up on these as they are invaluable and are easily lost. The beauty of these things, they aren’t only for softening or diffusion, but rather they “capture” the light so that the Slave units see the flash emitted. I use these ALL the time, especially in direct sunlight and my slaved Speedlites have never failed to fire. The Sto-Fen also helps when you have two Speedlites on each side of your Master Speedlite. Turning the head to one Speedlite will cause the other not to fire because it can’t see the flash being fired. Here’s a picture to illustrate the point:

In both cases, the flash fired, but notice how with the Sto-Fen on, you can actually see the light fired (left picture) but in the picture on the right without the Sto-Fen it doesn’t look like the flash fired when it did. I can get Slaved Speedlites to fire 50+ feet away with the Sto-Fen on (video coming soon to prove this point) but would be lucky to fire a single Speedlite from ~25 feet without a Sto-Fen and zooming the flash to 105mm!

Another big issue many complain about with the Canon Wireless Flash System is Canon’s choice to use a Ratios System for working with Groups (A, B, and C) of Speedlites. Unlike Nikon’s CLS where each Group’s individual power can be set, you set Group A and B in relation to each other. The choices are 1:1 (equal power) to 8:1 (Group A is 4x more powerful than Group B) and 1:8 (Group B is 4x more powerful than Group A) in 1/2th stops of power. See the chart below to understand:

You do get to set Group C’s power independently of Group A and Group B. The reasoning in Canon’s world is that Group A would be key light, Group B would be background/kicker/highlight and Group C would be hair highlight. At one time I hated the Canon’s Ratio System, but once I learned how to exploit it and make it work for me, I’ve found it not to be bad as I thought it was.

I will be doing a post on the Speedlite Transmitter, ST-E2, in the near future. What you need to know about it right now is do not get it, it’s not worth the money and I’ll explain why in that post.

Sum It All Up

So if you’re new to or have used Canon Wireless Flash System briefly, you should now have a bit better understanding of how this can effectively work for you. Keep in mind that CWFS is not the end all solution to all your lighting needs. There are many cases where remote radio triggers will be your lifesaver such as situations where the flash is placed so far out of view, it can’t see the flash from the Master unit. But in many, many cases, CWFS let’s you work so much more fluidly and quickly as you take advantage of all that fancy metering technology in your camera you paid good money for.

So here’s the gist of what we discussed above:

• Using Canon Wireless Flash System, you can use Aperture, Shutter, Program, or Manual modes and utilize the beauty of E-TTL. E-TTL controls the power output of your flash based on thousands of calculations by your camera. Let the camera do the hard work for you.
• With the Canon Wireless Flash System, you can use high-speed sync which will let you exceed the max-sync speed of 1/200th or 1/250th of a second.
• Because the Canon Wireless Flash system relies on light being emitted, it does have some shortcomings, but through creativity and ingenuity, you can make it work for you.
• Buy a couple of Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce Diffusers for all your Speedlites. Extremely valuable, especially if you plan on using flash in broad daylight or direct sunlight. Get it here and/or here.
• Buy a few Canon OC-E3 cables. You’ll need it in some cases where you need to get creative with your Master unit. Get it from B&H Photo Video or Amazon.com.
• Canon Wireless Flash System may not solve all your problems, but will certainly help you tremendously.

In the next post about CWFS, I’ll be going over some of past photo shoots, our lighting setup, and how CWFS worked for us.

David Hobby (Strobist) has an excellent in-depth series of posts that explains everything you need, why you need it, and things to consider on his excellent blog (the post starts here) and I’m not going to that much detail. Think of this as rather a friend asking another friend: what do I need and where do I buy it sprinkled with a few thoughts here and there.

Flash/Light Stand – Required

This is one of those necessary items that you definitely need at least 1 of, if not 2 or more. I personally use the Lumopro LP604 5-section 6-foot stand (read our review here or buy it here). This is essentially a cheaper alternative to the popular Bogen Manfrotto 3373/Nano-001 used by Strobist. The reason I chose the Lumopro over the Bogen is two fold: it’s cheaper $39.99 versus $59.95 and it’s a bit thicker meaning a bit more sturdy.

Both light stands are very light and easy to carry around. I took Strobist’s advice and drilled two 1/4″ holes for a carry strap to make it easy to take with you. The 6-feet stands are very versatile and work great for a majority of your subjects. The major limiting factor is that it only goes up to 6-feet. You sacrifice versatility for portability. If you don’t travel with your light stands often or need to, I recommend that you invest some heavier 8-13-feet light stands, such as the Bogen Imaging Manfrottos here. The reason for light stands that can go higher is because sometimes you have taller subjects or you need to put up reflectors. I have 2 of the LP604 and 2 taller 8′ light stands.

As with any light stands, it is always good safety practice to weight down your stands with sandbags or anything else to prevent tipping over.

Umbrella Swivel – Required

In order to mount your flash and an umbrella to the light stand and be able to tilt and swivel, you’ll need an umbrella swivel. I use the Lumopro LP633 because it’s one of the smallest umbrella swivels and is made entirely of metal. There is one major drawback to using the LP633 is that the flash hot-shoe mount does not swivel at all. This is not a problem if you use remote radio triggers such as PocketWizards or Elinchrom Skyports, but can be problematic when using Nikon’s CLS (Creative Lighting System) or Canon’s wireless flash system as they are heavily dependent on line of sight. There have been a number of times where I’ve used the Canon wireless flash system and had to swivel the receiver in a way that it would see my master flash to receive the signal and information. You can get creative sometimes and bounce the master light off of walls to trigger the remote flash, but what if you are outside? Had I not had a Photoflex Shoe Mount Multiclamp, I wouldn’t have been able to get the shot because we were outside with nothing to bounce the light off of to trigger the remote flash. I recommend having both. If you never use or never plan to use CLS or Canon’s wireless flash system, might as well spend the few more dollars and get the smaller, portable umbrella swivel.

Umbrella – Required

Everyone doing off-camera flash needs at least 1 shoot-through umbrella. Or 2. Or 3. They break and get damaged so often, it’s always good to have spares around. The ones I use and like are the ones that Stobist recommends, the Westcott 43″ Collapsible Umbrella with removable black cover. They are cheap ($26.00), light, very portable, and work very well. The reason you want one of these “shoot-through” umbrellas is because more and more people are finding by firing the flash directly into the umbrella pointed at the subject, there is a lot of soft, diffused light making for excellent portraits. And with the removable black cover, you can add it back to be a reflective bounce also. There’s not much to say except get a couple.

Flash – Required

Definitely one of those required things for doing off-camera flash is having an off-camera flash. For the most part, you can get any brand flash (Vivitar, Canon, Nikon, Quantum, and etc.) you like regardless of what brand camera you use. But it does makes sense to invest in your camera manufacture’s flash as there are a number of advantages such as eTTL (iTTL) when used on the camera’s hot shoe. It’s essentially the same thing as regular TTL (through-the-lens) where the lens is passing on distance and focal length information to the camera to calculate exposure and by using the camera manufacture’s flash, it also use the lens’s information to help the camera calculate how much power the flash needs to exposure without over-or-under-exposing the subject. The other main advantage of using a Canon 580EX II (if you shoot Canon) or a Nikon SB-900 is their respective wireless system that allows for triggering other similar brand flashes without the need for a manual-sync cable and also to do what is called high-speed sync (shutter speeds faster than the max-sync speed). Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS) is much better than Canon’s wireless flash system, but that only matters and is useful if you use Nikon. If you are planning to use the flash with radio transmitters such as PocketWizards (what we use), Skyports, Radio Poppers, or others, then the flash you get must have a sync-port to connect the radio transmitter to or you will have to buy a Paramount adapter.

Please note that you could any number older flashes with the new flashers such as Canon’s 550EX or 580EX or slightly less advanced versions such as the 430EX II, 430EX, or 420EX. There will be a few issues using the slightly less advanced versions such as the 430EX and 420EX are that they can not be used as master flash triggers when doing Canon’s wireless system, only as slave units. When used with a radio trigger or with a Canon ST-E2 (remote optical trigger), it does not matter. Nikon, on the other hand, most of all their flashes can function as master or slave and even the built-in flash on most of the Nikon bodies can be used as the master flash trigger. There is a lot more that can be said about this topic, but it’s beyond the scope of this blog post.

Remote Radio Triggers – Optional

Off-camera flashes triggered with PocketWizards

There are a number of remote triggers out there, but only three I would recommend: PocketWizard, Elinchrom Skypots, or Radio Poppers. If you are a professional photographer, don’t waste your time or money on any of the other knock-offs. The remote radio triggers are pricey, but they are an investment. They allow you to do creative lighting from a distance that would not be possible with a wired sync cord, optical triggers, and in many cases, Nikon’s or Canon’s wireless system.

All three of these radio triggers work exceptionally well, you can’t go wrong with any of them. The PocketWizards have the new Flex system which allows for high-speed sync via radio transmission, which is more reliable than wireless flash transmission as with on the Canon’s built-in wireless flash system. The PocketWizards can also trigger Profoto brand studio strobes and battery packs. The Elinchrom Skyports work excellent as well and can trigger Elincrom brand studio strobes and battery packs in addition to wirelessly dialing up or down power on the Elinchrom Ranger battery packs.

Manual Wired Sync Cable – Required

Regardless if you use radio or wireless flash sync technology, you should always own at least 1 wired sync cable (make sure you get the right connectors) that you plug from the off-camera flash to your camera. This cable is very straight forward. You plugin one end into the flash’s sync port and the other into the camera’s flash sync port. It pays to be prepared.

Light Modifiers – Optional

It’s always nice to have additional tools at your disposal to shape the light depending on the picture you are trying to take. This can be a number of tools such as gobos, grids, Sto-Fen Omni Bounce, barn doors, snoot, and etc. It’s not necessary to jump right into this, but something good to keep in the back of your mind as your lighting gets more advanced and complex.

Gels – Required

Get this special Strobist Color Correction Gel Pack from MPEX here. For $15.95, you’ll get the gel sheets you need and enough to last for a long time. You could also get this, the Lumiquest FXtra Compact Gel Holder, that seems to work really well. I use a number of Lumiquest products and can personally vouch for them. If you do get the Lumiquest FXtra, I would definitely invest in the velcro Cinch-Strap also.

Technically gels are also considered light modifiers, but they are one of the single most hidden and powerful weapon in a photographer’s bag. By default, an off-camera flash’s color is neutral white. Most often, it appears as a cool bluish tint. Over time as it is being used, it starts turning more yellow and yellow, which is natural as the strobe puts out a lot of power and eventually begins burning the plastic cover.

By why do we need gels? Because you want to combat color cast and to use it to create interesting effects. First, let’s address the color cast issue. Ever took a photo in a gym or a place with lots of incandescent bulbs with flash and when you extract your images later, your subject’s skin tone looks relatively right but the lights in the background look green? That’s what happens when you introduce a white neutral light to light that operates at a cooler temperature. So how do we fix this? You put a full-cut (or half-cut or quarter-cut) green gel to match the ambient light source and set you Camera’s white balance to florescent and everything should look very close to right. Same thing with tungsten bulbs but instead of using green, we use what’s called CTO, or color tungsten orange. The same concept applies when doing off camera flash, you need to match the color temperature of the ambient light. Sure, you can try correcting this by shooting RAW and using Photoshop, but 9 times out of 10, no matter how many hours of correcting you do, you won’t get that image to look right. Why not save yourself the hassle and wrinkles from exhaustion and stress by doing it right the first time.

How can we use gels creatively? Ever see those cool shots where the evening sky looks blue and the subject looks nicely lit by flash? Ever tried getting that same shot but your sky looks blah? Know how to get the nice deep blue sky with the subject’s skin tone looking nice and warm? I do and now will you. You set your camera to tungsten white balance which will make everything blue. Neat effect if you don’t mind your subject looking like a smurf. To correct that, we put a full-cut CTO gel on the flash and that counter-attacks the blue and gives your subject the nice warm skin tones. Too orange? Make it a half-cut CTO. Cool huh? Obviously there is a bit more to making that shot, but you’re like 90% there. You could also use different color gels to create interesting backgrounds. See this cool video by Strobist on what you can do with some gels for creative backgrounds:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Light Meter – Optional

I’m a big user of a Sekonic L-358 light meter as it helps me get perfect exposure. A light meter in off-camera lighting can be of great help, as the camera can’t meter for exposure unless you are using CLS or Canon’s wireless flash system. The Sekonic has an optional wireless module that lets you trigger PocketWizard transceivers.

If you have the money to spare, a light meter can go a long way in cutting down post processing time by nailing the exposure. Without a light meter, you have to estimate exposure, f-stop and chimp to determine the best exposure, which can be a time consuming process and can still lead to under-exposed shots.

White Balance – Optional

The less time I spend correcting bone-head stuff such as incorrect white balance or color cast, the quicker I can get my photo shoots online for my clients to see. Sure it takes a few extra seconds to set a custom white balance, but would you rather spend ten or more minutes trying to correct the color? I particularly like the Lastolite EzyBalance for off-camera lighting, but you could also try using the Expodisc.

Other Optional Items

These are a few other items that are incredible useful when needed:

• Justin Spring Clamp – great for clipping your flash to a book case, ledge, LCD monitor, or just about anything
• Super Clamp with Stud – great for clipping your flash to doors, bigger ledges
• Gaffer Tape – everyone needs a roll of this to tie down cables, make super quick snoots, and millions of other uses
• Sandbags – essential for keeping your light stand and umbrella from becoming a kite.

Conclusion

Off-camera lighting doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. At the minimal you need:

• a light stand
• an umbrella
• an umbrella swivel
• a flash
• wired sync cable

With those items, you can tackle a number of portrait or product photography with off-camera flash. As you get more comfortable and proficient with off-camera lighting, you can start introducing reflectors and more flashes to create even more unique effects such as:

With this result:

Good luck and happy shooting.

Inspiration also comes from photographing with other amazing photographers in the local Bay Area.

On Saturday, July 11, Eric Lee, Dr. Tibor Duliskovich, and I along with some 10 other photographers  embarked on this fun, creative mission with some 6 lovely models (most of which, came all the way from Santa Barbara!) spent most of the day doing some photo shoots. It was a chance for all of us to network with each other, practice our craft, and best of all: let the creative juices flow.

Before we get into the technical talk, I definitely want to say a most heartfelt thank you to Lynn Truong whose patience and amazing planning was able to make this event possible. She was the one who got our lovely models so we would have subjects to photograph. I also want to thank our models: Michelle Loi, Thuy Le, Ashley Parker, Katherine Luk, Lisa Nguyen, Valentine Hidayat, and Betsy Cheng (who wasn’t there to model, but offer emotion support to our wonderful models). They traveled from far, worked tireless with us, and were very patient as we had to setup and envision the shots. I also want to thank all the photographers who came out and continue to be an inspiration for me: David Yu, Rendy Lai, Lynn Truong, Herm Pugay, Nathan Kwok, Irwan Tanadi, Herve Blandin, Ozan Ulucan, and anyone else whose name I forgot. I’m sorry we didn’t get as much time to talk given the fast paced day we were having.

Everyone met up at AT&T Park in San Francisco at 10 AM for the first part of the photo shoot along the back part of the park where they have the mini-marina. This yielded some interesting backgrounds and perspective, as you can see the pretty yachts and boats docked along with the Bay Bridge in the background. For most of these shots, we used reflectors as it was very bright and sunny out. Once we moved to a bit more shady areas, out came the Speedlites, light meter, and PocketWizards. The results:

After about four hours there, we broke for lunch in Chinatown, our next shooting location. One of the cool things in San Francisco’s Chinatown are the great alleys. This is something where you need a big metropolitan city (like San Francisco or New York City) to have these really cool alleys that are grungy, rundown, but chalked with history, a perfect back drop for a photo shoot. We had a number of onlookers (some were creepy…) checking out what we were doing, it’s not everyday you take over an alley, setup some lighting equipment and plop a group of pretty models down to pose in an alley. All-in-all, the results were quite nice:

More pics to come. All the pictures were shot with either the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM or the Canon EF 200mm f/1.8L USM (new model here) all on the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II and Canon EOS 1D Mark II. All shots with flash were metered with a Sekonic L-358 with remote wireless module for perfect exposure and custom white balance was set using the Lastolite EzyBalance. Strobes were triggered with PocketWizard Plus II modules. We used two Canon Speedlites shot through a Westcott Shoot-Through umbrella for the Chinatown shots and the same configuration for the AT&T Park shots except with only one Speedlite instead of two.

Don’t forget to join the San Francisco Street Photographers Facebook group to keep up-to-date with future shoots and events and you can keep up-to-date also on our Bui Photography Facebook page. Be sure to check out these other photographer’s great shots too:

• David Yu
• Rendy Lai
• Eric Lee
• Lynn Truong
• Herm Pugay
• Tibor Duliskovich
• Nathan Kwok
• more to be added when pics go up

Why Use A Light Meter

For general, standard photography such as quick snaps of the kids, a day at the beach, and even sports photography, a light meter would be difficult to use because of the high speed pace, there wouldn’t be much time to meter before taking a shot. You’ll end up missing more shots than it’s worth.

So where do light meters shine? Portraits, mainly. We at Bui Photography shoot a lot of our portraits outdoors and with flash strobes off-camera. Because of that, it’s far easier to photograph in the Manual mode exposure because we know exactly the look and feel of what we want to achieve whereas our camera doesn’t. In case I’ve lost you, unless your camera is broken in Manual mode, there is no auto exposure metering because you have to set the shutter and aperture yourself.

So how do figure out what shutter and aperture to use in relation to the power of flash and ambient lighting? What if you want more flash power than ambient? What if you want to balance ambient and flash? Unless you can meter the scene with your eyes and translate it to a f-stop and shutter speed values, you’ll have to do what many people do: guess and chimp. By guessing, you would set your shutter speed to your max sync speed (1/250 on a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, 1/200 on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II) and set your flash power to half or quarter power for faster recycle times and guess an aperture of f/5.6 or something and take a shot. Then you review on your LCD to see if it looks good or not. Repeat and make the changes as necessary. Terribly inefficient wouldn’t you agree? And even if you think you nailed the exposure, wait until you extract those images on your computer, you’ll find you were still off. Look how much time you are wasting on the technical aspect in setup and post processing! I don’t know about you, but I rather be spending time being creative. Also keep in mind, unless you are using one the new fancy cameras with their high resolution (920,000 pixels) LCD screens, the LCD screens on your camera are not good tools to judge color or exposure because it’s not accurate! You can use the brightness histogram which will be a bit more accurate, but in certain lighting conditions, it won’t help you much.

This is where the light meter comes in to ensure that you don’t just have good exposure or close to perfect exposure, but perfect exposure. After you’ve properly calibrated and learned to use a light meter, you’ll find that you’ll trust the values from your light meter more than what you see on your camera’s LCD. When I use the light meter, I put my model where I want her to be, put a strobe based on how I want to light her, pull out my meter and set it to my max sync speed and ISO  and do a test pop and it tells me the exact aperture and how much flash power versus ambient. I can either bring my light source closer to the subject or dial up the flash power to get less ambient lighting or lower my flash power for more ambient lighting. Set those values in camera and start the creative process!

By getting perfect exposure and setting custom white balance, everything is properly exposed and the colors just pop. Not only that, when I extract the images, instead of wasting time correcting color and white balance issues, I’m spending time selecting keepers and cropping.

You’re probably wondering why a light meter is more accurate than the camera’s built-in exposure meter, the answer is simple. The camera’s built-in meter works off reflective metering which functions with the camera metering light reflecting off the subject. This works well for the most part, but in situations where lighting is all over the place, the camera can be tricked and meters off the brightest part and under-exposes the entire scene. In a case of a forest with some light beams coming through, the camera might be confused with the light beams and try to expose for it which would make the entire scene under-exposed. With a light meter, usually used as an incident meter (you can get light meters that are incident meters with reflective meters built in) which measures light directly as it would fall on the subject and gives you a very accurate metering of the scene. In addition, you can move the light meter to meter multiple sources an average all the readings for a proper exposure. An example would be a portrait shot where you have your key light, hair light, and fill light. Each of the light sources are pointing in various directions and with a light meter you can read the output of each light.

Light meters also work extremely well for ambient metering for the very same reason. Even if you’re not using strobes and shooting only with ambient lighting, you can meter your subject and dial in a precise aperture/shutter values to get perfect exposure.

Which Light Meter Should I Buy?

For the most part, any light meter will work plenty fine. I personally use a Sekonic L-358 with RT-32 remote trigger module because we are heavily invested in the PocketWizard system and the L-358 lets us remotely trigger the strobes when we press the measure button. If you don’t use PocketWizard, but some other wireless trigger technology, you could still use the L-358 and just not buy the optional remote trigger module and trigger the strobes manually. The second biggest reason I like the L-358 is because it tells you how much flash power is being used versus ambient. This is a real plus because you don’t have to guess at values if you want more ambient than flash or more flash than ambient; a very powerful tool that I use very often.

One of our other staff photographers uses a Gossen DigiPro F and likes it for it’s slim profile and no-nonsense use. You can’t really go wrong with either Sekonic or Gossen. It really comes down to what your needs are and which light meter offers what you need.

Conclusion

Getting perfect exposure doesn’t have to be difficult or pain-staking. It doesn’t have to even be done in Photoshop or Lightroom. It’s much faster and less destructive to get the exposure at the time you take the image as opposed to fixing it later. One of the best investments in this area is a light meter, whether it is a Sekonic or Gossen, you don’t need a $600 light meter. The entry level Sekonic or Gossen do more than plenty for many people and saves you time and saves your sanity, it more than pays for itself. Be on a look out for how to use a light meter in a future post.