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Grey Card necessary when using handheld light meter?


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The Sekonic L-578 is a combo incident and reflective meter, so in which mode were you asking about a gray card? Incident meters measure the amount of light falling on the dome, so don't need gray cards, but a spot / reflective meter reads the amount of light reflective off of an object, so if you want an 18% gray reference, then the card is useful, though most people use reflective meters to measure the brightness of various areas in the frame. They tend to use the gray card when they only have a spot / reflective meter and are using it to determine the exposure for the scene. If you have a combo meter though, I would tend to think you'd use the incident meter in place of a spot meter pointed at a gray card, and then use the spot meter mode to check the contrast range, how hot a lamp is, etc.

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Hi David,

 

being aware that the L-758 is a combo meter, I was wondering about it in more general terms. But your wonderful description has made it clear - just like Mark's post - that a grey card isn't really necessary when taking incident meter readings, while it seems to be favourable when using a spot/reflective meter.

 

Thanks to both of you!

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  • 5 months later...

Reading the post I´m thinking about that I use the 18% grey card with false color. In my opinion is very useful. Is a good reference for me. What do you think about this?

 

thanks

Edited by A.DePa
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  • 1 year later...

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