Gossen Light Meter Review by Jim Austin Jimages

Why do photographers use hand-held light meter?

In the video, I show you why as I unbox a Gossen hand-held light meter, take it into the field, and show some advantages of using an external, hand-held light meter over an in-camera reflective meter for getting successful exposures in challenging light.

The meter, Gossen's Digipro F Exposure Meter, is an convenient tool to solve exposure problems. I've been using this meter for awhile, as it took the place of my older Sekonic light meter.

The Digipro F allows you to measure incident light. It works with film, from ISO 3.2 to ISO 8000. The micro-processor controlled meter measures shutter speed readings from 1/8000 second to 60 minutes, and aperture readings from f/1 to f/90. It's flash sync speeds range from 1 second to 1/1000 of a second.

For those new to incident light metering, here is a little on this topic. To properly expose a scene, you need to measure the amount of light that exists in that scene. There are two ways to do this: an incident meter reading or a reflected meter reading. The Digipro F includes both types. The video shows results with the incident meter.

An incident meter measures the light falling on the subject, even when back-lit or in scenes with a lot of contrast. It provides a clear display of shutter and aperture settings, even under dark, bright and high contrast conditions.

Reflective in-camera light meters can give misleading readings since they are based on middle gray and they average the exposure to 18% gray. Try photographing someone on a really bright day, or when light is bouncing up from water or sand, and your in-camera meter can give inaccurate exposures.

In the video, I used the Digipro F to solve common exposure problems. The meter accurately gave a perfect exposure for a portrait even in a bright, back-lit scene aboard a sailboat.