Tag Archive for: 18% gray

Extra note on calibrating lightmeters

/15 Comments/in , , /by

Something a lot of people struggle with when calibrating the light meter is the calibration… on this blog I have a special selection on light meters (check it out :-)).
When I teach my students to calibrate the meter to the camera I always use an 18% gray card and shoot this in a as flat as possible light situation and make sure that in the workflow I use the values for this card are 128.128.128

 

Here is where the confusion starts.
Some cameras are calibrated different, cameras use reflective metering and are set in values between 12-18% gray. Meaning that some cameras will yield different exposures, which can be compensated. A lot of this has to do with the gamma curves and different colorspaces. For example when we look at LAB a gamma curve of around 2.47 will Yield a 128.128.128 value, but mostly gammas of 1.8 and 2.2 are used in colorspaces like sRGB and ProPhotoRGB.
Read more

Calibrating the Light meter, some quick notes

/85 Comments/in , , /by

Somehow this topic always raises a lot of questions so I’ve decided to dedicate another blog post on it.
In this blog post I will give you some pointers and tips how to calibrate the light meter.

Read more

Light meter to do or not to do…..

/79 Comments/in , , /by

I get a lot of questions about this so I decided to would maybe be time to dedicate a blog post to our good friend the light meter.
Yeah you probably already know where I stand in this “debate” that has been raging over the internet ever since we have cameras with the instant polaroids on the back, the light meter has done it’s work and can now be retired is a trend you hear more and more. In this blog post I will “try” to tell you why this is not true and why the light meter is of vital importance for your work, and also share some tips on buying the correct one.

 

Read more