Essence of Perfect Exposure

10Nov11

The latest chew toy in my lighting kit is a Sekonic L-358 FlashMaster light meter with wireless transmitter module.

Me with model Marty Ness and a Sekonic L-358 light meter.

For me, this light meter is a luxury item and a necessity; a practical tool to achieve the essence of perfect exposure. I fell in love with light meters back in college as we were shooting film. Then it was the only way to measure strobes. Now, with digital cameras, you can see the image on the back LCD and make adjustments that way. Because of this, light metering became a lost art.

So why a light meter now? Because each exposure is important. I am very critical of my work. Technically speaking, there is only one perfect exposure you can achieve and so much rides on that one exposure. The camera LCD is great for chimping at the overall look of an image, but not accurate enough for critical exposure decisions. Our eyes, no matter how well trained, can lie to us. I noticed sometimes if I overexposed or underexposed an image by third or half a stop, everything else would have fell in place like color, fine detail in highlights and shadows and, most importantly, skin tones. It’s possible to correct those things later in post-production, but the quality is not the same as if it’s captured correctly in the camera.

Marty Ness doing her thing.

In the past, I would arrive at my base exposure by making multiple exposures. But the Sekonic L-358 FlashMaster takes the guesswork away. I say you always know two of the three factors that go into the essence of a perfect exposure, but you still need to find the third and solve for X. You either know the ISO, shutter speed or the aperture that your client or the art director wants to achieve the desired look.

Recently, I shot Leadership and Vision, a 10-portrait project where working quickly and efficiently was the key. It was also important to keep the same consistency throughout the project as each portrait was shot at a different place, a different time and with a different person. These professionals are busy people and gave me limited time to create their portraits. Instead of wasting valuable minutes bracketing, I trusted the light meter readings and shot exclusively at those settings. Occasionally, metering as distance between the subject and the lights changed. I dedicated this extra time to executing the overall concept versus covering my bases. Later in post-production, as each image was properly exposed and captured, editing was a joy.

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