Why I don’t use a light meter

Time for a really short post.

So, to answer the question above (the short version). I shoot digital, I look at the back of the screen at the aesthetics of the image. If it looks right, then that is near enough for me!

Put another way, I do not need the information overload of “this light is at f/8 and this light at f/4.” Thus I do not need to know if one light is half the power of the other etc.

How I work;

1) Test shot exposed for the ambient / max flash sync speed;

2) I put the lights on one by one individually, so that I can see what each light “does” and how those lights work together;

3) At this point I put all the lights on at minimum power and get an exposure at this point;

4) Given the exposure from point 3) I change the power of the lights to give the aperture I want creatively for the shot;

5) Final test shot and at this point I should be ready to shoot.

This process should take all of 2 minutes. This saves circa £300 on a light meter, this saving means another 1st party TTL flash unit etc.