I bought this meter because I bought a manual focus lens for my Nikon D50. This camera body does not meter with the old manual lenses. After a week of using it, I can say it performs well. It offers incident and reflected measurements. However, to switch from incident to reflected, you have to take off the lumisphere and mount the lumigrid. It offers shutter and aperture priority modes. I prefer aperture priority-choose an aperture, and the meter selects a shutter speed. You can choose 2 ISO settings. The meter will stay on ISO 1 until you push ISO 2 for a brief reading. When you let go of the ISO 2 button, it goes back to ISO 1.
The Sekonic L-358 also does flash metering(reflected and incident). This is helpful to me because my D50 will not do TTL flash with my older flash units-Nikon SB-80DX. It has flash corded mode-connect flash and meter with sync cord. It also has cordless flash mode. When you press the measurement button, you will have up to 90 seconds to fire the flash. It will even measure multiple flash bursts. However, it will not read them all if the bursts are too quick. I'd recommend leaving at least 1/2 second between bursts to take a reading. There's also flash to ambient light ratio readings.
Another reason I chose this model is you can buy optional spot meter attachments for it-1, 5, and 10 degree heads.
It also has many features I've never used and probably never will, so I can't comment on those. Such as wireless radio flash triggering(I think optional accessories are required), memories, averaging of multiple readings, and more.
Something that you should consider-not all lenses transmit the EXACT same amount of light. In theory they should, but that's not always the case. For example, one of my lenses needs about 1/3-1/2 stop more light than the meter suggests. Another needs about 2/3-1 stop more. And another lens just about agrees with the Sekonic. I think older zooms are more prone to needing more light. If you're getting underexposed images, run tests and take notes with each lens you plan on using with the meter.
And another thing-it uses a CR123A battery. Those can be hard to find, so carry an extra.
Buy Sekonic L-358 Flash Master Light Meter!
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