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I have been advised by a few good photographers to buy a light meter before I invest in studio lighting.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me about theirs, and the uses they have for it.

I don't see the need for a light meter when shooting digitally. It only takes a few trial shots to get the correct digital exposure (i.e. expose-to-the-right), which takes almost no time and costs nothing. A light meter is geared towards shooting film, and thus isn't going to be able to calculate the right setting for you.

Offhand, I'd say that anyone who says you need a light meter is stuck in the past. In my experience, these are the same people who say that you need to know The Zone System, too. Yeah right, sure thing. I'd better get on that.

It depends on what level of work you intend to do, if you are just going to do some basic studio work using 2-3 lights you could probably get by wothout one, however once you start using more advanced lighting set up's you will have to use a light meter.

Oh and I've got a Sekonic L-508, good bit of kit.

Other then the obvious studio shoots, I did use a light meter more than once in night and low light photography.

Your camera won't measure exposures that last more than 30 seconds, and when the exposure is measured in several minutes or even hours, trial and error is not a very useful method.

You don't need an expensive flash meter nowadays ... or even a cheap one.

Here's a simple way of getting the exposure spot-on under flash using nothing more than a sheet of pure white paper (stuff out of your printer will do, provided it's not recycled).

Set up your shoot.

Set the exposure to a good guess and than take a trial shot with the piece of white paper in the scene (get your model to hold it, or place it strategically).

Look at the histogram. It will have a spike on it for the white paper. If that spike is jammed hard up against the right side you're over-exposed. If it's somewhere down to the left you're under.

Adjust your exposure to get the spike just nudging up against the right-hand side. No more.

That's it. Exposure spot-on. Easy-peasy.

Thank you very much for the clarification Sharply!

I've got an L308 as well.  Great little meter for studio/setup work, and use it a bit for window light portraits or other really contrasty ambient setups.

The white paper trick works well as well, and I do that if I'm meter-less and the camera seems to be getting it wrong (Ambient, not flash light)

When I'm doing multi-head flash setup's I find the flash meter is the only way to go, but for a single light, or where you've got a high level of diffusion the white paper is just as good if you've got the time to shoot'n'set a couple of times.

Some large setups like sports teams the meter is the only way to go, when the camera is 20+ feet from the subject, and you've got 2000WS of light on two heads.  The other issue there of course is that you loose a wad of credibility if the sports team arrives early and you're piddling around like that...  With the meter you set the lights to your usual setting, take one reading, set the camera and you're hot to trot.

As an aside, I do a bit of child photography, and I find that having the kids play with the meter plugged into one of the strobes is sometimes an excellent ice breaker for nervous kids as well...

Cheers, Me.

I use the Polaris Digital Flash Meter<img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=xpopro-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B00009UTKE" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />

I have the Sekonic L-358 as well, and always use it for studio shooting. I use the histogram method when shooting outdoors.