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Home >> Photography >> Accessories Sekonic L-508 Meter
It seemed like the ultimate meter that could do ambient in both spot and incident mode as well as flash metering. Put it all in a weather-resistant case and you have the kind of meter that outdoor landscape photographers are going to fall for in a big way. I did and I find it very convenient to use but perfect it's not and perhaps when Sekonic comes out with the 608 they will have addressed the major weakness of the 508 just as they addressed the major weakness of the 408, which was that the 408 lacked the ability to zoom in to a 1 degree spot reading, being restricted to just a 4 or 5 degree spot reading. There are two versions of the 508, the standard photographer's version and the Cinema version. I ordered the standard model first in early 1999 but ended up with the Cinema version because supply was not meeting demand for the 508 in Canada. It was a pretty hot item when first introduced and most stores in Vancouver didn't have it in stock and then when Olympus, the Canadian distributor of Sekonic products finally did bring some 508s in it was the more expensive Cinema version. I had already waited several weeks and had prepaid it with my major Bronica purchase. I had the Multiblitz flash kit sitting at home unused because I had no flash meter so when the store finally had the 508C in I bit and paid the extra $80 for it. I suppose I could have figured out a manual flash to distance calculation and then set the aperture accordingly but then my head would have hurt too much from doing so. I was thinking of typing all of the features available but then I would simply be regurgitating the operating manual which is not what I want to read myself or for that matter spend so much time typing out. Instead I'll gloss over the major features and then go over the ones that I use the most. Technical The 508 is about average size for well-featured meters. It sits comfortably in the palm of a hand either left or right handed orientation. Two buttons on either side of the meter fall comfortably for pressing by either the thumb or index finger. One is memory and the other is the measuring button. The front of the 508 has six buttons to access the various features, one control dial and a large LCD screen that is automatically back lit with an Indiglo-type blue light. The top of the meter has the incident light reading white dome that can be retracted in for reading two-dimensional objects such as copying documents or flat artwork. The bottom of the meter has a tripod socket. The 508 is built to withstand some light sprinkling of water so it has rubber gaskets around various weak areas such as the battery chamber. But the 508 is not waterproof by any means and overall build does not dictate rough handling of the meter either. The meter has a PC cord connection for corded operation and another connection that Sekonic calls the booster on the zoom lens side of the meter. This booster accessory allows for the meter to take readings off of ground glass focusing screens or other weak areas. Dip switches located within the battery compartment allow for some fine tuning of various features such as enabling of Aperture Priority or allowing for shutter speeds in half stop increments. I have both selections enabled to allow for finer readings. The 508 is capable of a number of settings to try and cater to as wide a group of photographers and cinematographers as possible. Major features are spot metering, ambient light metering and flash metering. In cinema mode a frames per second display is shown and for the photographer who works in Exposure Value there is an EV mode too. Other wise the other features available are cordless flash metering and corded flash metering both single and multiple readings and a few more advanced features. The spot meter is activated via a turn dial on the viewfinder. This dial is marked with two small symbols for incident and spot options; these same symbols are outlined when selected on the LCD screen. The other side of the 508 where the lens is also has a dial to select the amount of zooming desired from 4 degrees to 1 degree. Spot readings can be either Aperture Priority or Shutter Speed priority. The 508 can also display EV readings in spot mode but I don¡åt work with this type of measurement so I won¡åt mention too much about it. By turning the viewfinder dial to the half dome symbol, incident mode is selected and it is here that many features are available from normal ambient light readings to flash and multi-flash readings. For either spot or incident light readings the operation of the 508 is simple enough as you dial in the correct ISO that you want the reading to be based on and then depress the measuring/reset button to take a reading. The ISO can be dialed in 1/3 increments and ranges from ISO 3 to 8000. Shutter-speed readings can range from 1/8000 to 1800 seconds (30 minutes) and aperture readings can range from f0.5 to f90. One of the interesting features of the 508 is the way it displays aperture readings. In Shutter Priority mode a graph of aperture settings is displayed at the bottom of the LCD in addition to the normal numerical reading. Select an appropriate shutter speed and the 508 will provide you with an exact aperture required for proper exposure meaning that if the aperture required is f5.62 then f5.62 will be displayed irregardless of whether or not you can actually have such a setting on your camera. So a display of f5.65 is obviously telling you that for the given shutter speed value selected then you need to select an aperture midway between f5.6 and f8. A reading of 5.68 is telling you that your aperture should be closer to f8 then to an actual f5.6 for the chosen shutter speed. In aperture priority mode the bottom graph display is not present but the same middle values for aperture is still displayed. Shutter speeds are also displayed in full stop increments despite the dipswitch selection for half stop increments being enabled (only for shutter priority readings). So despite the fact that you may want f8 and need a shutter speed of 3 seconds you will instead get a reading of 4 seconds and f85. In flash meter mode the user can choose to plug a PC cord into the 508 for corded operation or go cordless. In either mode the user can choose single flash or multi flash readings. In flash meter mode the 508 has a range of shutter speeds from 1 second to 1/1000 but by turning the dial beyond 1/1000, some odd shutter speed readings can be had such as 75, 80, 90, 100, 200 and 400 for cameras with such sync speeds. Averaging of metered readings is also available as well as memory provisions for up to three readings. An exposure compensation feature is also available to match the 508 with other meters for standard readings or for biasing to individual preferences. Two ISO buttons are available to allow for dual readings with different speed of films. In short the 508 looks very simple to operate and is due to its uncluttered face plate but it has a number of features that more advanced photographers will find useful. For myself I keep things pretty simple and in some ways the 508 is overkill for what I need out of a meter. Use and Handling I use all three of the metering modes of spot, incident and flash on a regular basis for which the 508 answered my needs very well as it helped to save me money from having to buy two separate spot and flash/incident meters. But going beyond the basic aperture or shutter priority modes and into multi-flash or averaging have not been factors in my shooting needs yet. The advanced features are nice to have but I think I could have lived with a more basic Sekonic 308 flash/incident meter and used the built in reflected meters in my cameras or Bronica prism for spot readings. Doing it this way would have been a bit inconvenient though as I don't usually use the prism for my SQ-Ai body as I prefer to use the waist level finder for greater focusing accuracy. The 508 is the meter I wanted and I'm quite happy that I bought it but some omissions or irks to mention. Firstly the LCD screen emits an annoying high pitch sound whenever the blue back light turns on. The back light turns on whenever the ambient light conditions go below EV 3 and will remain on for ten seconds. Nice to have but I would much prefer that Sekonic had dampened the sound more. My Nikon F90x body and SB28 flash also have the blue back light but the high pitch sound is less intrusive and a bit less annoying. Number two and one that has been mentioned a few times on the newsgroups is the lack of LCD readout in the viewfinder for the spot meter. It is a very handy feature to have and is one that is available on all the other dedicated spot meters with the pistol grip handle but not on the 508. To add such a feature would have made the 508 larger and more importantly more expensive for the consumer. I haven't minded too much having to take a reading and then take the meter away from my eye to see the reading but I would also love to be able to see the reading directly in the viewfinder and be able to take multiple readings in a fluid manner. This would be the major item to address in the next 608 incarnation and I leave it to Sekonic to do so in a cost-effective manner. But doing so may kill the market for Sekonic's own standalone spot meters so then again maybe not. Conclusion The 508 has been a pretty hot item since being introduced and favored among professionals and serious amateurs. I've seen a few pros on TV using the 508 and a few more references to the 508 used by advanced amateur photographers in various magazines and for good reason as the number of features packed into one nicely sized and reasonably priced package make for a great buy. It's a lot of meter for a beginner and it may take a long time to grow into using most of the 508's features (and probably never will use all of its features) but I can't see any major regrets in doing so. Link to Sekonic Questions from a reader:
You ask some quite interesting questions about the Sekonic 508 and unfortunately, given the way I use the meter, I think I may disappoint you with my response given my limited use of the 508. I had hopes of becoming a great studio photographer with the 508 in my hand, but I have found that my primary use of the 508 is as an ambient light meter for use with my medium format kit. I use it when the occasion arises to meter studio flash units, but these are for very simple and straightforward lighting setups, not complex multiple lights. The need for fast setup and breakdown in a wedding shoot necessitates simplicity and speed. I usually use the 1 degree setting when using it in spotmeter mode for a more precise reading of the important subject area I wish to expose for. Having 1 to 4 degrees to work with is very nice, but most times I'm at 1 degree. The lack of a viewfinder readout does not bother me since I'm not using the spotmeter mode very often. Incident mode is how I use the 508 for 90 percent of the time. I do not use the flat diffuser mode since I do not take photos of flat art or other such subjects that could benefit from a flat diffuser. The backlit LCD is very helpful to have available. It does make an annoying high pitch sound when close to it, but you live with it. For the way I use the 508, one lithium AA cell will last a year, but certainly if you are working constantly in the studio doing readings and leaving it on all the time, you will go through batteries. I think of it as being no worse than any other meter available on the market and given how low cost AA cells are, it is not a factor I would be concerned with unless there are numerous reports of the meter being a battery hog. Besides which, the meter has a twenty-minute shut off to conserve the battery and with a lithium cell, it is rated for 35 hours of operation. Alkaline cells are rated for 20 hours. The meter can be setup to display half-stop increments for the shutter speed. This is set via a dip switch at the back of the meter where the battery chamber is located (inside the chamber). When you take a reading, you can rotate the main dial to see another equivalent exposure setting. This setting stays until you take another reading and even if you turn the meter off, the measurement stays for the next time you turn the meter back on whether it be one minute later or one month later. You can also adjust the ISO and see what the equivalent exposure is with that new variable. Multiple flash is not the same as Averaging. Multiple flash is using a series of weak flash bursts to build up to a desired aperture value. E.g. you want f22 light for your subject, but your flash can only output f2.8 light. You can pop the flash until the cumulative flash bursts equals f22 light, the 508 will measure each burst and show what the cumulative aperture value will be so that you can see when to stop popping the flash. Averaging is having multiple flash units pop one at a time, but perhaps with different power outputs. You measure each flash and then average their combined output, but only up to three measurements. Since I do not use this feature, I do worry about the three measurement limitation. If you fire multiple flashes at once, the meter will read all of the collective flash output and display the appropriate aperture to use for that collective flash output based upon where you do the meter reading. I'm not certain what you mean by spot flash, but you can do wireless flash metering or wired flash metering, it's your choice, just set the appropriate mode first. However, wireless with the 508 does not mean the meter can trigger the flash pop. You need something else to trigger the flash units when using the 508 in wireless mode. It will of course trigger the flash units when used in wired sync mode. The 608 meter has the wireless flash tripping module as an added cost, nice, but far too much for my wallet. Shutter speed is in 1/2 stop increments while Aperture Priority is in 1/10 increments. Since I work almost always in Aperture Priority mode and usually with negative films, I follow this simple rule of thumb of setting the aperture for overexposure instead of under. If it says f8.3 then I set f8, if f8.5 then I set f8.5 on the lens and if it says f8.7 then I still set f8.5 on the lens. Only if it is right at f8.9 then I would use f11 on the lens. You are correct that there is no flash to ambient analysis available, but for me this is not a problem since if I am outdoors, I want to use fill flash via TTL and if I am indoors, I want the flash to be the dominant light source, but I would probably measure the ambient first and then decide how much ambient I want to allow for the exposure. I did not quite understand your question about flash reflected sensitivity. The 508 does the job for me, but as I mentioned earlier, I do not use the advanced modes of the 508. It would be nice to have both shutter and aperture increments in 1/3 stop, but since my wedding work is with negative films, half-stop increments is more than adequate given the latitude available. There is no filter factor but the second ISO button essentially does the same thing by allowing you to set the equivalent ISO when using a filter. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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When
I made the decision to purchase a medium format camera kit I knew
that I would have to include a good flash meter in with the package
because I was also buying a small, studio-type monolight kit. The
Sekonic 508 was always number-one in my mind as the meter to buy because
of its great set of features in one nice-sized package. Okay I lied,
the 508 wasn't always number one, its predecessor the 408 was what
I had in mind until the 508 superceded it. 