I was surprised to find that by using the meter alone, and ignoring the EV meter in the camera I was able to get more accurate exposures, and great looking footage on my last GH2 shoot. From now on, I will listen to the meter and not the camera. It seems to have a better grasp of the situation than the camera. As odd as that sounds.

I can't recall. I just remember reading the meter, setting my contrast, and double checking the key exposure on the meter, and then walking over to the monitor, and the bars on screen coming from the in-cam meter not telling me the same thing as the handheld meter. (The in-cam meter was telling me it was too bright) So I recorded a quick shot, pulled the card and put it into AE, to check the scopes and see how it looked, and it was beautiful. So I was like, "Screw it, I'll trust the meter. Let's shoot!''

And yes, I read both incident and reflective.

Two other topics about LM:

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1005/sekonic-l-308dc#Item_7

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/946/light-meter-for-video#Item_19

@shian

Any reason not to prefer 308DC? It is not much more.

@shian (or anyone else) This might sound like a silly noob question, but I assume one advantage of accurate metering is to make best use of the limited 8-bit video range available to the GH2? I haven't used a meter since I had my old manual Zenit B camera, about a million years ago, and to be honest have never thought about using one since, until I read this thread. Normally if I was in a tricky metering situation like (say) balancing lighting from several sources I'd adjust the lighting while checking it in a monitor and then once the lighting was balanced, tweak overall exposure afterwards. I'm guessing that's a bit of a cowboy approach though!

Again. This is just my preference. Not saying the digisix is better than the Sekonic. Just that I didn't like it, and neither did my gaffer. I'm used to how the digisix works because its a digital version of my my old GLP. It's quick, simple, and operates in a fashion that I'm used to, fits in my pocket, and weighs next to nothing. It also happens to be the cheapest one out there. So for anyone looking to get their first meter, without spending over $200, I highly recommend it.

BTW not tailored for still photography. Skewed more towards film/video production.

@shian: Of course, I understand. I just wanted to put in some good word for the L308DC.

@Rambo now that I've done intensive testing, I've found that the GH2 actually underexposes everything. A meter reading of +/- 0 is not a true 50% even exposure but in fact a 40% exposure EXCEPT in Nostalgic mode. Nostalgic boosts the shadows and mids to the right levels, but does not handle the highlights very well. There's a very short IRE span between stops above 50%. Very easy to overexpose on Nostalgic if you are not careful.

(edit: the histogram also lies)

I will always use a hand held meter because I can light a scene without a camera being anywhere near the set, I can work things out on a scout, I can work without a monitor. So I'll never NOT need a meter, but I LOVE false color. The only problem is when you shoot RAW and you are applying a LUT for the monitor feed, the LUT affects the False Color, and will sometimes lie to you. So like for this recent television gig, where it was independently produced, and needed to be sent to the Network for final approval. They weren't sure they were going to be able to keep the "look" on final delivery because it was so dark and contrasty. They might be forced to go with a different grade, and that grade may not work for the lighting, and under those conditions, the balance of the picture might be way off. So I had to light for both, and the RED M-X has this weird bug where you have to toggle the raw, deselect the curves when you check the raw image, then reverse all that to get back to the LUT, and if you do that too many times (like more than 5), the camera will lock up, and/or start acting really weird.

SO while I love FC, I know my meter won't lie to me.

Too complicated to go into here because every film mode profile has a different curve, but basically over expose by 1/3 to 2/3 of stop, except on Nostalgic.

And use a gray card

I'll go in depth in the ColorGHear Film School series, where I examine each camera profile, and show you how to get better exposures on the GH2.

@kavdani Gray card and waveform monitor, there's one in almsot every NLE, just learn to read one. I go over all of this in my tutorials.

@shian 'Too complicated to go into here because every film mode profile has a different curve, but basically over expose by 2/3 of a stop to a stop, except on Nostalgic.

And use a gray card'

So ignoring what color profile you're using, does iso 320 on this meter match iso 320 on the GH2? No offset calibration required?

I ask because the 308DC has an offset function that does just that - of course, it's trial and error before you get it right for your particular dslr. Wondering if the Gossen has a function like that.