Light Meters

[reflect]

Help - can all of you smart photographers out there in AP land put a bumbling newby straight. Im trying to work out whether or not to buy a light meter now or wait for more equipment. I have 3 yongnou460s flashes with ebay triggers, can I get a light meter that will trigger these to help determine settings? Sorry if this is dumb, but I am really enjoy studio style (sort of) shooting...thanks for your help. Feel free to treat me harshly lol

[I @ M]

can I get a light meter that will trigger these to help determine settings?

The basics behind a light meter are that you trigger your lights with ebay trigger and hold your meter at the subject point to determine exposure ( no camera involved ) and proceed from there.
If you want to get into studio work heavily I would recommend a light meter to get your initial exposure "in the ball park" and then fine tune it from the camera histogram. After a bit of practice you will start to know your lighting and be able to operate without a meter for a lot of "basic" shots but for more detailed work they still come in handy.

Check out secondhand good quality units, they don't seem to "wear out" much and can be bought for reasonable amounts on the net and through magazines.

In the meantime, spend plentiful hours reading through posts on here and head over to http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html and start an addictive learning curve.

[bigdazzler]

If you have the budget to buy one, buy one. If you dont, you can certainly create well exposed images in the digital age without one. They are not a necessity by any means.

However, they do come in very handy when using multiple lights, and different lighting ratios. ie. different power output from different lights.

Its probably more important at this stage to learn how to read your histogram, and learn how to chimp your aperture, shutter speed to control exposure. Only after youve got a handle on exactly whats happening, and how your exposure is being created (ie. shutter speed/ambient light , aperture/flashlight etc ... ) will a handheld incidental meter be of real value to you.

As Andrew said above, head on over to strobist.com and start with lighting 101 .. hours of fun stuff to read about and get you on your way with flash photography

[reflect]

thanks for the good advice.....disappearing from life for while to immerse myself in lighting tutorials....