Sekonic Speedmaster L-858D-U Light Meter (401-858)

Awesome light meter!! I know enough about meters to use it, but the more I use it the more I learn about exactly what it can do, It can do a lot.

Where to start here? Ok, I recently purchased some monolights with high speed sync ability, that I wanted to use with my D3. Outdoor usage, of course. I'm not big onto chimping over and over looking at the histogram to get a correct exposure. So I purchased a sekonic 208. Nice meter, for sure...easy to use. But it doesnt work with hss. Returned it. Did some research. The 858D is the only purpose built meter for hss. And it works, quite well, I might add. Accurate to a 1/10th of a stop. Has a 1 degree spot meter--fantastic. I know some people don't like the design, but I love it. Stop guessing and looking like a lower primate. Get this tool. It's worth every penny.

I find the Light Meter to be quite professional with many options that I may not even use. However, I do wish that the system was more user-friendly as the menus can be overwhelming. It would be great if the option to personalize and hide certain menu items was available.

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The Sekonic Speedmaster L-858D-U Light Meter is truly a great light meter. It is easy to use. Measures both flash and ambient light. The touch screen is easy to work with. I take mine out in the field to use spot metering to determine the range of EV and decide whether I need to capture just one image or multiple images to get all of the possible dynamic range.

Pedido llego a tiempo y el producto es genial

The lightmeter I purchased was vandalized and had missing parts. It’s not a cheap instrument. Amazon is not responding to the responsibility they should have by shipping an incomplete item. They blame the seller and the seller blames Amazon. At the end of the day I’m the one with an instrument that doesn’t work. I demand a full refund and a shipment to my country once I buy it again.

There are lots of good light meters out there, new and old, but I've always been a fan of Sekonic. This is my third Sekonic light meter, after the L-428 from 1974 and the L-508 that I bought around 1997 or 1998. Both of these meters still work despite age and years of abuse, so that should tell you all you need to know about their longevity.Now, there's no way I can tell you everything that's great about the L-858. I don't do video so many of its features remain unused. And while I do use PocketWizards on rare occasion, I did not spring for the transmitter module. I may do it in the future, but so far I've managed fine without one so we'll see.Let's start with some of the good stuff. Here's a selection of things that I love about the L-858:- Accuracy down to 1/10 of a stop. The world doesn't exist in full EVs; this extra information lets you make more informed exposure decisions.- Flash duration. See exactly how long a flash burst lasts, and gain new insight to help you set up for high speed shooting.- Sensitivity. The L-858 can read incident light down to -5 EV, which is a full 3 stops lower than my L-508, and 2 stops lower than my L-428.- Companion software for setting up profiles and the option to update firmware.- Cumulative flash metering. Need to do multiple consecutive flash bursts on a single exposure? This will ensure that all bursts are counted toward the proper exposure calculation.- 1 degree spot meter. A nice optical scope for isolating the area to read, and a display along the bottom to read values without having to take your eye away to look at the main panel.- Displays the total percentage of light that is flash versus ambient.- The ability to define filters and compensate automatically for them.- Exposure memory with averaging and delta EV.- The option to display EV or luminance information at the same time as everything else. On the L-508, you could display EV or shutter/aperture, but not both at the same time like you can with the L-858.Again, those are just the things that jump out at me as really nice features. Certainly there are plenty more that I don't use. But now let's get to the not-so-good stuff.What I don't love about the L-858:- The display. It's bright, but that's not always a great thing. You can change the brightness but it's a couple of menus deep, making it time consuming. There is an auto brightness feature that dims the display when light levels are low, but it only works when you're actively reading (holding down the button). It also suffers in bright daylight. Under direct sun you need to find a way to shade the display in order to be able to read it.- The touchscreen. Give me back my buttons and dials! The touchscreen interface makes selecting F/T/ISO etc. an imprecise affair, it's easy to go too far. It's easy to not go far enough. It routinely doesn't register my finger movements. The virtual scroll wheels don't feel connected to your movements like you might expect from using them on your phone.- Startup time. If you haven't used the meter in 24 hours, it takes several seconds to start up. Subsequent startups within those 24 hours are faster, but it's still longer than the instantaneous power on for the L-508.- The user interface. As a software engineer by trade, I've come to quickly recognize when an interface hasn't spent enough (or any) time in front of a UX expert, and that's what this feels like. For example:--- The incident/spot meter switch. It's available on the main screen by default, a touchscreen button that lets you switch between two options. The image on the button shows you what mode you're in. But changing the modes is unnecessarily complicated - when you tap the button, you then have to select the appropriate radio button. This should absolutely just be a toggle. Tap, spot mode. Tap, incident mode. There's no need for a separate sceen and radio buttons. By default, this button is assigned to a custom function button that ensures that the option is always available on the main screen. That's fine, but why isn't that permanent? There are two custom function buttons, why waste one of them on something that's a core bit of functionality that everyone uses? If you do choose to remove it from the custom buttons because you want to use them for something else, switching modes requires tapping the Tools button, then tapping the Incident/Spot button, then choosing the correct radio button, then tapping Close.--- You can add readings to the memory by clicking on a button on the side of the meter. But clearing or recalling the memory requires tapping on the Tools button, going down to the second page of options, tapping on the Memory Clear (or Memory Recall) button, and then performing the desired operations on the screen there. Once again, way too many steps to get to core functionality.--- The user interface has several more issues just like these, I'll skip them so as not to sound repetitive.- Aside from the memory and trigger buttons on either side of the meter, the only physical button is a nice, central Menu button below the touchscreen. This button is used for the type of customizations that rarely change, like setting the custom function buttons, or choosing which modes to hide (like I hide the Cine modes since I don't use them). What a waste of real estate. Something like a third of the meter's main body is devoted to this one button that is rarely needed, and after you click it? Everything you do in that menu requires the touchscreen anyway. So why is it even there?-----------------------------Hey Sekonic, you want to make a useful, amazing light meter that I would consider to be basically perfect? Here's what you do:-- Get rid of that power button up top, and move the touch screen up to where it's just below the "Sekonic" label.-- Implement all of the primary functionality as physical buttons. Just take all of the buttons (and that lovely, beautiful scroll wheel) from the L-758 and stick them in that nice big area you now have below the touchscreen, along with the power button.-- All additional functions that aren't covered by those physical buttons can still use the touch screen. But hire a UX guy to tell you when to just use a toggle button instead of opening a 2-option menu that requires three times the effort to use.-- Fix the touchscreen issues. It needs to be more responsive, it needs to be faster, and the UI needs to be modernized, cleaner and more professional. This is a $600 device, it should look like it.----------------------------Okay, I've said a lot, and a lot of it wasn't great. But at its core, this is still the best and most functionally robust light meter I've ever used. For that, it gets a good overall rating. If Sekonic takes my advice and goes back to physical controls for the most commonly used functionality, I'd buy this meter all over again. It's that good. It's just that in its current form, it's clunkier than it should be for its price point.

Sekonic es sekonic.Y este modelo con su accesorio para Godox, en mi caso, te acelera mucho el flujo de trabajo.Aunque la curva de aprendizaje con todo lo que tiene no es muy rápida para mí, sí lo vale.

I use it for running my photo and video business. It saves time and make my work more precise. I highly recommend it for any photo/video creators

I bought this mainly for HSS flash photography it works fine, having trouble getting it to 200 SS goes from 125 to 250 skips by 200 I miss the wheel

Me tomo tiempo adquirirlo ya que el alto precio me hacía dudar. Ahora puedo decir que si te gusta la fotografía o el video vale 100 % . El manejo de luz se hace sencillo . Amazon me dio la opción de meses sin intereses.

Buen producto