Customer Reviews

Sekonic PRODIGI C-500R Color Meter (Black)

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Color temperature meters are a special item often only used by pros, especially for film and video.

My need is a bit different - I tend to do a lot of work with creative lighting setups, where there's often a balance between daylight, ambient artificial light and complex off-camera flash systems. One of the challenges in this situation is getting the relative color balance of the different light sources to agree in a way that doesn't call attention to the fact that you're mixing multiple light sources, each putting out a slightly different color of light. The technique I use is to setup the shot without flash, metering to get the "ambient" color temperature. Then, I'll put colored gels over my flashes to either get matching colors or the special effect I'm looking for (often I like the flash to cast a warmer beam).

The C-500R is built like a tank and will likely last forever, even under harsh use. The sensor is well placed and can be aimed as you like, and if you plan on filtering at the camera, you can simply place the filter over the sensor to see what the impact will be. If you have wireless flash with Pocket Wizards (or one of the products that uses the same protocols as Pocket Wizard), you can even wirelessly trigger your lights right from the meter.

A very cool feature is that the display doesn't just show you color temperature - is also shows you what type of filter you need to bring the light back in balance, usually in Kodak "CC" values (for instance, under florescent lights, it might tell you that a CC30M magenta filter would bring the color temp back in line with daylight balanced film).

For digital photographers, you can also use the ambient color temperature to set the white balance on your camera. If you want highly accurate color reproduction, this is a good help. Indeed, my workflow around this product is to measure ambient color temp, set that into the camera, then filter the flash to match or to get the effect I want. Sounds complex, but it works great and makes those complicated lighting setups look much more natural.

Of course, the person who needs one of these knows everything I've said...but still, this is a great product and well worth the money if you're photography requires this type of precision and control.