Sekonic L-358 and outdoor metering

[Tapper]

I have an L-358 that I bought mainly to meter strobes while shooting digital, and it works very well for that. But I've developed a severe case of large format fetish, and I'm wondering whether the L-358 would be a good tool for metering LF outdoors?

I don't have the spot attachment for it, is it really needed? I've been reading up on the zone system, and it seems best suited to spot metering. Can the L-358 be used to effectively guage exposure without the spot attachment?

Some advice here would be most appreciated. How should the meter be set up, technique tips, the works.

[srwatters]

I don't have personal experience, but Google will find you plenty like this one:

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetc...id=00AQqG&tag=

[billbunton]

I'd say no, you really need the spot meter to use the zone system. You need to be able to determine the zone of various points in your composition, and the spot meter is really the only way to do that.

You might want to look around for one of the old Soligor spot meters. They were pretty much a knock-off of the Pentax, though quite a bit cheaper, and worked quite well.

[Tapper]

I wonder how well using my D200 to meter would work?

[bondarnes]

If you can read the light falling on your subject then the Sekonic meter will work just fine and is more accurate than the meter in your camera. Also if the subject is too far away to meter, but the light striking your subject is exactly the same intensity as the light at the camera you can read the light from the camera position. Just be sure the meter sensor is facing away from the subject.