How exact did you photographers find the output from your flash (mono and generator)? Normally you can make 1/10f steps. But already when you test it from one full stop to the other, what is your experience? Anyone made a test?
When I go from 4 to 5 (one fill stop) and I measure it with a Sekonic 558, then its only 1/2 stop. Sometimes at higher level its much more precise. Also, the 7stops fits exactly, but with finer steps and lower levels...
Or see I something wrong?
Thanks, rem
(I tested it with the new Hensel Porty 1200L and the new Hensel Expert D"
How are you performing this test?
Distance from strobe head to subject will affect meter readings ... pretty drastically actually.
Did you test everything as a constant (same modifiers, same distance to subject, and same position/direction of the meter)?
Just for kicks, I just ran a test like this using my Profoto D2400 generator and one head with a beauty dish modifier. Constant placement/direction of the Sekonic Flash Master L-358 light meter with built-in Pocket Wizard trigger, and I did multiple separate pops to be sure at each setting.
The meter was set 27 inches away from the front of the beauty dish, and was directly facing it.
Lowest setting is 19w/s @ f/9 every time ... 38w/s @ f/11 ... 75w/s @ f/16 ... 150w/s @ f/22 ... 300 w/s @ f/32 ... as so on. These are full click steps on the D2400 digital control dial.
At 19 w/s, when I moved the meter 6 inches further away ... 6 inches! ... the f stop dropped from f/9 to f/8, and at a 9 inches away it dropped to f/7.1 and 2' more inches away it dropped to f/6.3 ... I was able to repeat this multiple times.
Moral of the story is that tests must be extremely consistent in distance to meter ... especially when the inverse-square law is applied as the distance from the light grows further (where a subject at twice the distance receives only 1/4 the energy).
-Marc