Hello I use 758Dr ( newly purchased ). I am stuck with the reading jargon. The aperture is shown always with a fraction and another number. It is stops and the extra number. Light meter is on 1/10 or full stops, and camera can handle only 1/3 or 1/2 stops. So how can I fully use the power of handheld meters? I tried to custom set function in Sekonic, but still fractions are shown.
Answer
There is a chart of Tenth stops at http://www.scantips.com/lights/fstop.html (down low on page)
But a third stop is 0.333 stops. Two thirds is 0.667 stops. A half stop is 0.5 stops.
So if your meter shows f/8 plus 0.7 stop, that is approximately 2/3, or virtually the same as 0.667 stops. So merely open 2/3 clicks above f/8, or 1/3 click below f/11. Either way, this is about f/10.
Tenth stops are not particularly useful outdoors in ambient light, since we cannot set the camera directly in tenth stops. We would just set it as close as possible, the difference is minor, and your only choice.
But tenth stops are extremely useful for metering multiple studio flash. We can set their differences more closely. But the overwhelming advantage of tenth stops is when pondering fill level for that lighting ratio - how much is one and a third stop less than f/10? It is about f/6.3, but who knows that? But if we read these two values as f/5.6 plus 3/10 stop vs. f/8 plus 6/10 stop, then in our heads we easily know 1.3 stops difference, immediately (in use, that is really a big deal for lighting ratio).
Most Sekonics have switches to set it to read Full stops (which is tenths) or third or half stops. Check the manual for your switches.
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