Sekonic SpectroMeter C-800

Intended for photographers, videographers, cinematographers, and gaffers, the SPECTROMETER C-800 from Sekonic is an advanced field meter capable of reading virtually all light sources whether they’re LED, flash, incandescent, HMI, fluorescent, or natural light spectrum. Most importantly, it’s a practical lighting tool that analyzes the light source using 11 different display modes on its 4.3″ colour touchscreen, indicating specifically what you need to do to achieve your desired effect. The meter’s CMOS sensor enables measurement in increments as fine as 1nm and allows the capture of colour spikes in the light output – an especially valuable function when working with LED, HMI, fluorescent lighting, and mixed sources.

Perhaps the meter’s most exciting addition is the Spectral Similarity Index. Developed by the Sci-Tech Council of the Academy, SSI gives the user the ability to set any light as a standard, or use predefined standards (such as CIE D55), and then gives other lights an SSI score based on how well they will match. The C-800 also includes TLCI (Television Lighting Consistency Index), TLMF (Television Lighting Matching Factor), and TM-30-15 (Technical Memorandum) in addition to CRI (Color Rendering Index), which can be measured singularly or in two light comparison modes.

The SPECTROMETER has very impressive accuracy, repeatability, and response specs and a wide range of values in all modes. Flash, for example, can be colour-analyzed with selectable shutter speeds from 1-1/500 sec. Ambient light has a 1.0 to 200,000 lux range (0.09 to 18,600 fc). The intuitive colour touchscreen offers access to the meter’s many functions including a Spectrum graph, CRI, Camera Filter, Lighting Filter, White Balance Compensation, and comparison of multiple lights.

The Text mode screen displays color temperature, lux or fc as well as color compensation and light balancing filters. After selecting your preferred colour balance, the Camera Filter and Lighting Filter Screens will display the actual Rosco, Lee, Kodak Wratten, or Fuji filter designations necessary to achieve your targeted colour temperature. CRI also has a dedicated screen that displays standard colour reference values (including R1 through 15) as a percentage of the light source’s ability to reproduce a colour accurately, as compared to the Ra standard temperature. The Multi Light Screen reads multiple light sources’ colour temperatures as well as light balance and colour compensation recommendations, memorizes them, and allows them to be compared.

With its plethora of light-analytic tools, and ability to read and compare all types of light and real-world filter solutions, the SPECTROMETER is destined to be a staple on set.