I want to buy a meter but I don't know what I need exactly; i don't know if I realy need the incidient metering( what for), or do I really need spot reading or wide angle w'd suffice?

-- ahmad hosni (XOSNI@GEGA.NET), December 09, 1999

Answers

Unfortunately, we don't know what you need either. Have you a specific problem that you are trying to solve with a hand-held meter?

I prefer a hand-held meter to one in the camera, because I want to know the range between the shadows and highlights, so I can choose an appropriate exposure (and negative development). When I am feeling lazy, I just meter the shadows, and close down 2 stops. To accurately meter the shadows, I prefer a spot meter, because it allows me to examine them from a distance, rather than heving to walk around the scene.

When I am really lazy, I just use an incident meter. This is much faster, but gives me less control.

For a huge number of opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of different types of meter, see the photo.net Q&A metering threads.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), December 10, 1999.

Here is one more:

Personally, I prefer hand-held meters, too, but they are one more piece of equipment to be carried around. On the other hand, they help me overcome the limitations of my in-camera meters.

You can do most things with in-camera meters. If your camera allows spot metering, there is one argument less for a hand-held meter. You can then spot-meter the shadows to see if they are two stops or less below the value suggested by the averaging function, and also the highlights, if you suspect that they are beyond the range the film can capture. Spot metering with the in-camera meter is dangerous if you forget to switch off this feature, because it is an easy way to measure totally false values (if the spot happens to lie on one of the extremes, and the value is fed into the camera automatic).

The second important argument in favour of a hand-held meter (but not usually a spot meter) is the low-light limitation of in-camera meters. My in-camera meter, and also my hand-held spot meter both stop measuring at about EV 2 (at ISO 100). This is sometimes inconvenient. For measurements in churches or at night, I have a Gossen meter with a range extending down to EV -5 (at ISO 100).

Incident-light metering is sometimes a quick and dirty way to get a value that is more reliable than that of an averaging reflected-light meter. It is more or less equivalent to metering the light reflected by a grey card (using either a spot meter or close-up measuring). While it is fine for the mid-grey values, its drawback is that it yields no information on the contrast range.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), December 10, 1999.