Originally posted by adelorenzo Whatever meter you get be sure to RTFM. I learned the hard way that you need to understand how to read the meter and how it measures light if it is going to be useful. Also don't just blindly dial something into your camera without actually thinking about it. I've gotten home and realized that I shot 1s exposures in full daylight based on using the meter wrong. If i had stopped and actually thought about the numbers it would be obvious they were way off.
For outdoor shooting my best exposures are the ones based on spot metering or a combination of Sunny 16 and instinct. Any attempts to use an incident or reflected meter have not been good.
LOL! Yes, do that, absolutely. Better still, enroll in an advanced metering course or join a group of LF/ULF photographers where spot metering... (and not
incident) is their standard MO. Transparency film is very, very unforgiving and anybody proferring the idea that incident metering is fine for it is kidding themselves and others. I take the view that solely relying on incident is lazy, imprecise, lacking subjectivity and agreeing with that meter in that is is does not know what it is looking at, nor does it care.
Armed with a spot meter and 30 years' experience, I can corral Velvia into a correct exposure in bright daylight with deep shadows. This is not my stock lighting situation (the ideal and dominant is diffuse spectral), but it has been done when something must be brought back.
99.999% of the time it is not the spot meter at fault with outcomes, but the photographer. Don't say it's not easy, because it is
very easy ...
when you know how.