Recommend me a Light Meter

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Nick Grant
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I've just bought an old Lubitel 166 for the bargin price of £28 (lomography are making repos for £250) and hoping it will give a bit more control than my Holga (I know that's not the point of the Holga). Anyhoo I'm thinking I could probably do with a light meter if I want to get some good results from it and may get some use even on digital shoots to improve exposure but don't really know what I need.

From the basics I understand you can take reflected or incident light readings to get the exposure. I read very quickly about the zone system which I think uses an average reading from multiple reflected readings.

How does flash come into the equation?

I don't want to spend loads as film is just something to mess about with for me.

Any recommendations?
 
I've got a sekonic, L-358, but if you just want something to get the exposure right on film use the meter in your digital body, it's a lot cheaper than a meter...
 
For the zone system you need a spot meter, the Pentax ones are the choice here, very simple to use although you need a better grasp of the zone system than a quick read will give you to be able to interpret the results. Never been a huge fan of the Sekoincs - nothing wrong with them, well featured and accurate but I find them just a tad over complex.

Not sure what your query is regarding flash. If you mean studio flash then you need a meter capable of measuring a test flash. Some general purpose meters are capable of this or you can get a dedicated flashmeter which will also have a pc socket so you can use it to trigger the flash. If you mean portable (or built in) flash you just balance it with the ambient light to get the desired effect.

For general purpose metering avoid the very old Westons and similar as they have a habit of drifting out of calibration over the years (this is why they are so cheap on the bay of e).

My personal preference for a general purpose hand held meter is the Gossen Lunasix F which I own. Very easy to use, has flash capability, battery lasts for years (on the fifth battery now in mine which was bought in 1981 and has had heavy use), dome for incident readings which just slides into place and can't be mislaid, attachments available for LF, darkroom and spot metering (although the last is cumbersome and fiddly) and a comprehensive calculator dial marked for the zone system.

Of course, you could always use a DSLR as a meter as suggested above!
 
I've been using a Sekonic 308 in a studio situation and it works a treat. It's not massively featured and you have to do a little bit of calculation yourself but it does the job nicely and it's cheap.
 
I bought a Weston Master V off ebay for £5.50 - works a treat, but maybe too simple for your needs
 
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