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I wanted to know if I should invest in a lighter meter with a 1 degree spot meter or will a 5 degree spot meter do just fine? I'm planning to purchase the Sekonic L-478DR or the L-758cine depending on what feed back I get through this community. I'm new to this field of work and currently a student so I want something for long term and I don't want to be in a situation where I need to purchase a 1% spot meter. Thanks.

Just looking to see what tools each of you use in your metering the exposure of a scene. I currently use a combination of a Minolta MK.IV incandescent light meter and the waveform/histogram from the camera itself (in this digital age). I am looking to use a spot meter more for more accurate readings but I am wondering if I should throw some money down on a Minolta or Sekonic. Or just use the spot metering of my Canon 60d SLR instead. What do you find works the best in metering a scene effectively? Cheers!

It's a stupid question, but i haven't find any satisfying results on the internet, so the idiot starts to ask! :) there's something i don't understand about incident meter: We know that when we use the reading from the spot meter, the measured area will be rendered 18% middle gray regardless of the actual reflectance of the area, so we open up or close down the aperture and get a proper exposure. But when we use an incident meter, which takes an average reading of the incoming light onto the object, we don't have any actual reference or benchmark like 18% grey for it to calculate, how could the meter "know" which part is lighter and which part is darker? I see some people answered "using the reading from an incident meter makes a gray card in the same light settings falls into ZONE V" but i got more confused because it kinda explains nothing... Let me be more specific, E.g. How did incident meter calculate the light distribution on an Caucasian face and gives out a reading that replicates the same tone as we see? there may still be misconceptions and errors in my understanding of zone system or both meters, can some one explain it to me in an easy way? That would be very helpful, thanks! :lol: