20d light meter question

Greetings helpful comrades who always know more then me:
I'm thinking about getting a light meter but don't know if it is necessary. Is the 20d's histogram accurate enough if using the camera by itself and not hooked up to a computer or anything fancy? Also, any good resources on figuring out how to best learn/use the histogram?
Thanks!

Yes, the histogram is accurate enough, if you understand how to use it. A light meter is more useful for studio flash work. Have a read of this article. There's an article on smartshooter.com about face mask histograms, that's a thing to do on a PC though, and that site's great in general.

The 20D meter is actually acurate. I tested it against my spot meter and it was dead on. As far as the histogram goes....it's just a guide and I never use it anyway. If your exposure is on or even close...no problem in PS. Even if it's way off for some reason...you can normally get a good image....with some work. There's loads of people on this site that can explain the histogram thing and I'm sure that you'll get a few responses. I am more interested in imagery and that's my speciality......good luck don

thanks for the input, and tim, thanks for the article...i will read it....
hey tim, by the way ,did you ever get going with the cf 4-1 or did you decide on not using it? I'm going to switch tonight....

Think of the histogram as a compilation, from the darkest to lightest tones, of 8 million 1-pixel spotmeter readings. You can instantly evaluate the range you just captured, once you understand what the histogram represents. It doesn't get in the way of creating images. Practice coupling that with a thumbnail review for blinkies each time the lighting changes and you will rarely need much post-processing effort....

Andy

thanks andy, one question though; what is the general idea when analyzing a histogram? Just trying to keep the edges soft and no spikes on either spectrum correct?

No, it is not as simple as that.

In general, a histogram might be roughly centered, but that is not necessarily so. You want to get the histogram to lean so that it goes almost to the right edge, but it does not quite hit it. On the other hand, if everything is in a lump against the left edge, then that probably is not good, either. For some scenes, you will have multiple spikes, and for other scenes, you will have a smooth spread across.

---Bob Gross---