cwphoto wrote in post #2255600
...or for those of us who still like to use an external light meter.
Right on....
In my opinion, the best way for someone to learn about exposure is not to use a built-in meter with the various degrees of accompanying automation, but to use a handheld meter and manual settings on a camera. That way the student can more easily learn about relationship between shutter speed, aperture, and ISO settings (ISA film speed for us old buggers). Once the basics are mastered, then one can progress to using a greater variety of tools for various reasons.
This concept is the same that I suggest for teaching/learning any craft skill set - woodworking, welding, painting, or whatever. Start with the simplest basics and progress from there once the basics are mastered.
Back to exposure - I often use my handheld meter when shooting outdoor events such as the soapbox derby I recently photographed. The handheld meter is usually in incident mode and using it that way allows me to quickly check the level of the lighting itself. I make a small tweak to the camera settings as the lighting level changes. When using this technique, I will use the built-in meter only as an indicator that things may be changing but will usually check the incident meter before deciding to change the camera settings.
You may ask why I work using this method. It's because a reflected light meter - especially one which built into the camera and functioning automatically when you take each shot - can often be fooled by the subject's color and reflectivity when shooting a variety of subjects in the same lighting with little or no time to set up individually for each shot. When I use incident readings, I usually have far better consistency in my exposures for an outdoor event than I would using purely automatic exposure control by the camera.
(joking, joking)
