Light meter recommendations

HI everyone, i use a pentax p30t, i don't shoot professionally, hell I don't shoot amateur either. Anyway, I am thinking of investing in a light meter for my camera. I have a af200s flash gun from ebay, but will be shooting more important shots soon and want my colours and light to be better than normal. Any suggestions? I am no millionaire so moderate price and reliabilty rule! thank you for your advice in advance!

Well, before investing in a seperate meter, I'd be inclined to try an 18% grey card. These are very cheap and enable you to obtain very accurate readings from your camera's meter.
There's nothing wrong with the meter in the P30 but it is centre-weighted and susceptible to errors caused by excessively bright or dark areas within the frame. If you expose from an area that is roughly equivalent to 18% grey ie. green grass (illuminated by the same light that is falling on the subject) or a good blue sky, store the settings and then recompose to include the subject the result should be spot on.
Using an 18% grey card means that you don't have to fill the frame with a suitable subject - you simply hold the card in the light that is falling on the subject and meter directly from the card.
With a little practise it is a cheap and foolproof method and quicker than using a hand-held meter whose readings you then have to transfer to the camera.

Hi,
Grey cards work but a hand held is much easier and can give you better results in difficult situations. Have a look around the camera dealers. Quite often they don't know what to do with them when someone trades in an outfit and you can pick up a basic one very cheaply. The first incident meter I had was a Bisix II and it worked very well in normal light situations. I don't think I paid much more than a £1 for it in a rummage bin. You only really need the more expesive meters for flash and such things as low light work.

Regards
Kim

We all have our different ways to arrive at the correct exposure, and I have never found it necessary to use a hand held meter. It's true to say I tend to amaze my friends with 36 correctly exposed slides every time (virtually).

My preferred method is to meter off something predictable and then adjust the setting. Sunlit grass and clear blue sky are about 18% grey reflectance, so are zone 5. Typical skin tone is one stop lighter, as is tarmac on the road, say zone 6. White walls are zone 8 if you want a hint of detail. So for a white wall to remain white, meter it and then increase exposure by three stops....Simple! This all applies well to negative film.

CCDs and slide film do not want any over-exposure at all, to avoid washed out areas. Just make sure that you meter the actual subject and not masses of dark or light areas and there should be no problem in taking a general centre-weighted reading. A little tweak one way or the other will come naturally in time.

CCDs are actually the one time I use matrix metering, and I really haven't found a problem. With slides I use aperture priority centre-weighted metering. For black and white film I use manual exposure and spot or centre-weighted metering so I can ensure good shadow detail.