Light meters & whether you'd get one ...

On a digital camera with a hystogram on screen, a hand held meter seem superfluous to me... and I`m literally stucked to a L608 or L208 (I use to shoot with non metering film cameras, too).

Clive,

You'll get varying responses depending who you ask.
20 years ago this was an easy question..Today is a new game.

I have a meter in my bag though I rarely use it.
I've shot for enough years that I can look at a scene and know within 1/2 stop where I need to set shutter speed and f/stop. Same for my studio work...I've done it long enough that distance, output etc are firmly ingrained; I'm sure there are other here on PN who are the same in this regard.

The last time I used my Meter/flash meter was only to calibrate my camera (Curve-Speed Profiling) and strobes.
I'm sure some of the purists will chime in to tell you a meter is invalueable..Perhaps it is for many.

There are many articles extolling the virtues of incident metering Vs Reflective..while I agree that incident is usually the way to meter a subject, I still find it unnecessary given the shoot & delete ability of today's cameras. Even given the shoot & delete method for beginners, most anyone with experience can look at the scene and get awfully close to where they need to be...I still do this twice a year when I shoot my film MF.
My personal opinion?
I think meters are sold by people that want to sell meters.

I hate the histograms and JPG preview on my D200. I get much more consistent results, when not using an SB800, by metering manually. I do allow it to go to apeture priority when using my SB800. Personally I just don't trust built in metering.

I picked up an old Gossen Profisix off of ebay a couple of years ago to go with my meterless Nikon F. I have found it to be handy from time to time when the lighting is a bit complex with cameras with matrix & CW metering. I haven't found the need to use it with a camera that has spot metering though.
Also, I love the "what the hell is he doing" looks that I get from some people when using it. Priceless.

Ive been using my incident meters for many years, although i do occasionally use the inbuilt meter/histogram. My main gripe with histograms is that they give a readout for the entire frame, which makes it tricky {for me} to accurately judge my prefered exposure, if the prime subject does not cover the majority of the frame {such as with bird photography, quite often}, although possibly i am just stuck in my ways, and prefer to stick with what i am comfortable with.
If my camera had a histogram that was zoomable {to cover smaller areas within the frame}, then maybe i would consider leaving my meter at home {unless the incident meter was the better option for a particular situation}.
Ive recently been trying my hand at landscape photography, and have felt less need to reach for my incident meter though, so maybe the histogram method is more suited to certain subjects, for some people.

Hi Alan,
I've never done this before or been serious about bird shots but instead of having to measure incident from your camera position (to behind you I presume) and if you don't have the meter with you is it possible to meter the back of your hand with the camera and add, say, one stop. Your hand is a constant that gives a reading to suit the ambient lighting. I guess you soon get a feel for the factor to adjust for the bird exposure and whether it is in the shadow of leaves.

A bit off subject but your post caught my curiosity. :)

Clive, I agree with all the other posts - it all depends what you want to use it for. I have a D700 and use an L-358 on those occasions when I am setting up a studio just to get the lighting right on the strobes and then transfer this to a manual mode setting on the D700 which I keep for the rest of the session unless I have to move lights around. (I should mention that my studio is not static - I take it out to schools/church halls/scout huts etc - and so need to get a good meter reading in each new setting.) It has all worked well so far - helps to reduce the workload in PS in the evening when you are faced with 300-400 pictures to process! I haven't used it out in the field, though I guess that it would be worth it on occasion just to see the look on other's faces. rgds andyc

"If my camera had a histogram that was zoomable {to cover smaller areas within the frame}, then maybe i would consider leaving my meter at home {unless the incident meter was the better option for a particular situation}."
The next step in metering displays for digital still cameras to take will be to replace or supplement the histogram with a graphically correct display of exposure values similar to the waveform monitor display used in video engineering. It shows, in a monochrome display, the brightness values of the scene against a grid of X=Brightness and y= location across the frame. It allows you to see all the brightness values in the shot, and where they're located in the frame. It'd probably add $0 to the cost of the camera once the chip to do it was mass produced.

I probably have more meters than any other type of equipment. I use them all the time for tricky exposures. I shoot a lot of flash too, so a good meter is really a must-have.