Well, it's true, handheld meters are slow to use. But they have intrinsic advantages which are often overlooked.
• They're separate to the camera. You can walk around, taking meter readings from different things and different angles to build a truer picture of what the lighting is like.
• You take the light readings manually, estimate a suitable average manually, select a shutter speed and lens aperture combination manually, and apply these settings manually to the camera. Yes, it's more work, but it leads you to think properly (and maybe for the first time) about light, exposure, shutter speed and aperture.
• Even a simple handheld light meter like this one does something not even the most expensive D-SLR can, and that is to take an 'incident' rather than a reflected light reading. It measures the light falling on the subject, not the light bouncing off. You can't use it all the time, but when you can, it eliminates one of the single biggest barriers to successful exposure.
This is how simple handheld meters work:
1. First, you need to make sure you've set the same ISO on the meter as you're using on the camera
2. Then you press a button on the side to take a meter reading, which moves a needle on the scale...
3. You then turn the main dial...
4. To line up the pointer with the needle
5. And then you can read off suitable shutter speed and aperture combinations on the dial
6. To take an incident reading, you move a diffuser over the metering cell, then stand by the subject and aim the meter at the camera.
The L-208 is a basic 'match-needle' meter, but it does the job perfectly well. You can also get digital meters which display an EV value which you transfer to the main dial on the same way, and more sophisticated flash meters which can measure flash exposures too.
