I think I should have clarified. The reason they are 2-3 times higher priced than an exposure meter is that there really aren't any cheaper color meters like there are exposure meters. I did see a few analog color meters that strictly deal with ambient light for under $100 used. For digital color meters that can measure both ambient and strobe (and both together) you're looking at $300 or so used and $500-600 new with some in the $1000 range. Misha - Yea. You can dial the K value into any digital camera that lets you set white balance by color temperature. You read 4700K on meter, dial that into camera, set to use color temperature WB and boom ... you have perfect balance. With a film camera, you set the meter for type of film (daylight, tungsten A, tungsten B) and take a reading and the meter will tell you which filter to use (like 80A, 81B) to compensate or it will give you the color compensation index # for the filter you need. Wivel - If by quality you mean sharpness and exposure, then no. But if you mean by better color, then yes. It helps you to get a truer color in your images (even with film). Yea, I'm hoping on that whole LRP (Lottery Retirement Plan) coming through too. :) 'chelle - It really is a pretty sweet device. I really do think it would be worth $300 or so to get one in my situation. The reason my images, for the most part, are correctly balanced is that I go in and balance each one by hand. There are some that are fine when I shoot them, but I also shoot a lot of mixed lighting that drives camera Auto-WB crazy. For instance, part of the event that shot today had a stage with overhead tungsten and colored lights, my external flash on a bracket and overcast daytime skylight coming from behind me. With the color meter, I was able to instantly see that the combination of all 3 was 4850-4890K. Dialed in 4900K on my camera and I'm pretty much there. Slight tweak in PS might be necessary, but probably not. Yea, I could have taken my $10 white card with me, but you can't take the card back up in the middle of the performance and take new readings as the light changes. With the color meter, I could take readings whenever I wanted to. Thinking about it, the savings in color correction time alone is worth it to me. -=>Donald