Ya, the little LCD does not really give a very good exposure view. hmm... there are several types of hand-held light meters that can be real useful in particular situations. For most applications, the metering built into the camera is adequate, however sometimes it has to be "fooled" to handle strange lighting situations. Most cameras allow overriding the automatic settings. Some even have special settings built in; backlight, night, etc. [BTW, if your camera does NOT allow manual settings, a separate hand-held light meter will not be useful to you at all!] As for meters: Some are "spot meters" having a very narrow angle of view. These are useful for measuring several areas in a scene, and calculating the best overall exposure. Somewhat time consuming. Some are "incident" meters, with like a big golf-ball thingie. This measures the light falling on the subject. Some also can help in adjusting color balance. Only useful if you can measure the light falling directly on the subject. Some meters can measure flash.