You may remember a little while back I had problems with the light meter inside my Praktica giving up the ghost... Well, when I was out the other day it started working again. Only thing was, by then I'd bought a light meter and taken a few photo's based on the readings the light meter gave me. However, when I compared the readings given by the light meter compared to the readings given by the camera (which had produced well balanced pictures previously) they differed by about 2 f-stops..... Big question is, which do I trust? I can't take the film out or rush shots through coz it's for that project (which also rules out bracketing the shots due to imposed restrictions), but I don't want to provide naff pics either..... Any ideas? Cheers Mike (",)

OK Mike this is not going to help. But the meter reading the camera is giving you is probably a spot meter from the centre of the frame so if you where to move your camera round the scene then the meter reading would change. So I guess you are metering from a spot with your cameras and a different spot with the hand held meter. As a point of interest my camera has spot, centre weighted and zone metering and I get a difference of 2 or 3 stops some times. Just to add to all this the right exposure is down to you and what you want to achieve in the picture, so there is no right exposure just an average one which is what the camera is trying to give you. If it was me I would look at the readings make a call on the scene light /dark and go for the appropriate reading I told you this would not help. :)

Another fine mess you've gotten us into, Jordy... [Is the new meter a reflected type or an incident type?] Assuming it's reflected, (you point it at things), you can eliminate the spot question by checking out something neutral, like a wall or big sheet of paper. [If it's an incident meter, (you point it at the light, usually with a round-ball defuser thingy), let me know and we can try something else.] Since the camera meter was flaky, I'd mistrust it now. Since the handheld is new, I'd mistrust it also. Trust no one! Can you run a quick test to calibrate both against a third? Then use the one that agrees. Course, with your run of luck, all three will be different.

Your question is actually simple, but may seem complicated. Both meters are trying to tell you what exposure would be needed to render 18% gray corectly. One is most likely reading through the lens seeing a small area where as the other will be reading the entire scene. One way around this is to get a " gray" card and work from what the meter reads from it. The other is to us your hand ( if your "white" or asian it will give you a pretty close exposure. And remember if its worth getting the kit out it's worth bracketing the exposure as a back up. With negs one over one center and one under, with slides that's 1/2 stops between.