in one sense I prefer separate metering, basically cause that is what I learned with, only extremely expensive professional cameras had any sort of automatics, like autoadvance, to be able to shoot a roll with one press of the button. the real issue with separate metering, you are reading the meter from a different location and angle than the camera will be in for the picture. this means that the result is slightly skewed. ~g~ I grew up with a "shutterbug" for a father, with over 20 thousand in nikon equipment, back in the 70's. the best in camera meter was an analog pointer, to the left it was dark, to the right it was light, in the center the settings were perfect. hand held external metering was the only method available to get better information. but in some situations that 7" difference in location made a tremendous impact on the final image.