"Magnusfarce" wrote in message
news
I have an old Gossen Super Pilot light meter that appears to be in very
good physical condition. I'm a casual user of a digital SLR and have never
used a light meter of any kind. Surprisingly, there are several of these
available on e-Bay, one claiming that it is a useful device, the other
considering it a collectable at best.

It's pretty cool looking so I won't toss it in any case, but does it have
any practical usefulness in today's world?

Incident metering is the best way to determine the technically accurate
exposure, assuming even lighting, and the Super Pilot should do that nicely.
If you know how to use spot metering, then you can use your in-camera (spot
or partial) metering to take artistic control of your exposures, even in
situations where incident metering would be inconvenient or impossible.

Inversely, averaging (what the Super Pilot does in it's normal mode), center
weighted, matrix and the like are heuristic techniques that occasionally
happen to come up with acceptable exposures.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan