Response to Need help with used spot meter

Bob, a spotmeter offers you a very small angle of metering, generally 1 degree, whereas most handheld meters meter between 25 and 30 degrees. If you're familiar with reflective meter use, you should have no problem using a spotmeter on a face - you're just able to meter very tiny parts of the face, so you can know the light level of the not only the lit and shadow sides of a face, as with most handhelds meters, but also the bits of shadow under the nose and the highlight in her hair - you simply canknow where all those reading fall. By doing this, you can measure the range of light more effectively (or at least meter more precisely chosen areas) than most meters. How have you been metering portraiture up to now? Using a spot meter just gives you more tiny bits that you can measure, but the principles of how to meter for portraiture remain the same.

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