incident light meter

Definition: Exposure meter designed or adapted to measure the light falling on the scene: it measures scene illuminance. * Consists of a hemispherical or hollow conic light receptor that collects light from a wide angle, typically up to 180<. * In use, the receptor is pointed towards the camera lens from the subject.
Lazy readings
For those unable and unwilling to make exposure calculations, was the incident light meter invented. It cares not a whit what the subject is, what is its colour, tone -- or even if it exists. It merely assumes you want an average density picture in the lighting to which you subject the exposure meter. And most of the time it gets it right -- in as much as a mid-tone result is mostly right for most subjects in most light. It's the automatic manual metering method.

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