Light meter.

Any device for measuring light levels.

Regular light meters come in two basic flavours - incident and reflected, though of course some light meters can act as both kinds. Incident light meters measure the amount of light falling upon them and are typically small handheld units. Reflected light meters can be handheld units but are also like those built into most cameras - they record the light reflecting back off another surface.

There are three other types of specialized light metering systems worth mentioning. Flash meters are capable of recording the extremely brief pulses of light generated by flash units. Spot meters are meters capable of recording light reflected back from a very small area - spotmeters in cameras typically cover just 1 or 2 percent of the image area. And colour meters are capable of measuring colours and providing quantified information back for colour-matching purposes.

cf. incident light meter, reflected light meter.

Entry last updated 2002-04-03. Term 723 of 1487.

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