>>3873701>Every single one of my parents' old compact cameras overexposes by around 2 stops, and my old spotmatic's meter was about as consistent as rolling dice in a tumbledryer.Malfunctioning meters are not indicative of metering performance anon.
As long as a meter functions, it's really accurate.
Any "inaccuracy", in a functioning meter, usually comes from lack of experience in how the meter works and how to use it.
For instance, in simple averaging meters, be mindful when shooting backlit subjects, and meter somewhere else so the backlight is not hitting the meter sensor.
Or selenium meters, keep in mind they have a very wide angle of acceptance, so it's common practice to point them a bit to the ground to take a reading, so you avoid taking in too much of the sky when metering and underexposing everything else.
Meters are not "infallible" when you just point them at something, because they don't know what that thing is and what kind of result you want.
But meters are really, really accurate when doing what they were designed to do, giving a good exposure for middle grays.
So as long as you know that, and are aware of your meter's metering pattern and how it's affected by different types of lighting, you can be very, very accurate.
Human eyes can be good, with practice, at judging *relative* light intensity differences. I.e., if this spot in the sun was X exposure, then that spot in the shade is two stops darker.
But eyes are really shit at establishing absolute light levels. I.e. what baseline exposure should be a specific lighting situation, not in relation to something else.
Experience is always good, also when using meters. But using a meter, even if just to establish your "baseline", will improve your accuracy a lot.
