Using your hand as a light meter

[Marriedin79]

I saw a photo on a professional photographer's site showing her hand. She referred to it as her "handy dandy light meter". Could someone please shed some light (sorry for the pun) on what she means and how she does it?

Thanks!

[autofocus]

Originally Posted by Marriedin79

I saw a photo on a professional photographer's site showing her hand. She referred to it as her "handy dandy light meter". Could someone please shed some light (sorry for the pun) on what she means and how she does it?

Thanks!

Assuming the light conditions are the same for her subject she's taking a meter reading off the back of her hand and using that to manually set her camera to the same. By doing this, she's avoiding all the ambient light that often surrounds her subject which will influence the meter reading