Best light meter for a beginner?

[billp]

Can anyone suggest a good starter meter for a beginner like me? I have a Sony A390 that I think has TTL metering (multi-segment, center-weighted and spot). However, I think I'll need a meter for doing portraits, not sure? Can anyone help?

[jerryph]

have any pawn shops near your area? Look in there, I saw some older flash meters for like $25-$75. I use a Sekonic L-358 meter which was around $175 new when I bought it... however, that said... I shot portraiture for about 2 years before I got a meter and did quite well just chimping. Where meters come in handy is if you want to start to do precise ratios... which honestly if you are a beginner, have bigger things to think about like composition, basic overall good exposure and the poses.

There is no external light meter that calculates TTL. For portraiture, manual flash power rules for consistency and best results. A lot depends on what lights you use and how you shoot.

[denisedotson]

I am also using The Sekonic L-358 light meter. It is an excellent meter. I have fallen in love with it. Sekonic L-358 is such a high precision instrument which measures incident, reflected, flash (cord & cordless). I got great digital photos after I have used the reading on 2 different cameras under normal & Flash lights.