One of the reason why I decided to get a light meter (Sekonic L-308S) because I want to get the right exposure for the speed setting. Yes a camera can do that to an extent but only from where the camera is positioned not where you want the best exposure. i have been studying this for some time via youtube etc and it appears a camera reads the different colours and converts to grey scale to average out the exposure. A light meter takes the actual light, ie daylight, and give a more accurate reading not a mismash from different objects. Hope that explains in simple terms. one good tut on landscapes and light I found was this on landscape photography.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU-BPEVbg_s
He does waffle on a bit but explains things so even I can understand and he also does others (studio) well worth watching on lighting, first 17 minutes is more about rule of thirds
For studio
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y01cwu4RouI
I've not watched the video, but I don't agree with the conclusion. A hand meter is good for incident light readings - measuring the light falling on the subject* as opposed to the light reflected from it, so that's a good start. But that's only half the story.
An incident reading should, in theory, give you an accurate standard 'correct' exposure that will put mid-grey in the middle of the tone range and reproduce at the same tone in a print when processed and output, without further adjustment. It's good for slide film, that has no opportunity for adjustment in processing, but for negative film it will quite often not be the best or optimum exposure. Digital is a cross between slide and neg film in exposure terms - it can be adjusted post capture (like negs) but has a hard limit on highlight tones that when over-exposed/blown cannot be recovered (like slides).
Hand meters know nothing about what happens to the light after it enters the lens. Lens transmission (T-stop) is not quite the same as the f/number, and actual apertures can vary quite a lot from marked settings due to mechanical inaccuracies (particularly at high f/numbers) and with variable aperture zooms there are additional changes not accurately reported. Digital ISOs can be a bit hit and miss, too.
Bottom line is, the most reliable guide to optimum exposure is the histogram and in practical terms, blinkies are most useful. They're not always dead accurate either, but they should at least be consistent so, if you spend a little time getting to know your camera and processing regime you can get very close. Check the point at which blinkies just begin to flash, then in post processing, see how far that point is from actual blowing (on Raws, there'll be at least another stop of headroom above it, probably more). With digital, the best/optimum exposure is when the sensor receives maximum light/photons, without blowing anything important in the subject. That's basically ETTR technique - Expose To The Right, of the histogram. This is an old link on ETTR that explains the principles, but there are tons of others
https://luminous-landscape.com/expose-right/
*You can easily take an incident reading with a camera.
