First off, thanks again for everyone's help on my previous questions.

I'm trying to round out the necessary equipment for my large format entry and am down to a decision on a light meter. I'm trying to limit the cash outlay, but want to make a purchase I'll be happy with for the medium to long term. Also, I don't really care about having a lot of bells and whistles - I just want a good basic meter. For example, I don't ever see myself needing flash metering capab ility - I would probably just use my F100 any for flash photography I would do. FYI, I am limited in my searching ability by the lack of well-stocked stores in my area - I have no real opportunity to go handle the choices.

If I were less concerned about the $, I think I would go for the Pentax Digital Spotmeter, based on my reading in threads and books. But, if I can figure a way to do the right thing but spend less, I want to. I've looked at eBay and other used equipment places and am not seeing a large enough difference in prices to make me eager go that route (i.e., the $ difference is small enough that I proba bly would just default to the new Pentax). So here are the questions I have.

1. From my reading, it looks like I could effectively use an incident meter, bu t with more difficulty or less effectiveness for my purpose. Is this an accurat e opinion? What are the challenges of incident metering for my purposes?

2. I could use my Nikon F100, but I think this would be limiting given my longe st lens there is a 50mm (e.g., I think trying to use it as a spot meter wouldn't work well because of too large an angle of coverage). Plus there is the weight consideration. Plus it's not a long term fix (at least I don't think it is). Thoughts?

3. I also think a meter without a viewfinder display (e.g. the Sekonic?) would a nnoy me, but this proceeds from a question - if you aim it and then have to pull your face away to read it, how do you know you haven't changed the aiming in th e process?

4. I've looked at the Adorama web site at their private label spotmeters. Do yo u think the ~$150 savings (versus the Pentax meters) is worth it?

5. Is digital meaningfully more durable than analog?

As always, comments on things I haven't thought of are welcome as well. Thanks in advance.

Chris