I'm new to LF and was wondering what metering/ exposure evaluation techniques people are currently favouring in practice? I've always metered either with my camera's inbuilt lightmeter (either evaluative, spot - or partial spot on the Leica) or an incident meter.

I probably need to buy a handheld meter, but which meter, as this is probably dictated by what technique I should use? The Pentax spot is probably ideal for Zone use, but is everyone using this for colour work, and is it suitable unless one is quite experienced as to what in the scene should be placed on certain zones? I've heard Joe Cornish say he uses a Pentax spot, but not for Zone work per se, he takes shadow/highlights then averages them for a 'bridge' exposure.

What about combination meters by Sekonic and others - I guess in a lot of situations it would be helpful to take an incident reading, then some spot readings of highlights/shadows for comparison and see where they fall around the incident reading? Does one then slide the readings up/down the scale to assess the latitude and use an ND grad if neccessary?

Any advice on techniques that have proved successful would be greatly appreciated!

James