Over the years, photography has evolved at a pace I never could have conceived when I inserted my first roll of black-and-white film into my old Konica T body. I’m truly thankful for the tremendous advancements in automation. I’m amazed at the rapid progressions—totally accurate autofocus, expanded range zooms, incredibly high frame per second rates, amazing ISO capabilities, high dynamic range, the list goes on. All aspects of photography have become so much more foolproof and automatic. Yet even with all the advancements, the issue most of my students still battle is how to obtain a perfect exposure when light presents a difficult situation. In-camera light meters have improved by leaps and bounds. Commensurate with them, so has the amount of...