camera meter

I don't understand the in-camera light meter AT ALL. Anyone have some insight to this problem? I am seeing more and more people talk about metering and I am beginning to think that maybe my photographic life could be a lot more simplified if I learned how to use it and understand it.

Well, metering is something done automatically by your camera (the XTi I see in your sig) in most modes -- it's how the camera chooses your shutter speed, aperture, and ISO (or if you're in Shutter Priority, it's how the camera automatically calculates the aperture and ISO, for example).

See this.............
www.weatherscapes.com/techniques.php?cat=general&page=metering

and..........
www.sphoto.com/techinfo/phototech.html

The meter in your camera measures how much light is reflecting off your subject.

Which parts it is measuring depends on the meter mode (read your camera manual about your camera's specifics).

With the exposure settings (ISO, aperture, and shutter) adjusted so the meter is pointing at the center of it's scale, whatever you metered will be exposed to come out middle gray tone. If you meter a white cat, the meter tell you how to make it gray. If you meter a gray cat, the meter tells you how to make it gray. If you meter a black cat, the meter tells you how to make it gray.

That's why the auto-exposure modes can be trouble. The meter cannot identify anything in the real world, and what it's tones really should be. As long as the subject contains an even range of light and dark tones the make-everything-gray strategy works okay. If your world has bright and dark places it may not work so good. If you take something middle gray, such as a gray card, and place it in the same light as your subject, and meter off that it should give you a "normal" exposure. There still may be dynamic range issues, and creatively you may not want a "normal" exposure, but those are other cans of worms.

Exposure compensation changes the tone the meter is going for. Plus(+) is telling it to make brighter tones. Minus(-) is telling it to make darker tones. When shooting the black cat you might dial in -1 stop exp comp. When shooting the white cat you might dial in +1 stop exp comp.

It is often tricky for humans to accurately discern the tone of colored objects. For instance a medium red might look brighter to us than a medium blue, but to the meter it's all the same medium tone. Only practice and experience can help you with this.

All this will make more sense if you understand what a stop is, and how aperture, shutter, and ISO work together to control exposure. It's all simpler than you probably think.