Art Tafil (Yahoo!, Panasonic forum, 30 March 2004)...
The best thing that I can tell you people is to get a pocket sized Kodak grey card and hold it in the same light that you want to take the picture in and using any type of AE lock, or white balance setting, meter off of the card.
All meters, even the color matrix meter in my Nikon F5 works best when I meter for an 18% grey.
When I want perfect tones, no matter what, I use an 18% grey card, even when shooting with my Leica R's, and M's. This even works with my Coolpix 995 & 5000.