What finally relegated your correspondent's Leica to the top shelf wasn't having to carry a separate light-meter all the time, but a pair of scissors as well.
That might be about to change, though, as South Korea's state-owned Korea Electronics Technology Institute has announced a new image sensor chip that promises to take "vibrant photos" in extreme low-light conditions -- all the way down to 1 lux, which is the equivalent light output of a candle shining one meter away.
The only instruments capable of measuring such vibrations, though, were spectroscopes--meter-long glass-and-metal optical devices that used infrared light.