(a) takes an incident light reading of the illumination that is striking a scene,then the elements of a scene will expose themselves properly, according to their own individual reflectance values - providing the camera has the ability to record the total range of brightness of the elements in the scene.
(b) the meter is accurate and set properly,
(c) the meter is held properly to
(d) measure illumination representative of that lighting the scene,
(e) and the camera is properly adjusted properly and accordingly,
Here we have a Sekonic L-308s, set to the incident light reading mode and ISO 400. The reading was taken (the meter was held) so the white dome was illuminated by the sky light softly coming in a nearby window (somewhat up and to the left of the meter). The dome was held very proximate to where it is in the photograph. The setting indication is 1/30 sec at f 5.6.
Theory number 2 is that older Nikon AI lenses can be used, on manual settings, with many of the SLR digital camera bodies. The photo 400-pixel below was born from the unaltered original that was uploaded. However, the linked, uploaded image, a duplicate of the image taken, may not be displayed in its original quality/resolution - something that, on this blog, is arguably beyond my control. The original image was captured on manual exposure, using a 1980's vintage Nikon Micro Nikkor 55 mm lens on a mid-2000's vintage Nikon D-70 body. The aperture was set to f 5.6 and the sutter speed set to 1/30 second. Twas taken hand held, focused for sharp meter indications and composed for a variety of object reflectances. There is white tissue and a white plastic bag for highlights and black leather in shadows (on the camera back) to create dark shadow detai.
TaDa! Of course, this image has a few highlight details that have been lost, gone over the top. They are in reflections in the white plastic, especially in the edge of the white nasal tissue, and, probably, on the tip of the white dome. The darks nearly bottom out in the black leather shadowed areas. As such, for this camera's high-quality jpeg setting, this scene represents the range of brightness values that can be recorded. Sometimes, it's cool to know that results follow established theories when parameters permit.
