Well, as we still use wooden camera's and Pinhole Cameras the answer has to be yes, why not...take a close look at some meters of yesterday.
Warning:  First it expands your mind then it blows it...

There are quite a few meters around these days at very reasonable prices (check ebay.com).
I will mention 2 brands who are worth considering as a spare or main equipment.

Ansel adams made his famous 'Moonlight over Hernandez' without...
When he was ready to measure, then to his dismay, he could not find his meter.
He just remembered that the luminance of the Moon was about 250 cd/ft²...
Why should it not work today ?
Well the answer is, it works pretty much the same. There is one thing you should remember at all times.
Actually the term Exposure meter is a little misleading.
It is a lightmeter, it will measure the amount of light and will do a calculation to a recommended focus stop/exposure time combination.
It will measure any color correctly as long as it is 18% grey (Kodak test card) this reminds me of Henry Ford who said something about the color black years ago.....
Unfortunately we seldom measure 18% grey subjects, unless you like Test cards that is. ;-)
However this we can do better ourselves. We have to interpret the situation.
The lightmeter can not think and it will never do so, it does not know what you are measuring.
The perfect exposure time, for a given subject, will be depending on who is holding the meter...and what he/she wants to achieve. So far for the technical part..If all fails, we can say... "We've found the problem ..It is us"

Very Well-known are the Weston meters, very nice collector items also, there are about 40 different models.We focus on the Master series and descendants only.
These meters were designed to measure reflected light (luminance) expressed in cd/ft2, however with the invercone attached they were able to measure Incident light.
I will give a resume here which are very usefull today:

• Weston Master III (see image) the only drawback: you can't lock the needle.You must have extremely good eye-sight as the numbers are very tiny. Not valid when you know how to work with cd/ft² but that's another story.
• Weston Master IV
• Weston Master V
• Weston Euro Master
• Euromaster II
• Weston Ranger 9 (used also by Ansel Adams, he had even a sprecial grey step scale on it, corresponding with the zone system Zone-V is the actual midpoint where all meters are calibrated on.
• Ranger 9 on hightech stage...!
• What's under the bonnet of the Ranger 9?
• What's under the bonnet of the Weston Master IV?
• What's under the bonnet of the Weston EURO Master?
• Parts List Weston Euro Master.