light meter questions

i got an environmental concepts plant light meter the one measures in foot candles never realy understood how it works and was wandering if any one knows a way of makeing sence of it at the recomended distance for the light when measured it read 5,000 foot candles but at right next to the bulb it reads no higher then 7,500 foot candles since i broke this back-out today i moved my clfs in a pattern that no plant was bathed in less then 3,000 foot candles but the ones that are in the lower light get hit by light from at least 5 differant dirrections just useing the clfs till they all start to take off and are big enough to turn on the hid right now while vegging them with 2 4' dual tube fixtures with 40 watt bulbs i got 4 150 watt clfs and 4 120 watt clfs both the clf's are the 10 bucks a single bulb at wal-mart for a grand total of 1240 watts to veg in a 6' by 2' space got anouther set of dual tube fixtures for the 2 longer walls when they get tall enough once they get a lil bigger i will be redoing the space ie moveing all the cords out of the way and turning on the 400 mh probably in the next couple of weeks