This topic is not limited to no-limited poker, so you'd have to specify the game in order to get appropriate responses.
But in Limit Hold'em at least, I think you can estimate pretty quickly that if the villain is constantly 3-betting that he's doing it lightly. It's because the way you would use this estimation is to give the villain a bit wider range and this doesn't actually change the equity on most flops that much. So the average mistake you make by over-adjusting to the seemingly light 3-betting isn't too big and you usually gain more by being able to play better against wider 3-betting range (especially by not giving up so easily).
What lighter 3-betting does, however, is to significantly skew the villain's range away from Ace. A tight 3-betting range is heavily skewed towards having an ace or a king. I guess most players learn to not fear Ace high flops in HU games, but I still think it's useful to play around with Pokerstove with these scenarios. So say you open with 87o and the villain 3-bets and you estimate the villain's range to be {66+,A3s+,K7s+,Q8s+,J9s+,T9s,A8o+,K9o+,QTo+,JTo}. (That's not a maniacal range for 3-betting, but perhaps wider than most are used to.) The flop comes A79r and you must realize that your equity on this board is pretty strong, say something like 43% and you are probably seeing showdown no matter what. Maybe this isn't new information to anyone, but I think it's still important to note as it's a pretty big error to give up on flops easily against a light 3-bettor.
Another thing to note is that light 3-betting is a strategy that is somewhat hard to counter, but it's also a strategy that needs balancing in and of itself and it's not an easy strategy to play. But the best way to exploit this is not necessarily counter-attacking it with light capping, although that might work against some villains, rather you have to find out how the villain plays postflop. Especially in the big streets. Their range will perhaps not be properly balanced and you might be able to exploit that. It's just that pretty much no one makes the most obvious mistake when they 3-bet lightly. That is, they are pretty willing to go to showdown no matter what. (If they didn't, it would be pretty disastrous strategy to bloat pots and then to give up too easily.)