spot flash meter limit

I have a Sokonic 508 spot meter. It measures flash in incident or

relected modes. When I measure flash in spot reflected mode it will

measure 5.6.0, then if I reduce the flash, even a half stop, the

meter report a blinking E.U., which the manual says indicated light

level too low for the meter. That does not make sense to me. It

should be able to measure below 5.6.0 should it not?

Thanks for any response.

Unfortunately, the meter will not read lower light than that in reflected mode.

Sucks don't it.

The 558 is a bit better, and the Minolta Flash Meter VI is better too.

Really, that's the only bad quirk of the 508.

My L308 goes down to about f2.8 for flash in incident mode.

When I use flash I am typically going for high image quality, and I'm more likely to use f32 and than f4, so this would not be a problem in my world.

The L508, L558 and Minolta Flash Meter VI all go down to f/0.7 or f/1.0 in incident mode.

Not the same thing as reflected spot reading of flash.

Thanks for your sympathy and info Stephen. Now I do not suspect my meter is

broken.

I typically use quite a bit of light also, Steve, so am usually metering above

5.6. But I was doing a shot rather low key and wanted to be sure I was going

to get separation of dark objects. The reflection spot meter is just for this

purpose. I am disapointed at its limitation. Yes, one can meter in incident

mode but this will not provide the detail of information regarding the shadow

values object by object. For future does anyone suggest a work around?

Inceaseing light and stopping down I guess would work if one had light power

to spare.