Need a light meter recommendation

[christina_tullo]

Hi all, I need some advice, and I have tried to scan the forum but haven't found my answer yet. Basically, I

need a light meter. I do a lot of shooting in low light, and the meter on my Nikon FM10 is not cutting it,

only because it can only meter longer exposures to say 4 seconds or so, and it won't give me a shutter

speed reading higher than that. I shoot a lot of exposures of 8 seconds, 10 seconds, etc etc so as you can

see this doesn't work for me.

 

I just need an incident light meter, and I only want to spend 100 bucks (or less than.) the smaller and

simpler the better, etc etc since I will be carrying it an traveling on my feet with it. Someone recomended

for me to get a gossen lunasix, so I ordered one off of keh.com, and I endedup getting a Gossen LunSix 3,

which needs mercury batteries which are no longer manufactured, and I've looked into modifying it,

adapting it for different batteries, etc, and it would make the meter totally unpredictable. So I'm just

gonna return it and look into something else I think.

 

Can anybody help me out? I've never ventured into the realm of light meters before and I'm daunted by the

possibilities. I thought I had the answer, and now I'm just frustrated.

 

Thank you so much,

 

Christina.

[t_feltus]

hi christina,

the gossen meters are quite good, and in my opinion far easier to use than any other (even

though i dont have one right now).

 

thus, i would suggest, depending on your budget and the size you want to carry, either a

Gossen Profisix or Lunasix F (later models that take a 9v pp3 battery, the F ones also

measure flash), or the newer Digisix, which are very small.

 

my guess is that they will be a little more sensitive than something like the Sekonic Studio

Deluxe, which is also a rater nice meter, and has no batteries at all.

 

t

[tom_s.]

I've used several cameras that have less-than-trustworthy built-in meters, so I finally bit the bullet and bought a Gossen DigiFlash. For a tiny meter, it ain't cheap. It seems that no meter is. But it works quite well, and is convenient to carry around. Though a meter is expensive, one meter can be used with any camera. Plus the fact that it's a flash meter, makes it easy to evaluate flash performance.

 

I guess it's one of those things that if you're a serious photographer, you finally go ahead and buy one. Meters really don't become obsolete, but with digital, histograms reduce (but not completely eliminate) the need for meters.

[christina_tullo]

hmm. ok. Thank you, I appreciate your quick response. I think (even though it's more than I originally intended to spend, how does that ALWAYS happen with photo stuff? :) ) I'm going to look into a DigiSix, I really like its compact size. Does anyone know what the camera shoe attachment does? Does it make it so the camera actually uses that reading? Or does it just kind of hold the meter?

 

See my subject matter is, I am into urban exploration, aka running around in abandoned buildings taking photos basically, haha. I tend to travel with both a Nikon D50 for color, and I also use a Nikon FM10 loaded with bw film because I can't seem to give bw film up. I love it. Anyway the meter on the Fm10 is mainly the problem I am trying to solve here, not the D50 meter. But what would happen if I bought the camera shoe attachement and atached it to the D50? Any idea?

 

Thanks,

Christina

[mark feldstein]

Hi Christina: Good idea to start using a separate meter for a lot of reasons but primarily it'll give you far more accurate and better exposure control. And when you consider the full boat cost of a Gossen Luna Pro-S is about $570 bucks, you might want to check out the LunaSix when you get it and decide to keep it.

 

The Lunasix IMO is a great meter. I've had one for years (and years). It's built like a hockey puck, reliable in all temperatures and situations, extremely portable and very easy on batteries. Bogen Imaging, as far as I know, still services them and is very reasonable on the CLA charges. http://www.bogenimaging.us/

 

In response to your mercury battery concern, while the LunaSix-3, Luna Pro and LunaSix used them long ago, most of them have been modified at some point to accept regular alkaline button batteries. Even using the thing almost every day, I've found the batteries only need replacing about once a year.

 

If you're doing work with strobes and ambient light, I like my digital Minolta Flash IV meter. And if you need help using one kind of meter or the other, see if you can find a book called, oddly enough, "The Hand Exposure Meter Book" by Silverman, Zuckerman, and Bob Shell. It's pretty easy to understand and gives a whole series of examples and typical metering situations you'd probably find helpful at first. It used to be published by Minolta. You can probably find it used at Powels online or Amazon?

 

Meanwhile, don't be daunted. It's fairly easy to use once you get the general hang of it and two modes, incident light readings (measuring the amount of light falling on an object or person) or reflected light readings which measures how much something or someone reflects.

Take it light.

Mark

[mark feldstein]

BTW, if you need a meter manual for it, drop me an e-mail.

Mark

[ilkka]

I would recommend Sekonic 308 as a simple, small, reliable, low cost meter. It uses standard AA battery that seems to last almost forever, unlike the thin lithium one in DigiFlash that runs quickly out on its own even when the meter is not in use. Also much more convenient to use as a flash meter than the DigiFlash.

[christina_tullo]

I got my LunaSix in the mail the other day. As far as I can tell, it's not modified to accept new

batteries instead of the old mercury ones. Anyway I also heard that when you modify it to

accept different battery types, it messes with the meter's ability to uh....well, meter, haha. Is

that true?

 

I dunno....I'm still kind of considering the DigiSix.

[mark feldstein]

I can't remember Christina whether the meter requires an actual modification with a battery chamber insert or whether PX batteries just go in place of the old Mercury kind. Don't worry about the voltage difference.

 

If you call Bogen service at that link I left, tell them what you have, give them the model/serial number they'll probably just send you a battery chamber adapter/insert that you just drop in and add the standard PX25 battery(ies) or whatever number they are. The voltage difference between the old mercury and new PX series is like .025 volts and not enough to make a difference in meter performance. Also, you can check the meter zero calibration by removing the battery, placing it on a flat surface and seeing that the needle falls all the way to the left at the edge of the gray square. You can adjust the zero calibration by turning the screw on the back of the meter case but always check it on a flat surface afterwards.

 

The battery check is that switch on the back side of the meter. The needle should go to the middle of the red box about 2/3 up the scale.

 

Also, remember that if you want to test the meter against another meter, try to use another hand-held version from someone because your camera meter doesn't get the same field of view. Ok, ok, you knew that. <g> Cause otherwise you'd see one a number of stops different than the other.

 

Take it light.

Mark

[christina_tullo]

Thanks for the help Mark. I just wrote an email over to Bogen. The fact that you said you

have no problems with inconsistencies with the meter with new batteries makes me feel

much better because I've read a lot of stuff saying the opposite, that the meter is not

reliable with different batteries. But I'll see what happens.

 

And I actaully already have an instruction book. But thank you anyway :)

 

Thanks again everyone for the help.

 

Christina

[mark feldstein]

Glad to hear you're giving it a shot Christina. It's really a great ambient light meter. Hollar if I can be of any other help. ;>)

Mark