Small, old-fashioned but useful lightmeter

[cm1]

My daughter has fallen in love with analog photography... and now she has a TLR,

an old Flexaret from checkoslovakia, but it is in excellent state and

fullyworking... the next step is a light meter, and I will not give her my

Sekonic L-308 :-)

 

Which light meter would be a good companion for her oldie?

 

It MUST show EV values as the Flexaret is one of the very few cameras where you

can simply set the EV value and thus determine the aperture/time settings that

go together. A very nice features, I only know this from the Hasselblad.

 

The meter should be small, easy to understand, reliable and allow incident and

reflective metering. It may be as old as the camera and it may even look that

old. I would not mind if I could get it for a bargain price on eBay.

 

What do you recommend?

[john_gleason1]

Well, a Gossen Luna Pro meets most of the requirements, I think; definitely has EV. It's an outstanding meter, one of the standards of its time. And they're on eBay all the time.

 

(Please congratulate your daughter for her excellent taste in hobby/passion!)

[randall ellis]

I second the suggestion of the Luna Pro - they're easy to use, reliable, allow for attachments, and show EV to boot. They should be easy to come by in good shape and for a reasonable amount if you shop around at all.

 

- Randy

[wigwam jones]

I use a Gossen Digisix with an accessory shoe mount. Yes, it is not old. But it reads out in EV, which works very well for LVS classic cameras. It is accurate, which old meters often are not. And although it is not cheap, it is something one buys once.

 

I know that classic light meters can be made to be accurate. And many will wax poetic on their relative qualities. I'm sure they are right. But I figure that since classic cameras frequently have some inaccuracies when it comes to things like shutter speeds, at least one thing should be accurate.

 

That way, if you have serious over or under exposure, you know it is the shutter and are not left wondering if the shutter or the meter is to blame.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[walter_degroot]

the GE Golden crown has ev scale and is battery-less a selenium meter with a push and lock feature to make it easy, very easy. to use. think is was called a pr-2 or pr-3

good for outdoor use, not nearly as sensitive as the meters mentioned above. but sufficient for your needs

kyphoto has a scanned copy of the ,manual or butkus.org

[paul_poropat]

I would recommend the Gossen pilot, as it is much smaller than the Luna Pro and the SBC (I own both). The pilot also reads in EV.

[david_m]

Just make sure you don't get an old meter than needs a mercury battery. My favourite old meter is the Zeiss Ikophot which does have an EV readout.<div></div>

[sw12dz]

All of the above meters conform to your requirements. The Gossen Pilot is the smallest and I beleive the Luna Six is at the opposite end. My personal user is the Weston Master V. Finding a selenium meter that is still working and accurate is hit and miss. Stay away from eBay listings that read, "I'm sure it works because the needle reacts to light." Look for someone who normally sells camera equipment and can compare the meter readings with one or two other working meters. Remember, a bargain isn't a bargain at all if it doesn't work!<div></div>

[alex macphee]

I'd add to the recommendation for the Weston Master V. It is not as small as some, but it is compact, easy to use, versatile, sturdy, and its incident light 'invercone' has never been bettered. (Remember to look for one with the invercone included, naturally). The selenium cells in the Westons are very well sealed, and both of mine, over forty years old, still work perfectly and accurately. It's also a photographic design classic, and a pleasure to use.

[cm1]

Now, I made a decision... the Luna Pro, here in Europe also known as Lunasix, is at least a very good device. Not to small, actually, but it has probbaly aged much better than a selenium meter - and I found and purchased one today for 30 Euros in a very good state... :-)

 

Thanks for your help. I wonder whether many young people actually know what a light meter is at all. Let's tech them.

[alex macphee]

Clemens: The Gossens meters are good; do you know if the one you are looking at uses mercury batteries?

[cm1]

I know it does but it comes with an adapter :-)

[stephen_w.]

Go real old school: Weston Master III, it doesn't need batteries, costs <$30 on eBay.

[dan flanders]

I could recommend both the Weston Master and the Metrostar (Leica) but my most lasting and satisfying TLR work was done with what I later learned was the Sunny Sixteen! It freed me of reliance on another piece of impedimenta and taught me to depend on my own senses. Of course, I often used a meter for verification but using the camera as an extension of the brain transcends most impeding constraints!

[arjun_mehra]

Agreed that "Sunny f/16" is an indispensible heuristic to follow for outdoor daytime photography. Nonetheless, using a camera without any built-in metering system, I do, at times, find need for a hand-held light meter. I very much like all Weston Masters IV and newer (i.e., IV, V, Euro-Master, and Euro-Master II), as they're all basically the same excellent meter, albeit with slight, mostly cosmetic, differences. (I've never used the Euro-Master II, but I expect that it's about the same as all the rest in the series, IV and up.) Generally, the selenium cell of a newer meter will have had less time to degrade, but, as Stuart said, it's better to make certain with an eBay seller, before bidding, that the item being sold works well; a good return policy is another thing to search for. There's more than one Invercone design for Weston Masters, and, to my knowledge, the "modern" "cup" variety didn't become standard until the Euro-Master. I find this newest incarnation the best, and I'd suggest you use it instead of the older designs, usually the original companions to IVs and even Vs. If a meter you're bidding on doesn't come with an Invercone, you can always just get one, on its own, from another eBay listing, for but a few dollars. A case is good to have, and assures you to some degree that the meter was "cared for" by its owner, but, I suppose, is not essential to the meter's value as a tool. If you do get an unresponsive meter, Quality Light Metric will fix everything up for about $75.00. Good luck.

[alex macphee]

This article on the design of the Weston invercones may be of interest.

 

http://www.johndesq.com/pinhole/invercones.htm

 

My Weston V has worked flawlessly and reliably for decades, and looking back at my Kodachromes from the sixties right through to slides exposed last year with the same meter with incident light readings, the exposures are still spot on, in the medium where it really counts. I find the case design a bit fiddly -- in the Master V, the meter has to be removed entirely in order to use it, but I can live easily with that, as I have done for forty years. I wouldn't seek to change anyone's mind over other good meters, like the Gossens or Sekonics or Minoltas, because they are darned fine pieces of kit, but someone who settles on a Weston, and knows its limitations (sensitivity at low light levels, flash), is very unlikely to be disappointed. And even without an invercone, reflection from an 18% grey card, or a patch of grass, will do a very passable job.

[arjun_mehra]

Thanks for the article, Alex; it's pretty interesting.