sekonic L-508 vs. Gossen Variosix F2 (with spot attatchement)

[oscar_sandberg]

anyone tried both these meters who can give me an objective evaluation?

 

how come the gossen meter is more expensive compared to the sekonic, even

though L-508 seems to have more functions?

 

comments??

[pavelp]

I have the L-508 and it's very nice to have everything in one package. I do not need to put on any attachments for flashmetering and spotmetering, it's all built-in. If it had an analog wheel and a needle, it would be a perfect meter :-)

 

I also used to have Gossen Luna Pro SBC which in my opinion has better performance in very low light conditions 4EV and bellow. You can meter the center of a blackhole and get a reading with Luna.

 

However, I sold the Luna because I frequently found myself in a need of spotmeter and changing the attachments seemed cumbersome. On L-508 you switch from incident to spot in one click.

 

Both meters perform well enough for my needs and the spotmeter on L-508 is excellent (just what I needed). Flashmetering is very accurate on both meters (if I can, I always meter my bursts instead of relying on TTL).

[richard baznik]

I haven't used the Luna, but I've been using an L-508 for about three years and find it very satisfactory.

[russ_britt3]

Have a gossen pro f and a Sekonic 508 the gossen is much older and was great in its time..... but the 508 is much better now.

[hector_fernandez_rivera]

I have a Gossen Starlite (more or less the product that challenges the japanese L-508) and it's great and as Pavel said at least from a not super technical scientific comparison that we did in the past (among some friends) the Gossen is better in low light conditions. Plus it looks much more nicer.

[david_henderson]

I presume you're aware that the 508 was discontinued some years ago and replaced by the 608 and subequently the 558, all with integral spotmeters. A new Variosix without the spot attachment costs less than a Sekonic 558 in the UK. A 508 will be cheaper because it's used and at least several years old.

 

The low light performance of the Gossen does seem better than the Sekonic 508, which in spot mode won't work below EV3 though in incident mode it will reach EV -2, not much worse than the Gossen at -3 EV. The spot attachment for the Gossen is 5 degrees, that of the Sekonic reaches 1 degree via a zoom. Personally I chose the Sekonic because for me a one degree spotmeter is more important to me than the ability to meter in one stop darker conditions. I've had three 508's (one lost, two still used)and they've all been accurate enough to expose colour slides well.