Spot Metering shadow areas

[ian_devenney]

<p>Sooo,<br>

I just bought a used Sekonic L-508 from Japan for some significant amount of money. And I'm now fooling about with it at home, and find that in the spot meter mode it can't seem to handle shadows very well.<br>

I have read some discussion of this issue just now, but I am unsure of whether my meter is broken or not.<br>

I can't seem to get it to read anything darker than 2s at f8, iso 400. Or an EV of 5.4 in that mode. That seems pretty bad to me... <br>

My cheapo DSLR can handle these shadows, more or less. I bought the dedicated meter cause I wanted the ability to spot meter for shadows and use the zone system in some sort of way. Now I find out it doesn't even work any better!<br>

am I missing something here?</p>

[ian_devenney]

<p>To help narrow it down:<br>

Yes, it's a fresh battery.<br>

No, I don't have it on the wrong setting (incident vs reflective).<br>

Yes, I've read the manual.<br>

sorry if this sounds gruff. I am upset about this meter!</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>Are you missing something? probably not. I thought the 508 was a great meter, and depended on it virtually totally for ten years to the point that I owned two in case one irrevocably broke. </p>

<ul>

<li>Reflective spot meters are not generally great at handling very deep shade or darker. My experience was that it ran out of steam at EV2 or EV3. But that's better than you're getting.</li>

<li>So if you need something that will handle very dark conditions, a spot meter like the Sekonic 508 might not have been a great choice. I would not have expected a major improvement vs a modern dslr's spot meter in terms of ability to penetrate gloom, though I would expect a known 1 degree and considerable precision in doing what it can do.</li>

<li>But it should still perform a few EV levels better than yours. It sounds like there's something wrong unless you're exaggerating a bit.</li>

</ul>

<p>The meter is rather old. There are at least 3 or 4 generations of similar Sekonic meters coming after it. I guess the meter you bought may have seen a lot of use over its life and is no longer performing as new/ to spec. It might not be easy to get repair because its certainly well over ten years since it was made and parts/new cells might be hard to come by I'd return it if I could - does the seller accept returns/was there any warranty period with it? </p>

[AJG]

<p>My experience with two Sekonic flash/incident meters has been excellent--I've had my L 518 since 1987 and my L 718 since 1998 or so, and all that I've ever had to do to them is change batteries and check calibration and re-zero after dropping them. I have a 5 degree spot attachment for the L 718 and it seems to only read down to EV2 at ISO 50 and my Soligor Spot Sensor II which I use for zone system with 4x5 (ambient light only) only reads down to a marked EV2 at any ISO. My advice, particularly if you're trying to use the zone system for digital work, is to see if your camera has a spot metering mode and give that a try. If you're shooting film, you might use the digital camera in spot mode as your meter--my first "spot meter" when I got into 4x5 was my 35 mm Pentax MX with a 135 mm lens, which actually worked fairly well but was bulky and heavy to carry around compared to my Soligor. But it sounds like your L 508 isn't a good fit for you, so I would return it if I were you.</p>

[bebu_lamar]

<p>f/8, 2 sec, is E 5,0 but that's for ISO 400 and so it's EV 3 for ISO 100 and that is the lower limit of the Sekonic L-508 in spot mode. It's in the specs. </p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>If it works accurately as an incident meter, then that's basically all you need. What good is measuring shadow areas? So you get a subject brightness range (contrast ratio, dynamic range - call it what you will), and you do what with that information? Add fill flash or use a reflector are about the only options.</p>

<p>Zone system with a DSLR!? I don't think the electronics will stand being dipped in developer for an N+2 contrast boost.</p>