Hot shoe Meter ...

Steve Karr

Film tank shaker
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Joined
Oct 10, 2008
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Hio everyone,
So last night I was buying some 8x10 tanks & stuff from a friend and spotted a rangefinder sitting on a box. I ask "what's up" and he gave it to me. Free. Strange .

So I have a Beauty LM with a f/1.9 COATED lens and the shutter works great (I ran a roll of Plus X thru this morning) this little gem is pretty darn sharp, even at f2.0

So now I want a meter to go on top of it, hot shoe style. I see we have a Voigtlander VC Meter in the classifieds ... but I have $19.00 into this camera and was going to leave it in the car for "those moments". Non Leica treatment here.

How are the old Kodaklux or some of the 50's meters? I of course would like to shoot it in lesser light where the old meters die in accuracy.

Hmmm ....

Steve

 
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If you are handy with a soldering iron, you could replace the cell in the camera's meter. There are how-to articles on the web that outline scavanging a solar cell out of a cheap calculator and swapping it into the camera. One of the old selenium hot shoe meters is likely going to be on its last legs, anyway.
 
Most of the meters who are accurate in low light are battery powered.

Just found in a car boot sale a Japanese accesoire shoe lightmeter.

It's from Pallas and it's EV scale goes from -1 till 24.

Still not sure about the exact battery it needs (probably mercury type) but it shows signs of life on a SR44 button cell.

Normally i use a handheld Gossen Digisix which you can also mount on a hot shoe. Think that
this one is to "modern" looking for your Beauty LM.
 
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So after testing, buying $50 in filters & hood, getting everything squared away, I killed my Beauty rangefinder...

It started to mis-fire. So being good with stuff like that, I opened it up to see what to adjust. Well, a few hours later ... dead.

Lesson of the day ... Stay out of the Leica!

Steve

PS. I did end up getting a Kodalux. $10 on eBay. Works great & accurate too.

 
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