Introduce us to your vintage exposure meter

I have an old Vivitar 45 CdS meter.
It's an inexpensive but nicely made incident/reflecting model.
Thanks to G'man I just discovered it is also accurate with a modern 1.5V battery. 🙂

I also have my first meter, a tiny, 30 year-old Sekonic selenium model.
It's still right on in normal light but not very sensitive in low light.

Carrying a separate meter is a real PITA so these get very little use.
I just picked up a little shoe-mount Vivitar CdS model that might see more action...

Chris
 
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Pardon the slight OT question, but I would also like to get a vintage light meter. I gather though, that these display EV, rather than a specific shutter speed/f-stop. How does one convert the EV?

The Ikophot doesn't even seem to show any markings in its display! How does this work?
 
Leica Meter 3 is definitely the one I wish was accurate (it's the little one on the left). It's selenium cell that gives the output in LV. Although it doesn't need batteries, it's not very accurate

Weston Master II - Haven't played with this one much

Leica MR - I put in a new Wein Cell battery, but it didn't seem to work.

I just ordered the VC II meter.
 

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chut said:
Pardon the slight OT question, but I would also like to get a vintage light meter. I gather though, that these display EV, rather than a specific shutter speed/f-stop. How does one convert the EV?

The Ikophot doesn't even seem to show any markings in its display! How does this work?
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EV of 15 is the basis of the sunny 16 rule. So you can count stops from there. Perhaps the meter told me EV 13. EV 15 with ISO 100 would be f/16, 1/125. Two stops away could be f/11 and 1/60.

The Ultimate Computer Exposure is a good resource
 
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Chut,

In my (limited!) experience, most lightmeters with an EV scale read off shutter speeds and f-stops on one side, and EV on another. Frankly, the easiest way to convert is to have a 1950s camera (the Retinettes, and the Balda Baldesa come to mind) with red EV markings on it.

ETA Beaten to it by someone who knows 😱

Plus if you go back far enough you need to be aware of the different standards for film speed.... including old and new Weston!

As for old meters, I do have one that I seem to recall dates to sometime around WW2 which still works, though I've never dared use it. It's black-painted brass, and feels like it weighs a pound! If I could just remember the name I could find an image... And the one I most wish worked is the Argus LC3 on my Brick - it's a pain doing anything other than sunny 16... er... 8!

Adrian
 
There is a Gossen Luna Pro around here somewhere, for when I'm feeling retentive, but I like the feeling when I'm measuring light with my Weston II for my Super Ikonta B.
 
Say hi to one of my vintage light meters:

477801423_8e45d99e40_o.jpg


it's small ... and yes, it can take a picture on its own also 😉
 
I'll give another vote to the Zeiss Ikon Ikophot... mine is spot on according to my Canon 30D and has never let me down with my meterless gear. It's accuracy does break down in low light but so do most older meters, shooting film I usually just give it a stop more than it reads in low lite to be safe and it seems to work fine. I would LOVE a spotmeter though.. can anyone recommend one that's not going to cost me a fortune?
 
Here's something very similar to my elderly AVO meter mentioned earlier: http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10244345
Mine has a black top plate, and the name is just AVO, but other than that they're pretty similar.

Being largely brass, it wouldn't make a bad weapon... Perhaps one day I'll work out what the film speeds would be marked as, and see how accurate it is after 70-odd years?

Adrian
 
Well, I've just dug out my AVO meter and I'm intrigued as to what scale it is marked in. Apertures cover f32 to f1, exposure times 1/2000 to 60 seconds . Here's the hard bit. The scale that the needle points to, which I assume is the film speed, begins at 200 and goes 500-1000-2000-5000, and then says "H&D". I'm fairly sure that's way too high at both ends to be ASA/ISO. Does anyone know what scale it might be, and how to convert to something a bit more 21st-century?

It doesn't help that the one pictured in the link from my previous post is marked in yet another scale - looks to be N I or No 1 film factors...

Any assistance gratefully received!

Adrian
 
Muggins said:
Well, I've just dug out my AVO meter and I'm intrigued as to what scale it is marked in. Apertures cover f32 to f1, exposure times 1/2000 to 60 seconds . Here's the hard bit. The scale that the needle points to, which I assume is the film speed, begins at 200 and goes 500-1000-2000-5000, and then says "H&D". I'm fairly sure that's way too high at both ends to be ASA/ISO. Does anyone know what scale it might be, and how to convert to something a bit more 21st-century?

It doesn't help that the one pictured in the link from my previous post is marked in yet another scale - looks to be N I or No 1 film factors...

Any assistance gratefully received!

Adrian
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Dear Adrian,

Surprise! It's the H&D film speed scale. From memory this involved producing the gamma slope down to the log E axis and using that as the speed point, so the figures are not directly translatable to later speed systems. To make life still more interesting, there are two H&D scales, UK and European, with European approximately 3x UK, i.e. UK H&D 100 = European H&D 300.

A workable translation for UK H&D (likely on an AVO) is 200 = 6 ASA, 1000 = 32, 5000 = 160. These figures are rounded for convenience; accuracy is very unlikely to be affected.

Cheers,

R.
 
Thank you very much for that, Roger! I'm afraid the physics sailed way over my head, but I have a point to start from now.

Once we have a little light to play with, I'll have to try it out against a more known-quantity meter, and see if it's even remotely accurate. If it is, I may pop a roll through something period with it. I could do that before I check, but it seems slightly pointless to use B&W and let the latitude take care of any inadequacies when the point of a meter is to set the value... Or am I taking this photography lark too literally? 😉

Adrian
 
Today I acquired a slightly ratty old Weston Ranger 9 which looks like it might work provided I can get it modified to take silver oxide batteries. I like the look of it so far.
It is just a little smaller and slightly heavier than my Luna Pro and feels like a solid well made mechanism.
 
The Master 5 works quite well. I really like the fact that it doesn't require batteries. Of course it doesn't perform in low light very well.

The Ranger awaits some PX625 silver oxide cells and then a small modification to accept them. Seems OK on the outside.
 

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I have an old bakelite and aluminum DeJUR selenium meter. It used to be exactly one stop slow, but now it seems to have given up the ghost. Too bad, it was fun to use, if a bit heavy. The ASA index goes from 800 to 0.8! Which I believe is (or was) the speed of some papers.
 
Gossen Lunasix 3s

Gossen Lunasix 3s

Here's mine! A balck beauty, very sensitive especially to low light! A great companion for my M2.
I have the leicameter, too and it's accurate but i find it ugly on my M2... (may leica god forgive me).

It came with box and adapter for normal batteries. All like new.
 

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