Leica Meter or VC II Meter?

[chikarin]

another positive for vc meter

dropped it many times, sometimes quite hard that batteries would pop out, but still works like a champ

 

[chrishayton]

I have a black MR4 and its fantastic, mint condition and very accurate, battery life is going well with hearing aid battery with taped up holes ( except 2).
However I tend to use my handheld polaris meter more as i like incident metering and not keen on the bulk of the clip on.
However for what it is its fantastic

 

[MartinP]

I use one of the Leicameters. I decided on that after a lot of thought, handling a Voigtlander meter in the shop and the Leicameter of a friend.

Reasons for choosing the Leicameter were :-

It is coupled directly to the shutter-dial on the M3 and requires only one single push of the button to take a light reading.

The batteries are easily replaceable with hearing aid batteries (available in every pharmacist and almost all supermarkets with a battery section) and last ages. Thus the battery-'problem', isn't really a problem.

The Leicameter is very solidly 'part of the camera'.

The area measured by the meter can be seen in the camera viewfinder via the 90mm frame (that is perhaps less important than I thought, but useful).

The Leicameter is also easy to use off the camera with one hand, for example when using a viewfinder in the accesory-shoe. The meter fits in a shirt pocket without any problem, as would the VC meter of course but that is less one-handed in operation.

The Leicameter goes down to lower light than 1s at f1,4 with 21din film. Any less light than that I use a hand-held Lunasix in any case.

Both the meters can take a reading off your palm (add a stop) or off a piece of white paper (add three stops) if you need a quick incident type reading. This sort of thing doesn't replace an incident meter but is convenient sometimes.

Last, but definitely not least, the Leicameter has a proper needle-and-scale readout, so that you can instantly compare shadowed and bright areas of the scene and see directly what the differences are - within the limitations of the field of view. It's not a spotmeter !

 

[Vincent.G]

Hi people

Thanks for all the feedback on VCII and MR meter. It dawned on me that a disadvantage of the MR meter is its age. It is no longer in production and I am quite worried about using electronic stuff that is much older than I am. The VCII has an edge over the MR meter in this aspect.

Next, I followed up on the suggestion offered by micromontenegro, maddoc and paul (thanks guys!) and did some research. Here's what I found out. The sekonic twinmate L-208 cost less than USD90 new with warranty! And it is an incident AND reflected light meter. Another plus point is that it is analog (I like it this way) and shows various combination of shutter speed and aperture at one glance. It works on long-lasting and readily available 3V lithium dry cell. It's hard for me not to take notice of the twinmate when I add all these up. Seems like a great deal.

 

[bwidjaja]

Vincent, can you share with me where you can find Sekonic Twinmate for less than $90? Thanks.

 

[Vincent.G]

Vincent, can you share with me where you can find Sekonic Twinmate for less than $90? Thanks.

Can get them from Cathay Photo, Singapore. But I don't think they ship overseas but you can email them to check. Alternatively, if you have friends here, you can ask them to help you buy and ship it back to US but not sure if the price will still be attractive if you factor in shipping cost. The electronic stuff here in Singapore are priced very competitively. Hope this helps.

Btw President Obama is here for APEC meeting. Can give him a ring and ask him to do you a favour! 😉 Just kidding!