Meter madness

[zdav]

hi,

my meters are driving me nuts. I'll try to explain although I don't know where to begin

I have two yashica's: a lynx 14and a minister-d

The lynx has a built in meter which requires a 1,35V PX 625 mercury battery. I shot one roll using the meter on my minister-d for estimating exposure > exposures where pretty good most of the time. Now I bought a zync-air hearing aid battery 1,4V and used some aluminum foil to make it fit. The meter is working but in the same light, it gives me about 4 stops less exposure than the meter on my minister-d but the difference doesn't seem to be very consistent. So now I don't know if the meter is just tilting or it doesn't work because of the battery.

I like to take pictures at 'social events' (bars, dinner parties, ...) so most I often shoot in low light. Estimating exposure indoors and in low light seems impossible. The meter on my minister-d almost doesn't move in low light. I think it's not very reliable. so I just tend to shoot wide open at slowest hand-held-safe speed > 1/60.

I've been thinking about buying a Sekonic Twinmate L-208 but there are some contra's:
- I read it is crap at low light
- It costs more than my cameras
- It requires batteries
- It is not very pretty

I am tempted to buy an old second hand light meter:
- I like the fact that they don't require batteries
- I like their design (both esthetical and technical)
- I don't think I would be doing incident metering, mostly reflective light

What do you guys and girls recommend?
- a good meter that works in low light, if so which one ?
- an old light meter that works in low light, if so which one ?
- stick with the built-in meters and invest in a real battery adapter or replacement for the lynx ?

thank you,

Staf

 

[sevo]

The L-208 does not extend to very low light - around 3EV (i.e. 1/2s at f/2 at ISO 100) is its bottom limit.

The L-398 and Weston Euro-Master are the most sensitive selenium driven meters, however they are only one single stop past than the L-208, going down to about 2EV. And they are not really comfortable and accurate at that - at the bottom end, selenium cells have a lot of latency, and you'll have to let them settle for a minute or so between low light readings.

If you want it fast, you'll need batteries - the most sensitive general purpose meter ever was the Gossen Profisix (irritatingly marketed as Lunapro SBC in the US, not to be mistaken for the entirely different Lunapro), which went down to -6EV (-9, if you exploit the full needle scale range). More recent meters of that class all added flash metering, which made them lose a fair bit of sensitivity.