Onboard meter

shadowfox

shadowfox

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... or boarded-on-top meter to be exact 🙂

I recently got a hold of a nifty acc. shoe meter made by Accura. Old, cheap, curiosity-piquing, just my kind of gadget 🙂

There were some green stuff on the battery terminal but cleaned up nicely; it's a CdS meter, runs on one of those mercury cells.

So I plugged in an AgO cells inside one of my battery adapters (from Jon Goodman), and it came to life.

Looking around for a body to mount it on, I thought it may look cool on the M4-P.

Now before you smart-alecky M6 and up users start snickering at me, let me be clear:

I do not have to have a meter in or on my cameras 🙂

Sunny-16 makes me a happy photog, and I have the Sekonic to back me up. But I have been looking for a meter that can be mounted on the acc. shoe. Just for the coolness factor.

So, here it is:

2720216801_a61d7844a9.jpg


It kinda makes my M4-P a little "big-headed" but it's cool nonetheless 😛

2721040938_8c491b56c7.jpg


Now come the question, if anyone has ever used one of these, could you please tell me how to use it properly? the needle points to a specific aperture setting depending on light condition, not EV values, the question is, for what shutter speed?

The shutter speed is printed on a disc along with the EV values. I've never seen a vintage meter that works like this.
 
Cool accessory, Will.

Don't either aperture or speed/EV rings turn when you set ASA ?

1 second at F1 is 1 EV.

Looks like the needle will point to a triplet of EV/aperture/speed.

Roland.
 
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Well, here's a link to the bigger version of the second picture above.
I am really curious now.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3049/2721040938_98ac20e107_o.jpg

There are two rotating discs on the meter. The inner one changes ASA and aperture. The outer one changes shutter-speed and EV. And then there's the needle pointing to black "areas" that could be associated with different apertures I assume depending on the ASA selected.

I got that.

But after I read the aperture, what am I supposed to read to know which shutter-speed or EV to use?

Roland, thanks for the pointer on what EV 1 means, I didn't know that.

Gabor, I was about to send you a link to this thread 🙂

tmfabian, Goofy is the right word 😉
 
It works like a small/old Hasselblad meter, Will.

The needle points to a black/white area. Then that area points to a triplet of aperture/speed/EV, depending on which ASA you set initially. (just move your eye radially away from the black/white area).

See attached. 1/60, f8 (= 12 EV at 100 ASA).

Roland.
 
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Hmmm ... the 1/60, f8 and EV12 lined up as in the picture because I have previously rotated the outer disc so the red 1/125 indicator lined up with where the needle pointed to at that time (at f5.6 asa 200).

So, is the 1/125 the "magic" shutter-speed must be lined up with whatever black/white region the needle is pointing at? Is that why it's painted red (not others)?
 
I stumbled upon one of these neat little Accura CDs meters on eBay last week. Mine isn't working, but I think I've found the problem. It looks like a weak point of the internal design is a white wire leading from one of the switch contacts down to the positive battery contact that comes up through the base of the meter. It completes the circuit to the battery.

There's very little clearance inside the case, so this short little wire is positioned where it may be bent or nudged each time the metering button is pressed. And sure enough, the wire in mine had broken off from the battery contact.

I'm going to try to re-solder it, but it's obscured by the glued-in switch assembly, so it's kinda tricky. Especially for a soldering klutz like me. I may be able to solder a short post cut from a paperclip to the contact and then solder the wire to that. We shall see.
 
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