Post GAS attack recovery - meter advice needed

[mfunnell]

OK.

So I'd never owned or used a rangefinder before less than a month ago. I have one now (a very nice Hexar RF, which I love to death). I thought I had GAS under control. I only bought one extra lens (an M-Hexanon 35/2, mint condition). I have it, I use it, so far I think its great.

But now, it seems, I own at least three more rangefinders - a Zorki 4 (with Jupiter 8), a Zorki 6 (with I-50) ... OK, so far, ... but much more seriously a double-stroke, recently CLA'd, M3.

I could live with the FSU attack (BTW, I had no idea what most of these TLAs meant three weeks ago - GAS, FSU, CLA - I'm hooked and I never even saw it coming!).

Now, psychologically, the FSUs are easy: how much fuss can you make over a $25 camera+lens? While I'm very much an electronically-metered aperture-priority kind've guy, I planned to play with cheap cameras, lenses and film and see what happened.

But then the M3 happened. It seemed perfectly logical at the time. I bid the reserve (US$650) for a recently CLA'd double-stroke M3 on the basis that I was checking the market out, I couldn't win, and if I did I was well ahead of the game.

Nice theory. I'd even buy it in practice - except after I bid, my dentist decided to have an annual holiday in Tuscany on the back of my teeth (as it were). And I won the bid, at the reserve (another, almost as nice-looking, M3 I bid on went for more than twice the price: go figure).

Now, I'm still very happy to have the M3 (and it is legit: I've had plenty of good contact with the seller). But the M3 seems a much more serious sort of camera, which I'll have to treat seriously. So, given that (to me) "sunny 16" sounds like a way of ordering eggs, what do I do about metering with my now-serious manual cameras?

Is the CV II (expensive) hot-shoe meter worth its weight in gold (or more)? Should I go with the cheapest hand-held ambient light meter I can find? Should I try to teach myself to be a human light-meter (old dogs, new tricks, and all)???

My beat-up but inquiring mind would like to benefit from your collective offerings...

...Mike

 

[Bill58]

Mike:

My two cents worth is get an older Gossen Luna Pro w/ non- Mercury battery adapter and have fun.

Bill

 

[tblanston]

Depends several things, including shooting style and subjects.

Gossen Digisix is a great handheld incident meter. It's smaller than my cell phone and it's perfectly accurate next to a larger, more feature-filled professional meter. My main complaint about those handhelds, however, is that so many of them work in shutter priority and my brain just doesn't work that way. What I love about the digisix is that it reads out EV which corresponds to a 'decoder ring'. Memorize some important/common exposures on the ring and suddenly you've got the most discrete and quick meter available. (This device works very well to help you work towards the status of human light meter, by the way)

 

[HuubL]

With such a classic you want an MR4, just to keep in style. Or at least a Weston Master V.
Sorry for you contaging GAS. That's a serious problem and it'll never go away! Zorki and FED will get you through the worst attacks for a while, but from now on stay far away from every item with Canon RF, Nikon RF, Leica etc in the description.