So, tell me, how does the Swinger's light meter work?

[dmr]

I just had an interesting experience with a relic from the 1960s, the Polaroid Swinger, over at a FOAF's house last night.

They have it as a conversation piece, but it looks like it should work if film, which has not been made for decades, were available.

Anyway, the light meter WORKS. Kind of a funky thing. You squeeze in the post, look thru the finder, and you see the word "NO" in pixelated letters. You then turn the post back and forth and when the exposure is right, the "NO" changes to "YES".

I played around with it for a while, and yes, you can tell how the "YES" point shifts in dimmer and brighter light. Room light is well into the "NO" range, but pointing toward a light you get within the "YES" range easily.

The camera itself is very simple, and I remember them from when I was a kid and they were very cheap, so I doubt if there's anything majorly complicated in them.

Does anyone know exactly how this meter works?

 

[Keith]

I could be wrong (I probably am) but I would imagine they would work on the extinction method which is how meters worked way back in the dark ages.


It's explained here.

 

[Oscar Levant]

You're correct, it's a clever variation of an extinction meter, where the word "YES" is readable when enough light passes through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7k2uwJmwxo

 

[dmr]

I received the following in response to a similar item I posted on a list. This seems to be the best explanation of how exactly this works:

I had the Swinger Model 20, the first to use this exposure
system. Other cheaper Polaroid Land models used it up until
the early 80's.

It's not an extinction meter. It's a comparator.

It compares the light from the scene to that of a reference.

The secret
to how it works is an incandescent lamp powered by the same
batteries that fire the flash. This is your reference
brightness. If this lamp burned out, the camera was dead.

Notice that when you squeezed the exposure knob, the exposure
meter lit up. This wasn't just so you could see it, it was
necessary to get an exposure value.

This is very clever and it used very few moving parts and no
real electronics. It involved a dual checkerboard mosaic
matrix with translucent red and clear sections. There was
a two-blade diamond-shaped aperture with lumens for the lens
and for the exposure meter. The mosaic sections were crafted
such that if the illumination from the reference lamp and the
aperture were equal, the word 'Yes' was visible.

For some models, over or under exposure resulted in 'No' being
visible. For other models, all you saw was checkerboard garbage
when the exposure was off.

As for calibration, it was very poor. Most owners used the old
carbon-zinc dry cells, which would droop in voltage, and thus
droop in reference brightness, as they wore out. The older the
batteries, the more of a tendency to underexpose.
I hope this explains things.

 

[Oscar Levant]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Swinger

How could your friend's Polaroid Swinger meter work after 25 years with no batteries in it? It's an extinction meter.

PS: The much later "Big Swinger 3000" was a totally different camera which used different film. The "Big Swinger" did use an AA battery illuminateg meter that also said "yes".


.

 

[dmr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Swinger

How could your friend's Polaroid Swinger meter work after 25 years with no batteries in it?

This one had batteries. The only thing it lacked was film. (Well, flash bulbs, but I assume they are more available than the film is.)

It's an extinction meter.

We may have to agree to disagree on this. I like John's explanation of it which seems to nail it to a tee. Extinction meters rely on your eyesight, as in the limit of it. This one compares two light sources.

 

[Oscar Levant]

Was the camera white? Was it the original Swinger?

 

[dmr]

Was the camera white? Was it the original Swinger?

Yes, white body, kind of black trim around the front, red aperture adjust knob.

I remember the cameras well, although I never had one like this. They were VERY popular when I was in my teens. This particular one would probably work if only you could find a roll of still-good film for it.