Tell me about your Sekonic L-208 Light Meter

[bhop73]

I shoot 400iso film usually, but I have to set my L208 for "around" 200iso for accurate exposures. Other than that, it's size makes it convenient.

 

[Vincent.G]

Tell me about your experience using this classic light meter. Found a nice used one at the LCS. Ever attached it to your flash mount shoe? 😎

It's small, light and affordable. I always use it as an incident light meter. It's too big to be mounted on the hot shoe. The Voigtlander VC Meter is better in that aspect IMHO.

My kids used my L-208 to play soccer a few times but it still functions well. 😀

 

[GarageBoy]

Old thread, but I was looking into these because I want a smaller meter than my Minolta Flash Meter IV (overkill for ambient light) - is the L208 inherently less accurate, or does the combination of it being hard to aim, the slack in the dial/iso controls, all adding up to error?

Kinda torn between this guy, the gossen digisix, or picking up a used L308 for around the same price...

 

[Timmyjoe]

I've got a couple of the L308's. One in going on 30 years old.

I tried the L-208 because I thought the small size would be an asset, turns out my old eyes couldn't read the numbers on the meter without my reading glasses, which I don't use when doing photography. So it ended up being worthless for my needs and went back to where I bought it from.

YMMV.

Best,
-Tim

 

[ranger9]

Old thread, but I was looking into these because I want a smaller meter than my Minolta Flash Meter IV (overkill for ambient light) - is the L208 inherently less accurate, or does the combination of it being hard to aim, the slack in the dial/iso controls, all adding up to error?

Kinda torn between this guy, the gossen digisix, or picking up a used L308 for around the same price...

I've got a Flash Meter IV also, and eventually I just got used to carrying it around. I also have the original Gossen Digisix (the new Digisix 2 seems exactly the same except that the dial is white-on-black rather than vice-versa) and while its readings are pretty accurate, to me it seems very cheesy and inconveniently designed. The construction is very plasticky, especially the dial, and the procedure for accessing the menus to set ISO and other functions is kind of a pain (involves holding down one button until the display flashes, pressing the other button until the function you want is displayed, etc... you can download the instruction manual here if you want: https://gossen-photo.de/en/digisix-2/) Also, there's no on/off switch, and even though Gossen claims one isn't necessary because power consumption is very low, I often pull mine out and find that the battery is dead. As noted above, I decided I'd rather carry my Minolta meter than put up with the thing.

 

[mooge]

Not sure if the L208 is any less accurate on the circuitry side but the small size of the dial and stuff definitely gives the readings a bit of wiggle factor. But it's never been an issue for me since I've only been running b+w or colour neg. Can't comment on "hard to aim" as I only use on incident.

I would think the digisix has a better display - not possible to misread a digital number and also nothing to go wrong. I've dropped my L-208 a couple times and once and the hairspring for the readout needle got hung up something and I had to take it apart.


That said, I'm pretty happy with the L-208. I've beat it around a bit and so far it hasn't given up on me, and it's a hell of a lot smaller than the Lunasix 3 that I used to lug around...

 

[charjohncarter]

I love mine, if you read Roger Hicks' book on Exposure you will learn how to point any meter to get accurate exposure. Mine doesn't fail me: flash with two phases, incident, reflective, and EI. I have never found it to be inaccurate. Test against and SLR or DLSR is not a good check. Check the above book to see why.

 

[Joe Jesus]

I love mine. Its small, reliable, and it fits with the rest of my workflow. I used to use the iPhone app to meter, and it felt like a real task when I was in the middle of taking a photo.

 

[Moto-Uno]

I've had mine for sometime now and it gives much more accurate readings than my guessing ever did 🙂 . Peter

 

[GarageBoy]

I've got a Flash Meter IV also, and eventually I just got used to carrying it around. I also have the original Gossen Digisix (the new Digisix 2 seems exactly the same except that the dial is white-on-black rather than vice-versa) and while its readings are pretty accurate, to me it seems very cheesy and inconveniently designed. The construction is very plasticky, especially the dial, and the procedure for accessing the menus to set ISO and other functions is kind of a pain (involves holding down one button until the display flashes, pressing the other button until the function you want is displayed, etc... you can download the instruction manual here if you want: https://gossen-photo.de/en/digisix-2/) Also, there's no on/off switch, and even though Gossen claims one isn't necessary because power consumption is very low, I often pull mine out and find that the battery is dead. As noted above, I decided I'd rather carry my Minolta meter than put up with the thing.

Yeah, I'm thinking of picking up another Minolta meter instead, if I'm spending the same price as a used 308 (which costs more than a flash meter iv used, which has way more features)

I love mine, if you read Roger Hicks' book on Exposure you will learn how to point any meter to get accurate exposure. Mine doesn't fail me: flash with two phases, incident, reflective, and EI. I have never found it to be inaccurate. Test against and SLR or DLSR is not a good check. Check the above book to see why.

I've read Roger hicks articles since I was a kid (shutterbug magazine) - the problem I have is I don't know how broad the angle of view the sensor has - with ttl meters - I roughly knew how the center weight was weighted and could aim accordingly - I know most reflected meters have about a 40 degree angle, but it's hard to know if I'm reading the bright spot, or the shadow behind it - I guess I need a spotmeter