What on earth is this light meter ????

It’s a reflection spotmeter. I’m not sure how the internal optics and metering work. My father repaired them in Brisbane at least until the 1980s. He said it was very reliable and accurate, and that the light meters in a lot of early microscope cameras worked along similar principles.

Marty
 
It works on a similar principle, i.e., almost entirely optically, but with a reference spot of calibrated to compare.

I had my hands on one once—helping cleaning out my graduate school's darkroom about a decade ago, there was one of these, seized to all hell of course, in a box with some other fun, long obsolete oddities. I don't know what the final disposition of it was, but I'm sure it'd make a nice collector piece.

An article from our own late Roger Hicks:

https://www.shutterbug.com/content/sei-photometerbra-legend-among-spot-meters
 
Well thank you for the education. It must have been good enough for the old boy and certainly looks like a precision instrument. The battery chamber looks like it takes two or three of the old fatties that I remember of old.
I have too many light meters, three spot, two of the modern style and the new model of the famous no battery version. All in each category are equal with each other.
But I would not mind playing with one of these......thanks again for the details.
 
I have an SEI and knew the son of the inventor so had a play with the prototype once.
Allowing for the fallibility of the eye it was a step up from a guess.
But Ansell did well with his.
Cheers
Philip
 
I have a couple of these. Very neat device. The bulbs are no longer available and I've never been able to find an original replacement bulb when I have bothered to look. There are other bulbs that fit but they can't be calibrated to used with the scales on the meter, so you have to use a handheld meter to verify your calibration before use. You can buy a kit that replaces the bulb with an LED and comes with a sticker to replace the scales.
 
Creagerj said:
I have a couple of these. Very neat device. The bulbs are no longer available and I've never been able to find an original replacement bulb when I have bothered to look. There are other bulbs that fit but they can't be calibrated to used with the scales on the meter, so you have to use a handheld meter to verify your calibration before use. You can buy a kit that replaces the bulb with an LED and comes with a sticker to replace the scales.
Click to expand...

Huw Finney, who made the LED kit, stopped making them more than 10 years ago. Any 1.5v bulb will work ok as long as you have another meter to calibrate the readings.

Marty
 
Freakscene said:
Huw Finney, who made the LED kit, stopped making them more than 10 years ago. Any 1.5v bulb will work ok as long as you have another meter to calibrate the readings.

Marty
Click to expand...

Oh, that's a bummer the kits are no longer produced. I have some generic bulbs for mine and have used the handheld meter calibration technique. To be honest I don't really use mine. It's more a of a collector's item.
 
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