What's your experience with CL light meter?

[Lancaster]

I just picked up a CL and although everything seems to be functioning correctly I've not yet developed my first roll with it.

I've read some bad things about the meter. Are they true?
What's your experience?

 

[hexiplex]

I had a CL with a meter re-calibrated for alkaline cells, I think it worked quite well and gave accurate results for print film, don't know about how it handles slide though.

 

[FrankS]

Just carry a hand held meter and pretend the CL is a Barnack with a much better finder, or a more compact and lighter meterless M camera.

 

[gliderbee]

The meter on mine is calibrated for LR44 and SR44 and is working perfectly.

Stefan.

 

[Lancaster]

Just carry a hand held meter and pretend the CL is a Barnack with a much better finder, or a more compact and lighter meterless M camera.

This is the style of things I have read, but I don't know what is the specific problem with the meter.

Maybe it's just the battery compatibility problem, or not.

 

[panerai]

Meter would register with any battery, but in order to get accurate readings. Battery voltage needs to be the same as the original mercury ones.

Can use Wein Cell which are 1.35V or have the meter recalibrated for the 1.5V

Use sunny 16 without meter or just carry a handheld meter

Curious as to what bad things you've read about the meter? If it's fully functioning. Shouldn't have any problems with exposure.

I had mine redone for 1.5V batteries, but haven't developed any film yet

DON

 

[Steve M.]

The problem is that the metering cell is decades old, and isn't helped by swinging around on the end of that Rube Goldberg arm. I've owned them w/ and w/o meters and actually prefer the unmetered ones. The ones I had w/ working meters worked fine, but I wouldn't trust them in low light due to their age.

 

[Lancaster]

Curious as to what bad things you've read about the meter?

DON

This one is in the ads here right now:

"AND .... of course, it being a CL .... a flighty meter that works sometimes and mostly does not. "

There was another one which must have sold in the last few days.
From memory:

"Light meter not working... but you wouldn't use the CL meter anyway"

 

[Vickko]

Never really had an issue with mine, but keep in mind it is an over thirty year instrument.

I always carried a hand held meter as backup, and made sure that the CL meter was reading what I expected the exposure to be.

I guess I'm saying, that while I appreciated that my CL had a meter, I never really fully relied on it.

...Vick

 

[FrankS]

With age, the meter system is the CL's weak point, just as the light meter resistor ring in Nikon F/F2 SLR Photomic heads are.

 

[excellent]

Mine works good. If you have one that works it is great and easy to use. Sometimes the reason they don't work is corrosion that can be easily cleaned away.

 

[af_]

I bought mine with a 'broken' light meter, but with a good battery.

I turned out that the light meter works, but only of you know how to turn it on: the advance lever has to be pulled out, and I have to change the shutter speed once to wake it up.
With the ISO dial set to 50 for 400 film, I'm getting excellent readings.

Well, it's a very special camera.. 😎

 

[Cagliostro73]

My CL has a working meter and I mean really working!
I use it with wein cell when I need to shot DIA (slide).
I use it with 1.5 volt when I want to go with B&W films.
Never had troubles with slide films! Simply perfect.
I've noticed my CL seems to value more the left side of the RF patch (which should be the Spot field of measure) than the right side, at close distance.
That should be for the parallax error!
Best of light!
D.

 

[sepiareverb]

The one I'm shooting now has a good meter, it is off by only about 1 stop with no calibration and using modern non-mercury batteries. I have a much nicer looking body which Sherry has had for a very long time, it's getting a full overhaul.

 

[aldobonnard]

I have one CL which has been 100% rebuilt by Leica Solms.
Its meter is the best meter in the M range along with the M5's (identical)
A bit slow in low light, user needs to be used to that
Great results with all sorts of films and slides
Watch out the second-hand because people still believe Leica do not need a regular service, but they're like classic cars, it's a mechanical device which needs regular recalibrating

 

[deirdre]

Mine is spot on. Surprisingly so, actually.

It's interesting that another meter I have works consistently well with every single camera I have but gives a reading two stops underexposed for the CL.

I use Wein cells with mine.

 

[Creagerj]

This one is in the ads here right now:

"AND .... of course, it being a CL .... a flighty meter that works sometimes and mostly does not. "

There was another one which must have sold in the last few days.
From memory:

"Light meter not working... but you wouldn't use the CL meter anyway"

I bought that CL. No the meter doesn't seem to work, and no I don't care. I use my sekonic L-308s and my brain/eyes. I wish I could remove the damn meter stick, but it looks like it is part of the shutter mechanism. Great camera though, doesn't have the feel that my M2 does, but it is a lot lighter.

 

[HuubL]

My CL's meter is working perfectly. But make sure you know the quirky way to activate it. See af's (Andrei) post above.

 

[Paul T.]

I love the CL meter - an analogue needle is easier and faster to use than the diodes on the M6 etc. For some reason, my exposures generally seem to be better on the CL than my other cameras

 

[River Dog]

The Wein cell works fine in mine. The contacts are a bit sticky, requiring a couple of activations to get it going sometimes but exposures have been spot on.