lf-photo.org.uk

Having recently had a ridiculous string of bad luck with a couple of UK retailers* I'm now forced to cast my net wider.....

I'm looking for a spotmeter, preferably one degree, viewfinder readout, and preferably not expensive. Something like a Pentax Spotmeter V, Minolta Spot F or M, that type of thing. Of course there's always ebay but things seem to sell for way over the odds recently. I'm not hung up on cosmetics, as long as it works and is consistent I'm happy. Obviously I'd rather have a warranty from a dealer, but cheggers can't be boozers.

So if anyone has anything suitable burning a hole in your camera bag give me a shout.

Cheers all.

* P.S. what are the odds of buying two pentax Vs from seperate shops in the same week and both of them turn out to modified for use with high-speed cine cameras instead of the normal stills camera shuter speeds? Unbelieveable....

Hi Dave, whats your budget?
I have a Kenko 2100 that I am selling for £175+p/p.

Gari

Alright gari. My budget is/was about a ton. I had considered that kenko/minolta model but thought it might be a bit too heavy on features. Whats the finder display like?

Hi Dave, it can be as simple or complicated as you want really. I use it in EV spot mode. There is an aperture scale down the left hand side that works in conjunction with the EV readings.
I usually use it by metering a point, noting the EV and also the fstop/shutter combination, I then move the marker on the display by how many stops I want to raise/reduce in order to place the tonal value. This is for visual reference mainly, a prompt if you like.
So, say I meter something at an EV of 8 and the speed etc is f32@1sec.I want to place the meter value as my absolute highlight with some colour, I move the marker up so that it is next to the f45.5 mark. I ignore the speed increase, making a mental note that my base exposure is 1 sec... hence f45.5@1sec is ZVI.5 or 1.5 stops over my mid/meter tone. You can memorise 3 readings which can be useful to gauge the latitude of a scene for instance.

It sounds more complicated than it is to be honest, I found this was the easiest way for me to work with it the first day out.

I think Joanne has one also, maybe she will chip in.

I have my gear in my car, I can get it out and take a pic of the display turned on if you want.

Regards
Gari

gari wrote:I think Joanne has one also, maybe she will chip in.

Hiya. I have the "original" Konica Minolta version of this and I use it in a slightly different way to you Gari.

If you go into the settings mode, you can set the shadow ad highlight points. What I tend to do, is take the film that I am using, usually Velvia 100 and apply 2 stops under for the shadows and 2 stops over for the highlights. Then, when I take a spot reading for, say, the shadow detail, all I have to do is to tell the meter to use that reading as the shadow figure and it will automatically show me the correct exposure to place the shadows 2 stops down. I can then scan the image taking further readings for the highlights and the meter will tell me how much over the correct exposure the highlights are, thus enabling me to know if I need a grad filter.

I have found this shadow/highlight feature to be invaluable and rarely get either blocked shadows or blown highlights; an excellent meter.

Hi Dave,

Not exactly what you asked for but I have this for sale:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1077

Used it for all my medium and large format photography for the past 5 years, a faultless meter, simple and effective, selling for £100

Julian

PS I just purchased the latest all singing all dancing Sekonic meter and I personally find a 1 degree too tight for my taste

To be honest Julian I recon 10degrees is too wide for me (wider than my current setup), but cheers anyway.

Gari/joanna, thanks for the info on the kenko/minolta, very useful. When you look at a highly featured model like that its always good to know whats actually useful and whats just put there by the marketing department to jack the specs up against the competition!

Just to round this one off, I now have a spot meter courtesy of Gari, thanks for your help and input everyone.