Hi,
About 3 weeks ago I bought a Sekonic L-608, which is probably the top
multimeter at the moment (it's certainly the most expensive).
It's the first spotmeter I've owned, except for the 'spot' meters in
my Contax RXs. Using these convinced me of how useful it is to be able
to meter off a small area, and using my old meter (Sekonic L-398M)
with my Leica Ms convinced me that I needed more than just incident
metering capabilities. However, I'm no spotmeter guru so you'll have to
take my comments for whatever they're worth.
The options I initially thought about were the L-608, L-508 and Gossen
Starlite. I wanted a single meter that would do everything so that I
didn't have any separate accessories to forget or lose. I quickly
eliminated the L-508 because it had no advantages over the Starlite,
and I could get the Starlite significantly cheaper.
At about this time I used a friend's Gossen LunaPro F with 5-degree
attachment, and I was very tempted to get one of these for 3 main
reasons:
1. you don't have to bring it up to your eye to take a spot reading, it
operates like a waist-level finder, which is very convenient and less
likely to disturb victi... I mean subjects.
2. it's low-light capabilities are better by about 3 or 4 stops than
any of the others on my list.
3. a used one is much cheaper than the others
I missed the opportunity to BIN one on eBay for a ridiculously low
price, but kept looking for a while, but nothing suitable came along.
Rather than wait I chose between the L-608 and the Starlite.
I chose the L-608 because of the readout in the viewfinder and the
rectangular shape of the viewfinder. This knocked spots (oops, no
pun intended) off both the Starlite and the L-508. Thanks to Shel for
his advice about the need for multiple readings without taking the
viewfinder from my eye. The Starlite has a 0.5EV low-light metering
advantage over the L-608, but that was a sacrifice that I thought was
worthwhile. The Starlite is also very much cheaper than the L-608.
I haven't used the flash metering yet.
Mostly I use incident metering, and use the spot only when I'm not
confident that I'm measuring the same light that's falling on my
subject. The meter is extremely easy to set up and use. The viewfinder
readout is switched off when you're in incident mode, so you can't
take a spot reading if you're not in spot mode, which eliminates a
possible source of error. It doesn't work the other way, but there is
a clear indication of the mode on the main lcd panel. The panel is easy
to read and my some miracle knows when it's dark and illuminates itself
automatically (This feature amazed my salesman, who didn't really know
what he was doing :o) hey, dude, it's a lightmeter).
One of the features that I appreciate is the 2 iso settings so you can
keep one set for the appropriate filter factor, if you're using one.
The manual looks quite intimidating, but that's because it's in about
50 different languages. It's actually easy to read and quite well
written.
There are a lot of features I haven't explored yet (and possibly never
will), but so far I'm pleased I bought it, and with the possible
exception of the LunaPro F it seems the best of the bunch.
Hope that helps.
---
Bob
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"I do not go 'Click! Click!'. I go 'click!'"
- Henri Cartier-Bresson
Wednesday, December 12, 2001, 6:03:55 PM, you wrote:
> I have decided to retire my old Wein flashmeter, my Gossen Luna Pro SBC, and
> give up trying to find batteries for my Pentax Spotmeter. What I want to do
> now is to replace all three with a single meter that will do it all. Which
> combination meter would you recommend? Because of the usefulness factor,
> I'd be willing to invest more for a good, reliable meter.
-
This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe,
go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to
visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
