Bought an Old Light Meter Please Help

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Hi, I just bought a Old Light meter in my local CashConverter for £1.50
Can someone please tell me if I can use this thing to meassure light better than my in Camera Meter? if so please help me how to do it :thumbs:


paperweightq.jpg
 
It should be as good as, if not more accurate than your camera meter as it was designed specifically to do a single job... measure light... :D


I have links to an on-line manual for this somewhere... hang on... ;)





:p
 
dammit why have I never ever at any boot sale charity shop or pawn shops seen any old camera kit argh
 
You're most welcome... :$ ... here's another...

Some useful bits and bobs cropping up in THIS THREAD about a similar light meter that may be of some assistance... :shrug:






:p
 
That was the best available in its day, but selenium cell meters don't last for ever, so you may want to check it against another meter.

Assuming that it's OK, it will especially useful if you also have the invercone, which allows incident light measurement.

Bear in mind that it's calibrated in Weston, not ISO speeds. From memory (but a long time ago) 80 Weston = 100 ISO = 21 DIN
 
Westons were always highly regarded light meters.
Damned sorry I never kept my WM5.

If yours can accept an invercone you can use it for incident light readings which is the most accurate way of metering difficuly subjects (eg. lots of black and white items).
 
I have one of those.

It will only be accurate if the cell is still good. With the back closed, the reading for a bright sunny day with an average scene (or the reflection from a grey card) should be 400 (1/100 at f16 set to Weston 80).

The film speed is in Weston numbers which are 0.8 x ISO. e.g, 100 ISO is 80 Weston.

Do you have the cone and the ND filter for incident readings?

If it is not accurate, Megatron repair and calibrate these meters. See the bottom of this page: http://www.megatron.co.uk/homepage.html


Steve.
 
I have an old incident light meter (CDS) that I was thinking of digging out yesterday. Couldn't afford the Weston at the time. Used mine in the 70s almost everyday using manual camera adjustment. I haven't compared it with the recent metering on Dslrs but I imagine its going to be more accurate than reflected light reading.
 
Back in the day, that is 1960s, it was a good meter.

I had a Master V and I have to say that it was marginal in low light. Then CdS came along, which would at least register something in low light, and the Westons were history.
 
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