Idiots guide to a Weston lightmeter please.

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puggie

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Bill
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I have a Weston Master light meter and seem to have varying success with it. I though without the invercone I basically point it at the scene to meter, and with the invercone I put it infront of my subject to capture the incident light.

Is that correct, can anyone give me any further advice and/or tricks? Is there a simple way to check the calibration of it?

Thanks
 
Yes, that should be the correct way to use the invercone - measuring light falling on the subject. Feel free to correct me if this is incorrect, but I believe it is the general consensus for most metering. Which model is it, 1 through 5?

Calibration, i.e. accuracy? That Canon 20D is probably a good start for checking the selenium cell, which are prone to degrading. Try and compare the two in a range of lighting scenes, although they quickly lose accuracy in low light (or just read nothing at all). That said, selenium cells can still be very accurate in some cases.
 
There's a transcription of the manual at this link.

Comparison against a DSLR is a good idea, showed that my Weston was reading pretty much the same as my D70.
 
Weston Master IIRC (its sat a home) but a modern one with red on silver printing on it.

That said I think its mainly low light that I'm having issues, ISO400 and less than 1/60th at f2.4 is pretty dull.
 
You can't calibrate a Weston meter as such.
What you should do is take a meter reading and then bracket some shots with your camera and see which comes out correctly and use that variable for future shots.
Get a piece of card in the shot with the readings written on it so that you don't get confused afterwards
 
Well I have two Westons and they are not very good for low lighting, but remember if they are a bit out, compared to your DSLR you can alter the asa to compensate...e.g. you might find for 200 asa film that setting it at 100asa is more accurate. Anyway on negative film I always set the asa 1/2 stop slower on camera or separate meter (better to be over-exposed than under) :).
 
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