Calibrating Soligor spotmeter II

I recently bought a soligor Spotmeter II on ebay, the light meter was over exposing by 3 stops. I notice that the needle is not in the zero position (ie aligned with the '. 2') but is below that by 3 stops. How can I recalibrate the spot meter ? There is a silver screw near the trigger on the grip but turning that does not bring the needle back to zero position but instead messed up the sensitivity of the meter I think. At the bottom of the handle I see a thread for a larger screw but no screw in place. Am I missing a part that does the alignment of the needle ? how can I fix my "broken" light meter. Currently I am working around this by setting the ISO to 400 (I shoot 100 ISO film).

Thanks a bunch

I have one, but it's on my work - when I would be there tomorrow, I'll post a reply I recalibrated it for sure with great success, so I think I would remember

Zhenya

If Zhenya can't help you, I highly recommend you send the meter to Richard T. Ritter http://www.lg4mat.net/ . He repairs and calibrates Pentax and Soligor (Adorama and other rebrands) one degree meters. I've used his services and been very pleased.

jovo said:

I highly recommend you send the meter to Richard T. Ritter http://www.lg4mat.net/ . He repairs and calibrates Pentax and Soligor

Click to expand...

Richard recently did a great job repairing and calibrating my old Soligor Spot II. Very reasonable as well.

Bill

Any idea on price?

Richard did my Soligor/ZoneVI a year or so ago. Somehow $65.00 is ringing a bell, but I am not 100% sure.

Eric

Jeremy Moore said:

Any idea on price?

Click to expand...

My meter had been dropped and the repair of that problem and calibration was about $75 as I recall. He will send you an estimate before undertaking the work, though.

I had problems with my Soligor II meter being off in different directions depending on the where on tho EV scale I was. The single screw close to the trigger didn't help but I found three potentionmeters under the "Soligor II" label. I did not understand the logic of how they affected the readings. I noted however that the readings were different depending on what angle I held the meter (up to 2 stops difference) so I gave it up for a new sekonik L-558.

Needless to say I am not the Richard reffered to above .

/Richard

manjo said:

I recently bought a soligor Spotmeter II on ebay, the light meter was over exposing by 3 stops. I notice that the needle is not in the zero position (ie aligned with the '. 2') but is below that by 3 stops. How can I recalibrate the spot meter ? There is a silver screw near the trigger on the grip but turning that does not bring the needle back to zero position but instead messed up the sensitivity of the meter I think. At the bottom of the handle I see a thread for a larger screw but no screw in place. Am I missing a part that does the alignment of the needle ? how can I fix my "broken" light meter. Currently I am working around this by setting the ISO to 400 (I shoot 100 ISO film).

Thanks a bunch

Click to expand...

This raises a couple of interesting questions about e-bay purchases.
1. If you add the servicing cost being quoted to the price paid on e-bay what price do you arrive at? Does it get close to the price you may have paid at a secondhand shop for a fully working model?
2. What were you told about the meter's defects on e-bay? In the U.K. had you bought the meter at a shop or other legitimate business outlet, you'd be covered by the law that says that things you buy have to be of merchandisable quality. That is they have to perform the function for which you bought the item OR the seller has to make it very clear what is missing and what effect this has on its merchandisable quality.

It seems to me that we are more and more accepting e-bay as the equivalent of a "lucky dip" barrel which is fine if it is at a church fete where the aim is to fund a good cause but not in a genuine buy/sell business transaction.

I hope that in your case "cheap" doesn't turn out to be expensive.The more I read about e-bay on APUG the more concerned I am

Pentaxuser

i actually did find the receipt and it was $65.00. The meter was tested at three different levels and was calibrated to these different levels. He included a before and after test sheet.

Eric

Business on ebay risk is 50%

I have had "not so bad" experience with ebay so far, but I have always bought from dealers/stores who ebay their inventory. Buying from private person is a problem. But, having said that recently I bought a lens for my MF camera, noticed a minor scratch on the front lens and notified the seller, he was willing to refund. Nice ppl do exist. But I kept the lens. I have not contacted the seller of this light meter, he said he was a student, so I think I will let it go.... I might end up paying around $130 for the light meter adding a $65 repair charge. Oh well! you win some u lose some. I think the lesson here is to restrict ebay biddings to known retailers like adorama, etc who sell on ebay.

I think mine is a bit off as well. I compared it to the spot meter on my Pentax *ist SLR metering from uniform areas and my Soligor was off by 2 stops. The reason I say it's off and not my Pentax is because I've found the meter on the pentax to be highly accurate, and last time I used the Soligor my dev was off. I then adjusted the screw under the lens so it matches my Pentax SLR spot meter. It seems to now be in sync with the Pentax after taking reading from a variety of subjects, think this is all I need to do?