Good offer for Kenko Spot meter

[Matt5791]

Robert White have a good offer on for the Kenko 2100 exposure meter if anyone is interested - £195 + vat + delivery.

http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/product.asp?P_ID=1886&PT_ID=439

I bought one yesterday.

Matt

 

[Martin Aislabie]

Matt, I have seen the same thing and wondered about indulging myself

Let me know how you get on with it - I am particularly interested in the daylight incident light function

The Meter seems to have all the bells and whistles you could ever want - but sometimes these can just get in the way of the standard every day to day metering.

Many thanks

Martin

 

[Toffle]

True, there are a few more bells and whistles than I would normally use, but it looks like a bargain at that price. As for the bells and whistles, though I can usually trust my own judgement to average exposures in a scene, I have wasted far too many frames that a more careful reading would have captured... and my success/failure rate with metering exposures for flash is laughable. (I think the correct technical term in my case would be "guessing" :rolleyes: ) For these two functions alone, this meter looks like a good deal.

Hmm... Christmas is right around the corner...

Let us know what you think.

Cheers,

 

[Kirk Keyes]

I have the version of this meter that was originally made and sold by Minolta. It's a really great and flexible meter. If you use both spot and ambient, or want to use them, either singly or together, this is a good meter for it.

 

[Matt5791]

Hi - received the meter. Seems very nice quality and finish, easy to read display.

Also comes with a nice, tough, belt pouch too - very nicely made.

What I really wanted was the spot meter function and I can see this is going to be really useful.

Will report back once I have seen some results!

Matt

 

[Martin Aislabie]

Please do Matt

Its like a lot of stuff you can buy these days, they have all sorts of "marvellous features" but only one basic function.

How well it does the basic function (measures light & displays results in a a meaningful manner) is the most difficult bit to quantify

Thanks

Martin

 

[Kirk Keyes]

I can tell you now - in spot mode it does the basics of spot metering as well as any other spot meter. It's 1 degree. For ambient, you push the button, and you get an ambient reading. What I find fantastic, is that you can take an ambient reading, store it into memory, and then use either the ambient to take another reading and it will show you the difference in stops between both readings. This is nice for those that use BTZS. Or, you can then take a spot reading, with the ambient still stored in the memory, and it will tell you both on the main display and in the viewfinder for the spot meter, the difference between the spot reading and the stored ambient reading. Really usefull feature for me. Or, store the spot reading, and take an ambient to see the difference.

 

[Matt5791]

Yes - there is a very clear illuminated digital readout in the spot viewfinder which gives the f-stop required + 10ths of a stop - eg: 2.8-4 = f2.8 and 4 tenths of a stop. It also appears on the mian display.

If I'm understanding it correctly.

It seems to be the equivilent of the Sekonic L-758, which was the meter I always had my eye on, but for a lot less money.

Matt

 

[Kirk Keyes]

It seems to be the equivilent of the Sekonic L-758, which was the meter I always had my eye on, but for a lot less money.

Yes - it was the Minolta Flashmeter VI when it was originally introduced. I think the Sekonic equivalent at the time was the L-508. I've borrowed a L-508 and other than having a zoom feature for the spot meter, they are very similar. The I'm not one to need a zoom on a spot meter (1 degree is all I need) and the Minolta (Kenko) is a bit smaller. I didn't have a chance to compare, but the optics on the Sekonic may have a bit less flare than the Minolta (Kenko), but I'm just guessing based on the layout of the two meters.

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Yes - there is a very clear illuminated digital readout in the spot viewfinder which gives the f-stop required + 10ths of a stop - eg: 2.8-4 = f2.8 and 4 tenths of a stop. It also appears on the mian display.

You can change the display to read the difference in EV instead of f-stops. I find that more usefull. I really love being able to take an incident reading and then scan the subject by holding the spot meter button in and watching the difference in readings change. Really fast to see what's in range and out, especially when shooting color.

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Also, look into the setup menu and you can change the shadow and highlight memory values. They are set for color film when you buy the meter, you may want to put values in for your B&W use, like -2 (zone III) for shadow and +3 (zone VIII) for highlights.

 

[benjiboy]

Looks like a very good buy Matt, and has very similar facilitys to my Sekonic L-358, that was almost the same price without the spot metering ability, I just recently got the one Degree spot attchment for it, and that was another £125. I don't know of any other meter with spot metering this versatile for the price you paid.