How long do selenium photocells last?

snegron · Sep 14, 2007

Roger Hicks said:
I would, for exactly the reason you give. I've had one of the baby digital Gossens since it came out, well over 10 years ago. If it's left unused for many months at a time, the electrical contacts on the buttons stop working, but two or three smart pressures get them working again.

Thanks for the feedback, I think I will be getting the Gossen Digisix.

Interesting update on battery-less meter issue:

I am going on the usual family outing this weekend to one of the many tourist-packed amusement theme parks, so I went looking for an interesting camera/lens combo in an old storage case. I keep myself sane in these parks by taking along some old camera and lens to fiddle around with. Amazingly I found an old handheld meter that doesn't seem to require batteries!

A couple of years ago I purchased an RB67 outfit from a friend who is a former wedding photographer (he went digital and was going to ebay his old RB equipment, I made him better offer). In one of the old cases I found among other knicknacks a small handheld meter.

It is a Gossen Scout 2 and appears to be of the type that requires no battery. The red numbers on it appear to indicate EV values from 1 to 11. It has a small lever on the side that opens a small rectangular window on the top of the meter. When the door opens, the dial moves to a number. I am assuming this is a reflective meter? I have no idea how old this meter is.

I took a reading from an open window and compared it to a reading from my F3. Both readings are the same. I plan to go out in a few minutes and test it together with my F3.

David H. Bebbington · Sep 14, 2007

snegron said:
It is a Gossen Scout 2 and appears to be of the type that requires no battery. The red numbers on it appear to indicate EV values from 1 to 11. It has a small lever on the side that opens a small rectangular window on the top of the meter. When the door opens, the dial moves to a number. I am assuming this is a reflective meter? I have no idea how old this meter is.

I took a reading from an open window and compared it to a reading from my F3. Both readings are the same. I plan to go out in a few minutes and test it together with my F3.

A lot of Gossens seem to have a retractable incident light baffle - is the "cover" of the small rectangular window made of white plastic?

benjiboy · Sep 14, 2007

Roger Hicks said:
Up to 50 years, sometimes significantly more, depending on manufacturing quality and storage (especially exposure to light). Sometimes 5 years or less, ditto.

This is based on 40+ years' experience.

I bought my Weston Euro master in 1975(Selenium cell) and, although I also have a Gossen Profisix (Luna pro with a Silicon blue cell, the Weston still works perfectly and gives exactly the same exposures as the profisix I prefer the Weston in normal lighting because I have been using it so long I seem to get a bigger proportion of correct exposures with it.
I tend to use the Profisix only in low light situations because of it's low light capability's .

snegron · Sep 14, 2007

David H. Bebbington said:
A lot of Gossens seem to have a retractable incident light baffle - is the "cover" of the small rectangular window made of white plastic?

Yes, it appears to be accordian style white plastic. Even with the plastic in place it appears to be metering. When I slide the plastic out of the way, the needle jumps further.

I'm not sure if I am using it correctly or not, but when I slide the plastic down to expose the little window section and take a reading, the reading is about 1 1/2 stop over or under when compared to a reading taken from my F3.

Roger Hicks · Sep 14, 2007

snegron said:
Yes, it appears to be accordian style white plastic. Even with the plastic in place it appears to be metering. When I slide the plastic out of the way, the needle jumps further.

I'm not sure if I am using it correctly or not, but when I slide the plastic down to expose the little window section and take a reading, the reading is about 1 1/2 stop over or under when compared to a reading taken from my F3.

That's the incident light baffle.

snegron · Sep 14, 2007

Here is a picture of the meter.

Jim Jones · Sep 15, 2007

I have a dozen or more selenium meters that don't work. Some are beyond repair; others might get fixed some rainy day. However, I regularly use several more selenium meters. They may be more delicate than modern meters with LED readout, and aren't as useful when it's too dark for convenient photography. Weston, GE, and Norwood in their prime made fine meters. They were also fairly expensive. My first GE cost over a week's pay as a junior U. S. Navy enlisted man in 1952. Older battery operated meters have been less reliable. Early CDS meters could be a nuisance in dim light, where most selenium meters wouldn't work at all.

AgX · Sep 18, 2007

Scale type, zero adjust, meters like the Gossen Profisix that allow deliberate placing of the measurement are the only meters I can handle...

Selenium cells: Another issue is their size, to yield their, rather low, sensitivity they need to be quite big. To narrow their angle of acceptance they got those `honeycomb´ lenses attached; any additionial optics would be quite large too. The successors, photo-resistors and photo-diodes are small enough to accept rather small optics. (Well, the 1° spotmeter attachment for the Profisix and Mastersix is really huge.)

In case I had a camera with a broken selenium meter I would try to replace the cell by a custom cut cell. However this does not mean that the latter will have the same response. Even adjusting the resistor might not yield linearity with the dial. In that case adjusting it for the most common luminance would be the way to go.

Lee Shively · Sep 21, 2007

I have one of the Sekonic meter's mentioned. I bought it new at a local photo shop based on nothing except the low price and because I thought my Luna Pro would never be workable again. Discovering a battery adapter was available for the Luna Pro, I now use it again as well as a tiny little Sekonic whose model number I can't remember.

In years past, I've used Weston and Sekonic selenium cell meters as well as having a couple of cameras with selenium cell meters built in. My experience has been that the meters are pretty accurate under very bright studio lights or sunny conditions and pretty insensitive in deep shade and indoors under normal room light. Since I seldom use a meter under sunny conditions, virtually never shoot in a studio and only need a light meter outdoors in various shade conditions or indoors, the selenium meters I've owned have ended up being totally worthless to me.

Bobby Ironsights · Jan 25, 2008

10 years!

(it was a question on my Univ. Photography final.)

Jim Jones · Jan 25, 2008

Bobby Ironsights said:
10 years!

(it was a question on my Univ. Photography final.)

Let's hope your instructor is misinformed, and agrees with you. A grossly abused selenium cell may fail instantly, or it may last for many decades with proper care. That question was about as useful as asking how long a new-born human will live, unless it was asked to see if you read a stupid lesson plan.

Perhaps the best thing one should learn in school is to question authority. Teachers are hired to teach. If they don't know the facts, they often improvise or rely on other misinformed authorities.

pauliej · Jan 27, 2008

Do the Selenium cells really fail, or do the other associated bits (wires, solder joints, etc) fail or go bad, causing the device to be rendered inoperative? Some of the repair sites I have seen imply that many broken cameras can be revived by checking and fixing the wires, etc. and it is not the cell itself that has "failed". Just wondering.

Paul

John Koehrer · Jan 28, 2008

Pauliej,
the cells do commonly fail, but so do other bits in the assembly.
sometimes just resoldering the connections within the meter will bring everything back to life. On occasion it's the actual contact with the cell
I've got an olde GE meter with the booklet that suggests the technology is too new to determine the cell life.

How long do selenium photocells last?

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