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In praise of old light meters


A Weston Master II, what a beautiful light meter. I had one for years and then had the galvanometer replaced with one from a Western Master V.
 
cliveh said:
A Weston Master II, what a beautiful light meter. I had one for years and then had the galvanometer replaced with one from a Western Master V.
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Never found a working one.
In my world they are unreliable.
 
Back in the day I carried a Gossen Luna Pro/Lunasix. It would still work if I could get a mercury cell for it, the air-batteries are too expensive and don't have a very good service life. After more than forty years, though, I mostly would use it to reassure myself that my estimation was correct.
 
If you want a really attractive light meter, how about:-

 
This appears very smart but never figured out how to use it
 
bunip said:
This appears very smart but never figured out how to use it
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You have a better chance of figuring it out than I. Your Italian is much better.
 
bunip said:
This appears very smart but never figured out how to use it
Click to expand...

To me it is obvious even without reading the manual on the back, just by reading the front side:

There it is said "Start" and then there are steps "1" to "3".

Thus
-) set at the wheel the film speed
-) turn the wheel for the day and daytime
-) for the setting
-) for the weather

Only the setting of "distance" then remains enigmatic, but this is explained too at the rear side.

The Agfa calculator is quite small (size of palm of hand), came in different languages, in different materials, for many years, by both Agfas. It is very well regarded by several Apuggers.
 
There are Aluminium and Formica versions. But no cardboard ones, thus being very resilient.

Strange enough I only got one sample, others say it is quite common.
 
My Sunny 16 meter is the worst... It breaks every night!
 
I used to meter off a white card with my Weston V under low light, then correct for the offset from a grey card and any tungsten lighting effect. You do want to watch out for optical brighteners in the white surface, as that can inflate the reading in the presence of UV light.
 
Whereas the Agfa dial was more directed at the average advanced amateur, this slide-ruler thing seems to have been aimed at the scientifically inclined photographers...
 
A comprehensive exposure table can be very, very good in that it is dialed into sensometrics, and as such corresponds well with how a scene is perceived rather than how it is exactly lit.

You want that dark corner of the room, that occupies two thirds of the frame to look dark, because it is so, it’s often hard to convince a light meter to do it, and also by how much exactly?

Weather dependent light is if not stepped, then distributed in slanted plateaus.
Artificial light is also pretty predictable.
A well lit living room is about EV6 because that is how much light a human needs to navigate and work without it being glaring and waking them up too much in the hours before bed.
Cosy lighting is always between EV5 and 4.
Lower than that and it’s downright murky.
 
I had to do that at a scout camp during evening flags ceremony as it kept getting darker and darker. Just used whatever piece of paper I had handy.
 
I do wonder however, with Weston Master meters, the needle always seems to be on one end or the other, 1.6, 25, 50 or 200. Maybe it's really just an extinction meter.
 
I never could get used to digital light meters. For me, The analog type are just so much more intuitive and show changes in levels so much better and simpler.
 
I can't remember when I last used a light meter. If you use the same film, developer, with constant time/temperature, why would you need one?
 
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