Life of selenium lightmeters

[benjiboy]

For the information of anyone intending to send their Weston meters to Megatron for servicing, they have ceased offering the service http://www.otc.co.uk/megatron/

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I have a Zeiss Super Ikonta IV with a selenium meter and works accurately. My best guess is it's over 50 years old. The cool part is there's not a battery to fail.

 

[benjiboy]

I have a Zeiss Super Ikonta IV with a selenium meter and works accurately. My best guess is it's over 50 years old. The cool part is there's not a battery to fail.

Batterys are replaceable, this is the twenty first century

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Will you have one when it craps out?

 

[benjiboy]

Will you have one when it craps out?

It's no big deal to carry a spare or two, my Canon A1 which is completely battery dependant and in regular use is only on it's third battery in the twenty three years I've owned it.
I always ensure I have spare batterys in my camera bag for all the equipment I'm taking out with me to shoot.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

I have a pair of Weston Master III meters, one I use often for incident readings with the Invercone, and one which is new-in-box, kept sealed with dessicant. They agree with each other all across both ranges, also agree with my known accurate Gossen. These meters are about 57~ years old.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Thinking of selenium meters, anyone know a source for replacing the meter cell in a Rolleiflex 2.8E? The meter in mine is still responsive in bright daylight, but it seems to really only provide accurate readings for ISO 100. If I go with Sunny 16, I can take a rolling whack at shooting without a meter at all, but it would be nice to have something that would work more accurately so I wouldn't have to carry a separate meter.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Don't selenium cell meters function poorly in low light anyway?

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Don't selenium cell meters function poorly in low light anyway?

Poorly maybe the wrong word. Selenium, or iron selenide cells are photovoltaic, while cadmium sulphide (CDS) cells are photoresistive. Hence the selenium cell will have very little output in low light. My Westons will read accurately down to f:1 @ 1/60 with ASA 100 film. This is pretty dim. The LunaPro will do hours though.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Wow. I didn't know that. 2 different animals doing the same thing. I always have problems metering in low light because of reciprocity failure of film. The meter will probably give the right reading in dim conditions, but my film sometimes doesn't have like it should. Especially with films like Arista EDU. Fuji Acros is way better for long exposure.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Fuji Acros and Kodak TMax 100 are the reciprocity failure champs, that is, exhibit the least failure of any b/w films. The other champs are color negative films, which can go into the hours with no more than 2 stops compensation. Depending on which flavor of Arista.EDU film you're talking about (35mm, large format), the emulsion is coated by Foma, and while it's a beautiful film, it is one of the most reciprocity failure-prone films out there today. +1 stop from 1-10 seconds, +2 stops 10-30, +3 stops after 30 seconds. Although that's nothing compared to Polaroid materials - type 809 was NOT recommended for exposures longer than 1 second, which I can personally verify.