Nikon FE2 light meter inaccurate

Hello. I recently acquired a fe2 for a relatively good price but it seems as thought the light meter is not accurate. I have other working cameras with accurate meters but the FE2 is reading much slower. For example, working camera is meters and shoots at 1/500, fe2 meters and shoots at 1/50 when pointed at same subject at same settings. The inaccuracy is worse at lower ISO settings.
Am I cooked? or is this something that a camera repair shop can handle.

I know some cameras where the metering is from the same era as yours (Minoltas being one) the meter can be adjusted but I don't know about an FE2. I use Nikon and Minolta but they are all within tolerances. My F2a did have a service and it did need some work/adjustment but it is OK now, so perhaps finding a knowledgeable technician they may be able to help. I do know that genuine new spare parts for the FE2 are no longer available.

jkfromsk said:

Am I cooked? or is this something that a camera repair shop can handle.

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Maybe, to both questions. You might consider having a shop look at it but you might also want to be quite selectie in which shop. Many current repair shops are oriented toward digital and may not have skills with older cameras. There are a couple of shops in Southern California who still have good skills with film cameras, specifically Nikon. Use search terms like "repair" and "Nikon" on this forum's search engine as they have been discussed before. There is even a thread, somewhere here, with listing of current repair shops.

There is one condition that might mean that you are "cooked" and that would be a broken FRE (a glass resistor under the rewind knob). That is basically the part that informs the camera's metering circuit of the ISO setting you have selected with the film speed dial.

So to check the FRE you change the ASA and Aperture and see if the shutter speed changes accordingly. If it does then the FRE is OK.

Chan Tran said:

So to check the FRE you change the ASA and Aperture and see if the shutter speed changes accordingly. If it does then the FRE is OK.

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Looks like the shutter speed is changing as I move the ASA/Aperture.

Another thing to check is to make sure that the AI tab is following the aperture ring freely. If it's sticking in the all-the-way-photographers-left position, I think that would usually cause underexposure not overexposure, but other odd things could happen. If the shutter speed is changing smoothly as you change the aperture, it's probably ok, but you can watch the AI tab move to be sure. Also, just to be obvious, make sure you don't have any exposure compensation set on the ISO dial.