Opinion of Sekonic 508 or 558 Meter

I just wonder what you guys think about the Sekonic 508 or the newer 558 or even 758 light meters. All of them can do both spot and incident/reflective metering. So you can just carry one, instead of two meters. In general, I think the meter is fairly accurate.

My big complaint is the bad viewing in spot meter mode. The viewfinder is small and hard to see through it. I've used other spot meters, like the Minolta M or F and even the old Pentax. It is much easier to view.

I'd be using it mainly for LF, both BW and color. It is good to have incident/reflective metering, but not necessary.

I've used an L-508 for more than 10 years now and love it. Yes some other dedicated spot meters are a bit easier to view thru but I've never found the L-508 usage compromised in any significant way by such. Having an excellent incident and flash meter all in one has been a real convenience to me.

558 is pretty much identical to the latest 758. With the exception that you can upload 3 profiles to 758. I use 758 and I never used that function or I'm planning to. I just got a used 758 at a really good price and it was cheaper than 558s.

A friend of mine has 508 and it's missing some functions from 758 that I like. I think it was the modes spot metering and averaging can be performed in. Also the later 2 have LCD display in spot meter viewfinder and 508 doesn't. That's why I didn't consider 508 as an option.

The 508 does have spot meter averaging but admittedly does not have thru the finder LED display which I agree would be nice.

I had an L-508. Was a great, very accurate meter. My only complaints were that the spot meter did not display exposure into in the finder, which made zone system work a pain, and the spot meter was not as sensitive in low light as dedicated spot meters like the Pentaxes or the Minolta Spotmeter F. I think the L-508 only went down to EV 3, while most spotmeters go down to EV 1.

Sekonic fixed those issues in later models.