Why are spot meters so expensive?

Ariston · Apr 8, 2019

I'm sure this has been askedbefore, but why is technology that is present in every cheap camera, camcorder and phone in existence so expensive? It blows my mind that a new company has not entered this arena to steal the market. It seems someone could charge 33% less and still make a killing.

Don't tell me someone can't make one for $200. They make entire cameras for that much. They make 32-inch flat screen TVs for that much.

ic-racer · Apr 8, 2019

Ariston said:
Don't tell me someone can't make one for $200.

I think someone tried.

MattKing · Apr 8, 2019

Requirements for precision and economies of scale.
If there was a market for tens or hundreds of of thousands of them, they would be, individually, much cheaper to make and distribute.
Anything that a retail store is likely to order no more than one or two of is likely to be expensive.

Ariston · Apr 8, 2019

I hope the Pocket Spot isn't made by the same company that makes the Pocket Rocket!

You may be right, Matt. I thought there was still a decent amount of demand on the cinema side. It seems a company that already makes the components for other equipment would be able to cheaply repurpose it. Even if you sold only one million around the world (that's not much), it seems it would be worth it for the millions of dollars in profit. Especially now. The rising prices with somewhat static supply tells me that demand is rising.

MattKing · Apr 8, 2019

Ariston said:
Even if you sold only one million around the world (that's not much), it seems it would be worth it for the millions of dollars in profit.

I would be amazed if, during the entire history of photography, there has been as many as 50,000 spot meters sold. A million would be absolutely remarkable.
Relatively speaking, there are very, very, very few photographers who use spot meters.

Ariston · Apr 9, 2019

I don't think that 50,000 is anywhere near right. Less than 1,000 per year since 1960? In the entire world? Pentax, Minolta, Sekonic and the rest would not have bothered.

You are also forgetting the videographers/cinematographers.

MattKing · Apr 9, 2019

Most people don't use spot meters.
Most people who do use spot meters don't switch meters.
In almost 10 years of working in the retail camera trade in the 1970s and 1980s I never had a customer ask for a spot meter, and only one (maybe two) of the stores I worked in carried them.
Those stores included stores that sold Leica and Hasselblad and Mamiya medium format equipment.
I see more evidence of them being sold now then I ever saw back in the heyday of film camera sales.

mike c · Apr 9, 2019

I can not really remember seeing any in retail stores 70,s,80,s , but there has to be as many spot meters sold as there is Ansel Adams Books Sold. I add that I see far more spot meters being used now than I did 40 years ago.

MattKing · Apr 9, 2019

mike c said:
but there has to be as many spot meters sold as there is Ansel Adams Books Sold

Do you believe in irony?
I ask, because in 50+ years of photography, I've never owned one or really used one - before today.
And I'm on my second set of the Ansel Adams trilogy.
I have known a lot more people who have the Ansel Adams books than I've known users of spot meters.
I have friends who are Zone System users who use spot meters, but almost none of the experienced and knowledgeable photographers I have known use them.
The irony is, a couple of weeks ago I found one (a Pentax Spotmeter V) at a favourable price in a thrift store and I bought it. I then located (about a thousand miles away) a replacement for the missing battery cap and just today took it out to try it.
I do have cameras with quasi-spot meter functions in them, and I do have somewhere a Gossen 10 degree attachment for a Luna Pro, but a true spot meter - I'm not sure whether I'll continue to use it.
I'm a big fan of using incident meters.

SchwinnParamount · Apr 9, 2019

I have 3 1 degree spot meters... all dead. If one of the worked, I'd use it for my LF photography. For 35mm and MF work, I don't bother. My Sekonic incident light meters do the job for the most part. If I can stand near the subject and meter shadow and sunlit areas with the Sekonic, I don't need a spot meter. If I cannot walk up to the subject, then I wish I had a spot meter.

GLS · Apr 9, 2019

As has been said, they're a relatively niche piece of equipment, so supply and demand dictate the price.

However I must say a good 1 degree spot meter is worth every penny you pay and is worth learning how to use effectively, especially for landscape shots, and doubly so if you shoot a lot of E6. I don't want to sloppily guess at an exposure using an incident reading in anything other than very flat light, or rely on a camera's matrix/averaged meter to make the decision for me; I want to KNOW my exposure will be good, especially at £1+ a shot. Routine bracketing of exposures in lieu of accurate metering is a bad (and expensive) habit.

Of course with digital they're not really necessary, as you can just evaluate on the scene and immediately re-shoot if necessary.

guangong · Apr 9, 2019

I have owned a spot meter since the early 1980s. Only use it when in the woods using a very long lens with Hassy, because of extremely mottled uneven lighting. Otherwise, hardly ever use it. Mainly use Gossen Digisix or Sekonic selenium meters because of their small size. Frankly, I have way too many meters...especially Gossen and Weston.
On the other hand, the camera shops I dealt with in NYC had a lot of spot meters for sale. Then again, this is also an example of economies of scale.

jim10219 · Apr 9, 2019

Well, since just about every camera, camcorder, and smart phone made in the last 40 years comes with a meter that's easier, more convenient, and quicker to use, that's going to make the market pretty small. Also there's something else every camera, camcorder, and smart phone have in common. They all have lenses. Unlike incident meters, a spot meter requires a pretty nice chunk of glass to reach that level of magnification, plus a pentaprism so you can see what you're metering. And on top of that, you'll need a way to convert voltage to an EV number, not just an over or under bar, which is a lot easier to do. None of that is cheap to make. All told, it would be hard to make one that you could sell at a price that would compete with what's on the used market, and be as accurate and reliable as what's already out there.

Besides, spot meters aren't that expensive. You can buy one for $100, sometimes less. That's like around 5 rolls of film, bought and developed.

AgX · Apr 9, 2019

Ariston said:
Pentax, Minolta, Sekonic and the rest would not have bothered.

Gossen are one of the first to offer 1° spot metering and still do so, plus models for 5° metering.

A 1° meter needs
-) optics for decent viewing and metering
-) a sensor that is sensitive enough to still be usable on that small angle

That all got cheaper over the last decades, but still is above what is needed for a stabdard meter. In addition fellows who need/want a 1° meter likely to spend a premuim on such.

trendland · Apr 9, 2019

I realy can't say why spotmeters are such highly priced? but I remember from the very first company I worked for this Pentax :

......and I remember we had around 6 - 8 of these "Pentax digital Spotmeters" but only 5 years later there were only 3 ones left!
I have in mind that the circumstances that the others have been STOLEN
had to do with their pricing

! Not with the need of this Spotmeters!
I never used it - and I swear I also did not bring them home after work - I realy can't say who it did???
But I Bought this tool :

........"these all time stupit thieves!!!!"

with regards

Helge · Apr 9, 2019

It could probably be a fun and doable project to build a LED version of the SEI Exposure Photometer.
http://www.seiphotometer.net/
You probably don’t need the mini telescope and the battery and LED would simplify things immensely.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 9, 2019

My theory is there are a couple of things that make them expensive. The first thing is there are optics involved, not just a simple sensor. Another factor I think is manufacturers don't sell enough of them to leverage economies of scale to make them cheaper. It's a pretty specialized tool to measure small areas of luminance which they don't sell much.

Sirius Glass · Apr 9, 2019

Complexity, low market demand makes it hard to amortize the development and production costs, because it is worth it, ...

Luckless · Apr 9, 2019

Based on napkin math from a long discussion about this issue with some friends in related fields, we estimated that a 0.5-1deg spot digital meter with a dial scale on the side could be made in something like the $30-50 retail range using mainly off the shelf bits... If we ordered about 100,000 of them in the first batch. - A bit more for things like flash metering support, memory/averaging modes.

That is a LOT of up front capital to spend on a fairly modest return, and given how many cameras these days include robust metering systems it would take an impressive advertising campaign to convince that many customers that they not only needed a stand alone spot meter, but that ours was the one they should buy over a used model [or pay the premium for existing and known 'professional' gear]

By the time we drop the up front investment costs to something more 'reasonable', our prices shot up into the realm of existing known brands, and we're then still out a good chunk of cash and still facing that uphill battle of convincing anyone to buy our new and unknown thing rather than an old tried and true.

At some point we might get bored and design it as an open source hardware project, just to keep something 'alive and available' in the community, but even that would take a lot of effort to do well.

Helge · Apr 9, 2019

Luckless said:
Based on napkin math from a long discussion about this issue with some friends in related fields, we estimated that a 0.5-1deg spot digital meter with a dial scale on the side could be made in something like the $30-50 retail range using mainly off the shelf bits... If we ordered about 100,000 of them in the first batch. - A bit more for things like flash metering support, memory/averaging modes.

That is a LOT of up front capital to spend on a fairly modest return, and given how many cameras these days include robust metering systems it would take an impressive advertising campaign to convince that many customers that they not only needed a stand alone spot meter, but that ours was the one they should buy over a used model [or pay the premium for existing and known 'professional' gear]

By the time we drop the up front investment costs to something more 'reasonable', our prices shot up into the realm of existing known brands, and we're then still out a good chunk of cash and still facing that uphill battle of convincing anyone to buy our new and unknown thing rather than an old tried and true.

At some point we might get bored and design it as an open source hardware project, just to keep something 'alive and available' in the community, but even that would take a lot of effort to do well.

Include a rangefinder, average metering and a cold foot and you have a surefire upgrade to any old 35mm clunker or medium format folder.
It would sell like hot cakes.

Luckless · Apr 9, 2019

Helge said:
Include a rangefinder, average metering and a cold foot and you have a surefire upgrade to any old 35mm clunker or medium format folder.
It would sell like hot cakes.

Do you have around $2mill pocket change to make that bet?

faberryman · Apr 9, 2019

Luckless said:
Based on napkin math from a long discussion about this issue with some friends in related fields, we estimated that a 0.5-1deg spot digital meter with a dial scale on the side could be made in something like the $30-50 retail range using mainly off the shelf bits... If we ordered about 100,000 of them in the first batch. - A bit more for things like flash metering support, memory/averaging modes.

That is a LOT of up front capital to spend on a fairly modest return, and given how many cameras these days include robust metering systems it would take an impressive advertising campaign to convince that many customers that they not only needed a stand alone spot meter, but that ours was the one they should buy over a used model [or pay the premium for existing and known 'professional' gear]

By the time we drop the up front investment costs to something more 'reasonable', our prices shot up into the realm of existing known brands, and we're then still out a good chunk of cash and still facing that uphill battle of convincing anyone to buy our new and unknown thing rather than an old tried and true.

At some point we might get bored and design it as an open source hardware project, just to keep something 'alive and available' in the community, but even that would take a lot of effort to do well.

Did you include storage and disposal fees for the majority of the 100,000 units which would never be sold?

removed account4 · Apr 9, 2019

I think they are so expensive because no one really wants or buys them. I've been using a camera of one sort or another since 1970-1971 and even after reading Ansel Adams "The Negative" book never bought a spot meter. I'm guessing if people needed them and all the other types of light meters stopped working maybe there would be a market for them? For me at least Sunny16 seems to work.

Mainecoonmaniac · Apr 9, 2019

Full disclosure. I owned a spot meter 30 years ago when I was an undergrad. I was learning the Zone System and it's a handy tool for learning. It's a useful tool when you want to place and predict where zones are going to fall. After I graduated, I sold my meter. After not having for over 20 years, I bought a Sekonic that also had an incident meter. After decades of shooting, I rarely use my spot meter. I love the Zone System and it makes me understand previsualization and photographic materials better. Once I learned it, I find an incident meter works 80-90% of the time. I do have some negs where I placed shadows a bit better or pull back highlights that were a little blocked, but it's a rare occasion. Spot meters are cool, but with some types of photography, it's almost useless. That's my 2¢ worth.

Luckless · Apr 9, 2019

faberryman said:
Did you include storage and disposal fees for the majority of the 100,000 units which would never be sold?

No, didn't want to waste napkins... Era of green living and what not. No need to calculate such things after deciding there was little to no hope of making a viable run and producing it at those volumes.

Why are spot meters so expensive?

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