[pure-silver] Re: Off topic, Spot meter problem

  • From: Dennis Purdy <dlp4777@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:46:36 -0700

I've already had a Pentax Digital spot for 20 years. It is the only meter I use and it is getting very beat up and the handle warn smooth but it seems to work perfect. I got this corroded battery one off Craigs list from someone who didn't even know what it was much less how old it is. It looks new and has the Zone VI modified sticker on it with the zone scale. Checking the new one against the old unmodified one I found it to be very consistently a stop off. I took them both to Advance Camera here in Portland and the technician checked them on some light source and told me that actually my old one was giving me a third over exposed and the newer modified one was giving me 2/3s under exposed making for a full stop. I told him I didn't care about the modified part and he took it out. Apparently just a filter or something. Then he adjusted it and now the 2 meters are a third off. The new one being correct and my old one still giving me a third over exposure. I think over the 20 years of use that my old one did drift that third stop because I used to be only able to get half box speed out of film whereas for the last couple years I was getting a bit more than half box speed. That explains it. 

 Dennis
On Oct 20, 2009, at 14:39, John Stockdale wrote:
Back in the Fred Picker days, I bought two of his modified Pentax digital spot meters. Although they have been treated gently, for some years their readings drifted apart. They are both different to a whole lot of good meters that more or less agree with each other. Instead of having them recalibrated here at the end of the Earth, I just alter their ISO settings to make them agree with the other meters, and all is fine (subject to a small mental adjustment because one is slightly non-linear). I wonder if the non-modified meters would have been more stable. 

Apart from that, excellent meters.

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