[rollei_list] Adventures with light meters
- From: "Allan Derickson" <alland435@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Rollei List" <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2010 16:16:29 -0700
When I dusted off my old but only slightly used Rollei 3.5F all functions
seems to work properly except the light meter. I shrugged and put it off to
old age and figured I would just use a hand-held meter. After thinking
about it for awhile, however, it didn't make much sense. The camera had not
seen much use and had been stored in a cool dark place so it didn't seem
right that the selenium cell would have deteriorated. I nor anyone else had
ever done any service on this camera but reading my manual the meter is
user-serviceable to the extent of setting the zero and it shows how to
remove it. The zero was okay but I decided to take a look to see what I
could see. The back of the meter has two gold plated posts which fit into
sockets which also have gold plated contacts. I took a sharpened pencil
eraser and polished each one and cleaned them with alcohol for good measure.
I also removed the selenium cell itself which has two gold plated contacts.
I cleaned and polished these also. After putting everything back together,
guess what? It reads spot on with my faithful old Gossen Sixtar (same as
Super Pilot).
As a side note, I'm done buying meters on Ebay. A couple months ago I
decided I should really start to learn and use the Zone System so I bought a
Minolta spotmeter F. It bears a sticker that it was calibrated in March of
this year by Quality Light-metric in Hollywood. After extensive testing I
find that it is a stop off. At least it seems to be consistent over the
range of light levels. I'll keep it but put my own sticker on it to remind
myself to double the ISO value. Now my old Gossen uses those nasty mercury
cells and I'm down to my last couple of my Canadian stash. For the first
time in 40 years I dropped the darrn thing on concrete. It cracked the
plastic housing and the cds cell window. I figured well 40 years ain't bad
and I sniped a Sekonic L-208 in the last seconds of an Ebay auction. It
just came and it's two stops off in bright sunlight and pretty close in low
light. In other words, not linearly off. So it goes back. The Sixtar is
still working so I'll use it til it expires.
Live and learn.
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