[rollei_list] Re: Adventures with light meters
- From: Peter Mattei <petermattei@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2010 20:28:32 -0700
Allan, you mentioned that you have a
"Canadian stash" of the old batteries...does that mean that they can still
be found up there??? I just returned from a week working in Toronto and
will probably be regularly up in Ontario for the duration of this contract.
Anybody know if the batteries are still for sale up there?
On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 4:16 PM, Allan Derickson <alland435@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> 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.
>
Other related posts:
