low light spot metering -- iluminated cross hairs

[Mark Hollingsworth]

I tried to use my spot meter in Carlsbad caverns and couldn't see where the "spot" was. Are there any spot meters with an illuminated cross-hair "spot"? How else can these be pointed accurately in low light?

[Graeme Hird]

In my own experience with my spot meter, if it's too dark to see the spot, it's too dark to take a reading (i.e. the light level is below the sensitivity of the meter). In such situations, it doesn't matter where I'm pointing it - I won't get anything meaningful out of it. An illuminated cross hair would not help.

I switch to incident metering or a wider spot - sometimes there is enough light for that, otherwise I guess and hope.

Cheers,

[bglick]

Hi Graeme, great to see you active :-)

Another thread was just recently started on low light metering. As Graeme pointed out, if you can't see the spot, then a spot meter is probably not the right meter to use. An incident meter seems more appropiate.

With incident meters, most needle type meters have a hold feature after you press the button, so after you take the reading, the needle waits 15 seconds for you to match it with the dial, at such time, you can use a headlight to see the meter. The Gossen Luna Pro S is such a meter, it reads down to -4EV. Also, the electronic meters light up in low light, although sometimes you have to cover the illumination so you do not disrupt the light reading.

I think Quantum makes the lowest light level readings, if I remember, down to -8EV. They have small digital LED read out, but easy to cover with you finger, it also holds the value for pre set period of time..

[neil poulsen]

The Pentax V 1 degree spot meter is illuminated at the low end so that you can read the numbers in shadow areas. I rarely use this feature, because most scenes only have small areas at these low brightness levels. So even though one may be reading at the low end, there's enough light in other parts of the scene to illuminate all the numbers.

None the less, if you're reading in a darkened area, you may need the illumination.

[Mark Hollingsworth]

Thanks to all for the quick response. Clearly there isn't a spot meter with an illuminated cross-hair, so that answers my question. Let's call this closed.

I should have been more precise about the problem. I was trying to take a wide angle shot inside Carlsbad's main cavern. Most of the cavern is so dark that the black circle of the spot meter can't be seen against it. I was trying to measure the small lit areas around the cavern. They have enough light. Since I couldn't see the black circle I had trouble aiming the spot. I was using a Pentax V and every time I shifted my eyes to read the scale, I lost the circle again. An illuminated spot circle like some rifle scopes have would have made this easy.

With all these spot meters bragging about how low they can go, I think it's funny that they can't be aimed at a light against a dark background.

[Ben Crane]

Consider the pocket spot meter (www.meteredlight.com). It does not have a lighted spot, just a hole drilled through the metal case which should be visible in very low light situations. The manufacturer also claims it will go down to EV of -2

[Graeme Hird]

Hey, I'm always active Bill! It's just a matter of pinning me down somewhere ....

It's good to see your name pop up on threads too.

[Brian C. Miller]

My experience with low-light spot metering has consisted of pointing the meter at a piece of white paper and reading '1', then going on from there. If the meter doesn't read '1' on a white piece of paper, its useless. (Pentax Spotmeter V)