I need a spot meter, what is recommended

[ckruvand]

Now that Polaroid is gone which I used for over 20 years to check composition and exposure, I am not sure what to do. I think an accurate spot meter would help compliment my incident light meter. Which brand is best?
Thanks for any help, I am really at a loss.

[Ben Chase]

Well, a very large percentage of folks use a Pentax spotmeter. I use a Sekonic L-558, which has both incident/flash and spot metering - it has always met my needs. I don't think you could go wrong with either. If you don't mind carrying two meters, then most people seem to favor the Pentax.

[falth j]

I fooled around buying various spotmeters, wasting time and money.

I finally bought the sekonic L-758 DR, which is a 1-degree digital spot, plus incident meter combined.

It's more versatile than the pentax, is modern, flexible, and combines multiple readings and averaging, for a few dollars more than a pentax..

[Peter De Smidt]

Pentax digital spot meters are very nice. That said, why not use your incident meter? For example, Phil Davis, in his book Beyond the Zone System, has a pretty good system for using an incident meter, as long as you're a technically minded type. Otherwise, it's really not that hard to use an incident meter, even if can't get in some of the light of the scene, because you can take a reading and do a little thinking.

Also, it's easy to use a spot meter as an incident meter. For example, the back of my hand is Zone 6.

[eddie]

i love my pentax digital spot. the best part IMO is that it reads the value in EV as well as shutter speed and aperture. i like the EV because i can very easily see the spread fo values. (ie. i know that if i get a low value of 10 and a high of 14 i can set it at 12 to get all i want. or i can just figure where i want to be on any spread).

[Aender Brepsom]

I have been very happy with Sekonic light meters that offer both incident and 1-4 degree spot metering, like the L-508 or L-608. They can be found used for $ 200-300. The newer version L-758 has a 1 degree spot meter, like the older L-558.

[Walter Calahan]

I like the Pentax and the Sekonic. Both have served me well. They only meters, not something to do with life support, after all.

[Frank Petronio]

A digital camera is an even better replacement for Polaroid ;-)

[ckruvand]

Thanks for the replies.
If I did not have Polaroid to check exposure and composition, I would have screwed up about 10% of my photographs. The incident meter only gets me to average, which works most of the time but if the image is 2 stops brighter or darker than the light falling on my hand then I would have to shoot more film than the 4 -5 sheets of Velvia I already shoot.

My Soligor spot meter is a piece of junk...it is so far off. I do not use it at all.

I use a Gossen Luna Pro that I purchased 25 years ago. Works well but I need a new system now. I was wondering about the Gossen spot meter. Any happy users out there?

Do you guys use the Fuji instant film?

Thanks,
Charles

[Rick Moore]

I have used a Gossen UltraSpot since 2001, and I am very satisfied. It's not the lightest meter out there, but it's as rugged as any Gossen product. It only cost me $200 on Ebay. It supports the zone system very well.