When my girl friend bought her Sekonic 508 last year I compared it to my tried and trusty Minolta Spotmeter F. I was really surprised to see a one stop difference throughout the scale; her's read one stop under mine. Her 508 seems to be consistent, but it definitely reads under.
One thing to bear in mind with this sort of comparison is that the colour sensitivity can vary between different meters.
I use a Sekonic L718 and a Minolta Spotmeter F, and with a grey card the two meters give identical readings at every level of illumination I have tested. However, swap the grey card for a colour chart and there are differences of up to 0.9 stops, depending on the particular colour, with the average difference being around 0.3 stops in magnitude.
I can't really say with any certainty whether it is the Sekonic or the Minolta that is wrong, or whether both are, but I would expect the Minolta to be correct for reflected readings, or it really wouldn't be much use as a spot meter. Certainly I have experienced no obvious exposure problems when using either meter, although in general I use the Sekonic for incident only.
My guess is that David Goldes' discrepancy could (if his meters behave similarly to mine) be accounted for by the difference in colour temperature for the indoor/outdoor comparison.
I used a Sekonic 508 and switched to a Pentax V. The Pentax was 1 1/3 stop different from the Sekonic. My normal EI for the Sekonic 508 was 200 for HP-5+. With the Pentax V, my EI is 520.
This is why we calibrate our meters to our lens. Adding to what John stated, also have your lens bench tested and you will find that your lens will vary in exposure... It is useful info when shooting and changing lens. You might be very suprised on how much off your lens will be also. My 408 has a way to adjust the readings (over and under) and I have it matched to my RB system.
it seems to me that if you use the SAME meter all the time and do careful film testing, everything should be fine. if the meter, lens, film and developement are constant with the same meter, it won't really make a difference.
The Sekonic meters are 'jack of all trades..' in as much that they meter all sorts of light from incident to reflected, spot and flash.
Thats why they give you 'Jack of all trade meter readings..'
The Minolta Spot Meter F does one thing only and does it 'spot on..'
I've been using the Minolta Spot Meter F for over twelve years, and if I lost it tommorrow it would be replaced the next day. Its the best spot meter for colour photography available IMHO.
I also have a Gossen Multi-Pro all purpose meter, and the only good thing that it does is getting incident light right.. for everything else you may as well guess.
All this talk about meters is really cracking me up. Zillions of posts about lenses, coverage, etc., and everybody is out there just fling blind. Just got my two, Spectra Combi-500's back from Burbank where they were calibrated. In a test with both Spectra's, a Pextax 1/21, and Three Canon EOSv-1's on a grey card, the error range was less than 1/10th of an F stop...between all meters. It's amazing the amount of blind faith, shooters will place in a light meter's accuracy, right off the dealers shelf,.. and yet ramble on about lenses. Now, with a shutter tester telling me that some of my newly serviced LF shutters are running 30% slow at the higher speeds, at least I can know what my true light is, and how my shutter is reacting. Somehow, somewhere, somebody got the idea that this zone system stuff was a science...when it is actually an art, and a variable one at that. It will become more of a technical arena when shooters pay more attention to that little light meter in their hand, and less to the super whatchamacallit lens, mounted on the front of their super-turbo large format camera. If that little light meter is not accurate, and you don't know your real LF shutter speed is, you're screwed from the beginning...and everything you do will have an automatic error factor built in,....from moment one. Good luck.
hi david... i have 3 pentaxV meters and they are all a .3 stop off from each oth er! i have tried to get them to read the same but without success. good luck. rememb er to bracket on the over side and cut back on the development as usual. call ok
As you will recall from early science classes: reliability is often more important than accuracy-of course, both would be nice. Two manufactures may have different opinions on what is important criteria to base exposure calculations- a lot of in camera meter makers think their customers shoot alot of faces on slide film. Sekonic makes a variety of pro meters for television and movies. That's why books and information talk about adjusting film ASA and developement to your own equipment and shooting style. As long as your meter is reliable-that it gives you the same measurement each time in a somewhat linear fashion is actually the big concern. The minoltas are greaat meters unless something has happened to make it malfunction-use it with confidence and proceed accordingly! Balancing a meter is an art-Quality light metric in Hollywood can do it but you better hurry as I think he may be retiring soon.
All these posts make me glad that I have a Zone VI modified meter.Pat
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