Soligor Spot Meter II vs. Pentax Digital Spotmeter

[Marc B.]

It might be prudent to ask professional repair facilities
with regards to parts and future servicing of these meters.
It would also help to know...where in the world you are located?

The 'gold standard' for meter calibration and repair are these folks:

Quality Light and Metric
7095 Hollywood Blvd # 550
Los Angeles, CA 90028
USA
Ph# (323) 467-2265

[Bill Burk]

i bought an old soligor , i regret it. sometimes the needle jump and sometimes it don't moves.. but usually it works..

i feel it is best not to buy old things if u have a choice

I too, had problems with jumpy needle with the original Soligor Spot Sensor which I bought new, though I suspect it had been demo'd a lot in the shop before I got it. So advise for analog meters, to avoid the Soligor Spot Sensor unless you can tolerate that.

The meter switch was "home-made" and crude, this suggested a possible mod with higher quality parts, but I never got to it and passed it along to a pre-press operator I was training in Indianapolis who was getting into photography.

[Kevin J. Kolosky]

I think you should consider two meters. the spot of your choice, and a decent incident meter.

[E. von Hoegh]

I think you should consider two meters. the spot of your choice, and a decent incident meter.

I think Kevin is correct. A good incident meter is a worthwhile thing to have.

[Leonard Evens]

I've used the Pentax digital spo meter since my Pentax analog spotmeter died. I have a zone system scale taped to the scale, and I can very quickly determine exposure from sampling appropriate areas of the scene.

[LarryG5]

Bought my Soligor spot meter in 1974 and it is still working just fine.

[neil poulsen]

My first spot meter was a new Solibor many years ago. The 1 degree circle in the center didn't line up with the sensitive area, so I took it back and bought a Pentax V. Since then, no problems with that issue.

[Joseph Dickerson]

Like a lot of other spot meters the Soligor meters are prone to lens flare issues. When trying to read a backlighted subject the readings are inflated by the internal lens flare which the meter sees as additional illumination. At least that was the case with the samples I tested some years ago.

This is not a problem with the Pentax.

JD

[Drew Wiley]

The Pentax is multicoated and this helps; but nonetheless I still use a collapsible rubber
shade on them and try to avoid readings directly into the sun.

[mikebarger]

Fred Picker wrote when he was doing his conversion of Zone VI meters that he sent a lot more faulty Soligor's back compared to Pentax meters. Not sure if that means anything, but.......

Mike