Ilford EM10 Exposure Meter

[tgtaylor]

Anyone have any experience using this meter. On a whim I bought one off of ebay for $20 delivered. It arrived yesterday looking unused but lacking the 9-volt battery which powers it. I happened to have one, installed it, and it powered right up with the two red lights and the green blinking alternately as the dial was rotated. I bought this thinking that it might save me a sheet or two of paper when going from 8x10 to 11x14 or 16x20 enlargements. What do you think?

Thomas

[vdonovan]

I have one of these (given to me for free) and I use it quite a bit. What I did was test for the maximum exposure (through film base + fog) for my favorite papers, then measured the light intensity of the enlarger using the Ilford meter. Now when I go to print, I use the Ilford meter and a blank negative to set the enlarger to that intensity. This gives me a good starting point for whatever printing I'm doing.

The technique works very well, but I'm finding that the Ilford meter seems to drift, giving me slightly different values for the same enlarger setup. I like using an enlarging meter, but now thinking of springing for one of these:
http://www.darkroomautomation.com/em.htm

[RedSun]

It is a cheap tool that can be useful in limited situations. It is a light density meter. If you move the enlarger head 3 inches higher, then you open up the lens and use the meter to get the same light level. But if you move the head 10" higher, then you'll have to adjust the exposure time. Then the meter is not that useful.

I had one, but sold it. I'm the few folks who still use the Jobo darkroom meter/controller/color analyzer. It is much more powerful. It can measure the light density much beter.

[Jerry Bodine]

Thomas, if you need the manual for the EM-10 it is:

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/20106281013391349.pdf

[dsphotog]

Anyone have any experience using this meter. On a whim I bought one off of ebay for $20 delivered. It arrived yesterday looking unused but lacking the 9-volt battery which powers it. I happened to have one, installed it, and it powered right up with the two red lights and the green blinking alternately as the dial was rotated. I bought this thinking that it might save me a sheet or two of paper when going from 8x10 to 11x14 or 16x20 enlargements. What do you think?

Thomas

I have used one a lot for that very purpose, It works well.

[ac12]

I have used other meters, and as was mentioned, meters helps to get me close to a decent print w/o wasting a lot of paper.
This is especially useful since I do not print every day, so my eye is not able to visually adjust exposure like I used to when I was printing daily.

I do like it for adjusting aperture to compensate for changing the enlarger head height as I change magnification and cropping on the print.

There was a procedure for the Durst Analite meter to calibrate it for density, then you could also use it as a cheap densitometer to measure density range of the negative. Not real accurate, but close enough to use to determine paper grade.

Like any tool, you just have to learn to use it within its capabilities.
And like any tool, you have to learn what it can and cannot do.

Tip: it is sensitive to any light, so you have to shield it from extraneous light. This is a problem when using a shared darkroom like in a college. In my own darkroom, I can turn off all the lights, including the safelight, which I cannot do in a shared darkroom. So density range measurements will be compromised.

[dsphotog]

Yes, as AC said, be sure to turn off safelights when taking readings.

[ShannonG]

I have one,,used it a few times but not anymore ,i use test strips.

[Leigh]

I bought one many years ago, and still use it.

It's a rather specialized tool, designed to simplify adjustments when you raise or lower the head.
It works fine for its intended purpose. Its accuracy is quite good.

It's most accurate if you remove the negative before moving the head and again after.
This eliminates errors due to different local densities as you change magnification.


It is a light density meter.
It's actually a light intensity meter. Light does not have density.

- Leigh