spotmeters

[James O. Kenney]

I'm in the market for a spotmeter, has any body used or owned one by Adorama? What should I look for in a used one and is there any one better than the others. James

[Gem Singer]

James,

Before you purchase an Adorama spot meter, check with Jim, at Midwest Photo Exchange (www.mpex.com), or K.E.H. (www.keh.com). They often have previously owned Pentax spot meters for sale at the same price as the Adorama spot meter (around $200). The Pentax digital and analog one degree spot meters are excellent meters. Unless I miss my guess, the Adorama spot meters are made by Soligar and are not up to the quality of the Pentax, Minolta, and Sekonic one degree spot meters.

[James O. Kenney]

Eugune, thanks for the reply, so nowwhich one is better? Gossen Ultra Pro Spot 2, Minolta Spot M, Pentax SpotS, or the Sekonic L - 488. KEH has these used for the same price as the Adorama. James

[Ted Harris]

James,

The Gossen Ultra Spot II is absolutely the best spotmeter on the market. It is also the largest and heaviest, looks and feels like a small truck. Hsrd to believe KEH has one for unser 400. The Pentax you mention is the analog version. The Minolta has many fans as do the Gossen 508 and 588. However, I think you will find that the Pentax Digital Spoit outsells all the others by a considerable margin. It is small, comfortable and simple to use and built like a tank. Mine is at least ten. Like Eugene said call Jim tomorrow.

Ted

[Brian Ellis]

I don't think there is a single "best" spot meter for everyone. A lot depends on what you want to use the meter for. If it's strictly for zone system work then I think the Pentax digital spot meter is the best because it's simple to use, reliable, and lasts forever. It does only one thing - gives you EV readouts that are converted to exposures by looking at a simple dial - but it does that one thing very well. I've owned mine for about ten years, dropped it several times, and it still function just fine.

If you aren't into the zone system and want more versatility and features then the Minolta Spotmeter F might be a good choice. Among other things it can be used as a flash meter. I owned one for a while but exchanged it for the Pentax because all I wanted a meter for was zone system usage and all the features made it unnecessarily complex for my purposes. I have no experience with Gossen (or Soligor, the other major brand) so I can't comment on them. One of the Soligor models and maybe one of the Gossens can function as both an incident and a reflection meter which might be kind of nice. if you want to learn and use both systems.

[Gem Singer]

James,

The Midwest website has been down all weekend. They are in the process of making a major overhaul and should be back on line soon.

Jim should be in the store from 10AM until 6PM, eastern time, tomorrow. Call and talk to Jim (and only Jim) and tell him that you were referred by this forum. He is a good guy to get to know. The call will be worth your while.

Look for a Pentax Digital one degree spot meter or a Minolta Spotmeter F (or M, if you don't need flash metering). You cannot go wrong with either one.

[Capocheny]

James,

Thumbs up for the Minolta Spot... great little meter and very accurate!

Cheers

[Steve McKinney]

I'm a Minolta Spotmeter F user and fan. Some particularly nice features if you're shooting chromes. These features are also easily adapted to B&W shooting as well if you're the tiniest bit creative and know what you're doing.

[Scott Fleming]

I've grown very accustomed to my Minota F. Maybe all good spot meters do this but the F has a feature where once you enter a reading whether S for shadow or A for average ( also stands for what you hope is a mid tone) or H for highlight ... then when you point it at something and hit the trigger you are givin a reading in stops over or under whatever your entered reading was. If you hold down the trigger and move around the scene in the viewfinder the reading constantly updates (rises or falls) as you take readings on all the values you are interested in. A great and easy one button way to measure everything in a scene. This has become indispensible to me.

It also has a memory function so you can take two readings ... say shadow and highlight ... read the spread and then if you widh press the A function and get the exact halfway point between the high and low.

It's the only meter I've ever used and as I say ... maybe they all do this.

[mark blackman]

since I only have the Gossen Spot meter, I don't know if the others have the facility, but I do find it's flash metering helpful occasionally when using fill-flash. I'ts zone metering system is also pretty cool, allowing you to multi- meter a scence whilst it shows you the range of zones.