Sekonic 1 degree spot problem (L-358)

[DrPablo]

When using my sekonic L-358 1 degree spot attachment, my meter grossly underestimates the amount of light. It suggests 6 or 7 stops over what I get with regional metering (using the standard 30 degree finder).

It seems as if the meter itself can't compensate for the limited amount of light that comes in with the spot attachment.

Am I missing something here?

And by the way, I'm not looking through the wrong end of the spot finder.

[Sheldon N]

And this is while spot-metering something roughly 18% grey?

If so, I'd say it's time for a new meter.

[DrPablo]

When I do a regional metering of a scene I get one reading. Then when I spot meter a highlight in that scene I get a reading that suggests far more exposure -- obviously it doesn't make any sense for the highlights to be darker than the average scene reading.

My meter is less than a year old, and in both incident and reflective mode it works great. My only issue is with the spot attachment. I just want to know if there is some known problem like this, or if I'm not actually using it correctly.

[Sheldon N]

Is the spot meter new to you and you are getting acquainted with it, or is this a change from how it metered in the past?

If the spot attachment is something you are trying out for the first time, then my guess would be that there is a setting that is in the incorrect position to give you such an abberant reading. I get something similar on my L-558 when I try to take an ambient reading with the meter set for spot. Exposures readings are drastically off because I'm really just spot metering the inside of a lenscap.

[DrPablo]

It's the same in that I normally meter in reflective mode, which is something that is automatically set based on whether you've attached the reflective lumigrid, the incident lumisphere, or one of the reflective spot attachments.

As much as I pore through the manual, I can't find anything that indicates that I need to set the meter specifically for spot readings (as opposed to just putting it in place of the lumigrid).

[Salty]

I have the L-358 with 1 degree spot attachment and the readings match my Minolta spotmeter. I just take out the lumisphere, attach the spot meter and take a reading.

[DrPablo]

I dont have another spot meter to compare it to.

But it doesn't match itself with the lumisphere or lumigrid.

[Salty]

It seems that if you were to take a 18% grey card and meter it with your spot meter, those readings should be very close to those taken with the luminsphere on. If they are close, everything on the meter should be working ok.

[Ted Harris]

Paul,

You may just be trying to squeeze too much out of onemeter. After the 358 is designed to function as an incident meter and does that very well (good flashmeter too). My guess is that the spot atachment is just not built to the precision required to get accurate spot readings ... then again it might not be fitting properly.

I have no direct experience with the attachment but do recall using both the high-end Gossen 1 degree plug-in and their 7/15 degree slip on. The 7/15 degree slipon I found worthless and the other very fiddly and not as accurate as a dedicated spot meter.

Have you thought of sending it to Sekonic or Qiuality Light Metric for adjustment?

[Scott Knowles]

Interesting. I have L-358 with the one-degree spot meter attachment, and while I get the normal variance between incident and reflected light, it always follows any 35mm camera I'm using and my L-315b (bought years before). I've never had any problems, but one could ask the obvious, is the battery ok, or are your looking through the right end? Maybe it's metering your eyeball? Just curious and tongue in cheek as I sometimes have to tell myself, "Hey stupid! Turn it around."

[C. D. Keth]

Send it to Sekonic and they'll give it a once over and a calibration.

To make sure, you are turning the ring around the eyepiece to turn it from incident to spot, right? I have often done that the other way round and metered the inside of the spotmeter lenscap.

[dkonigs]

When using my sekonic L-358 1 degree spot attachment, my meter grossly underestimates the amount of light. It suggests 6 or 7 stops over what I get with regional metering (using the standard 30 degree finder).

It seems as if the meter itself can't compensate for the limited amount of light that comes in with the spot attachment.

Am I missing something here?

And by the way, I'm not looking through the wrong end of the spot finder.

I hate to "me too" such an old thread, but I think I've run into the exact same problem. I've been using my Sekonic L-358 in incident mode lately, and it has been working fine (as far as I can tell). Yesterday, I was digging through some old boxes of stuff and found the spot attachment I had for it (the same 1-degree finder). I just slapped it on, and took a few readings. I then sanity-checked them against a digital camera's built-in meter, and they were way off.

Thankfully, I recently ordered myself a proper spot meter, so I'm hoping I can just disregard this issue and move on. However, I was kinda hoping to have this one as a backup/comparison.

[aaronnate]

What were you metering to make the comparison?

Hang a sheet of paper up in even light. Set the camera on a tripod and meter using the spot meter setting. Remove the camera and put the spot meter on the tripod and meter the exact same location. Don't try to compare the incident reading to the spot reading. Two different beasts.

[Louis Pacilla]

What were you metering to make the comparison?

Hang a sheet of paper up in even light. Set the camera on a tripod and meter using the spot meter setting. Remove the camera and put the spot meter on the tripod and meter the exact same location. Don't try to compare the incident reading to the spot reading. Two different beasts.

+1

[dkonigs]

What were you metering to make the comparison?

Hang a sheet of paper up in even light. Set the camera on a tripod and meter using the spot meter setting. Remove the camera and put the spot meter on the tripod and meter the exact same location. Don't try to compare the incident reading to the spot reading. Two different beasts.

Okay, I just did a somewhat more controlled test. Sitting in an interior room, with artificial light, set everything to ISO 200 and f/2.8 and spot-metered a grey wall. The Sekonic said T=4s. Meanwhile, both my Nikon D300 and Fuji X100F (both set to spot meter mode) read T=1/20.

(My previous tests were metering the view into my backyard, which showed a similar discrepancy...)

[aaronnate]

Light meters are extremely simple devices. Digital cameras not so much. Light meters are designed to render any and every thing they meter as 18% gray. Digital cameras are "smart in that they do more than render their subjects 18% gray. My D7100 never agrees with my sekonic. My D7100 will also not render a white paper as gray either.

I cannot remember the model it is but it is older than yours.

Just had a thought. Set your digitals to manual and fire a shot using the readings from the sekonic and see how they come out? I think I'll do that when I get home.

[ic-racer]

The attachment diminishes the light to the meter by about 5 stops according to the specs. So the compensating mechanism (electrical switch in the connecting area??) is not working. I don't have this meter, only the spec sheet, can you make sure it 'knows' the device is attached or post a picture of the problem area?
I only see these two switches which I interpret as "10 VF" and "5 VF" to be "10 degree Viewfinder" etc, but I don't have this meter available to me. Looks nice, wish I had one.

186226

[dkonigs]

The attachment diminishes the light to the meter by about 5 stops according to the specs. So the compensating mechanism (electrical switch in the connecting area??) is not working. I don't have this meter, only the spec sheet, can you make sure it 'knows' the device is attached or post a picture of the problem area?
I only see these two switches which I interpret as "10 VF" and "5 VF" to be "10 degree Viewfinder" etc, but I don't have this meter available to me. Looks nice, wish I had one.

186226

You know, I've never seen any obvious evidence of such a detection mechanism in the meter. There's also nothing in the manual that says anything about an indicator telling you if it knows an attachment is fitted. Its entirely possible that this is where the real problem is.

I'm also glad to finally see an answer that doesn't automatically assume I don't know how a spot meter works. The discrepancy is far too large to simply chalk it up to an "error of interpretation". That's why I stumbled upon this thread in the first place.

I actually got a "real" spot meter yesterday (Pentax Digital Spotmeter), and the battery for it just arrived a few minutes ago. (Side note... Why does every piece of battery-powered photographic equipment need its own special bizarre type of battery?)

Anyways, measuring the same spot /w the Pentax gives me T=1/15, which is far more reasonable. (I'm planning on using this meter going forward to get practice with spot-metering things, so I'll get a better feel for how it acts over the next few days.)

[koraks]

An old thread, but I found it because I had a similar problem - or most likely, the very same problem. My Sekonic L-358 with the 5 degree NP Finder attached would give readings sometimes that are around 2 stops underexposed. I.e. it would give a reading of let's say 1/15 @ f/11 if the correct exposure would actually be around 1/4 to 1/3 @ f/11.

@ic-racer above is right about the switches; those appeared to have been the problem at least in my case. I've written about my experience with tracking down the problem and (hopefully) resolving it here: https://tinker.koraks.nl/photography/fixing-sekonic-l-358-and-np-spot-meter-wrong-readings/
While I specifically use the 5 degree finder, the story also applies to the 1 degree and 10 degree models. It's just a matter of which combination of switches is depressed by the fitted metering accessory.
The problem of wildly inaccurate readings is highly unlikely to occur if no spot finder accessory is fitted, since the white dome for incident metering is 'coded' by neither of the switches being depressed, so it's the most fail-safe mode.

[ic-racer]

An old thread, but I found it because I had a similar problem - or most likely, the very same problem. My Sekonic L-358 with the 5 degree NP Finder attached would give readings sometimes that are around 2 stops underexposed. I.e. it would give a reading of let's say 1/15 @ f/11 if the correct exposure would actually be around 1/4 to 1/3 @ f/11.

@ic-racer above is right about the switches; those appeared to have been the problem at least in my case. I've written about my experience with tracking down the problem and (hopefully) resolving it here: https://tinker.koraks.nl/photography/fixing-sekonic-l-358-and-np-spot-meter-wrong-readings/
While I specifically use the 5 degree finder, the story also applies to the 1 degree and 10 degree models. It's just a matter of which combination of switches is depressed by the fitted metering accessory.
The problem of wildly inaccurate readings is highly unlikely to occur if no spot finder accessory is fitted, since the white dome for incident metering is 'coded' by neither of the switches being depressed, so it's the most fail-safe mode.

Fantastic!