Anyone have experience with the Shepherd Polaris lightmeter?

[Pete Andrews]

Has anyone had any experience of the Shepherd 'Polaris' lightmeter, please?T he appearance and specification of this meter look good for the money, but is it accurate and reliable? I've given up trying to keep my old Weston meters in wo rking order, and I'm now looking to buy one of those black digital readout boxes with half a ping-pong ball on the front.Any advice welcome. (except I don't feel the need for a spotmeter) Thanks!

[Scott Walton]

It's not bad for about a year... then it gets really fickle. At work, we had them and ended up going with the Sekonics 408's.

[Garry Edwards]

I bought one but found it to be neither accurate nor reliable.

[Stewart Ethier]

I never felt mine was inaccurate, but it no longer meters flash. Thanks for reminding me---I've been meaning to send it in for repair.

[andrea milano]

get yourself a seconic, they have a cheap model (forgot which) able to work for incident and reflected and for both flash and continuos light. Many of my students use it and never found any problem with it, otherwise Gossen has also something cheap in that range. A lightmeter is an investment not worth saving on!

[david clark]

Hi Pete, I've got the Gossen Luna-pro digital. It works OK, even after dropping it and sitting on it. I've even gotten used to using the half ping-pong ball, and I like it. It has a feature where you can measure the number of stops of contrast in a scene too, but I don't use that much. Best, David

[Archie]

Got mine 3 years ago and have used this meter a lot. I've had no problems with this meter used both as a flash meter and also as an everyday meter. If I need to buy another meter, I would not hesitate buying another one.

[Pete Andrews]

Thanks very much guys.Sorry Archie, but the 3 to 1 vote against the Polaris means I'll probably go with the equivalent Sekonic model, even though it is 30% more expensive. :-(

[Fabrizio Della Manna]

My polaris is doing good from some years. I miss a 1? spot metering but you cannot have all. Last I got some photo lesson from a known (here of course!) Prof. and he used a Polaris too and he said that it works fine!