Pentax V vs. Sekonic L-758DR?

[Michael Lloyd]

Jeff, I struggled to figure out to "zone" as you say with the 758. But one day a light bulb came on. Its really quite simple. Just take a bunch of readings of your scene and save them to memory. As you do this, the meter puts a tick mark next to the proper f stop on the f stop scale. Then you just look at the available options, and pick one that puts things where you like em.

AHA, that's where those tick marks came from. Thank you!

I put my 758 in EV mode and use it that way...

[Michael Lloyd]

All very good info and tips everyone. Thank you. I ended up going with the 758 because I currently shoot a lot of digital both in studio and outdoors and I am starting to do more film in addition to learning a new view camera. I had a small sekonic that I used for several years in the studio and it was always spot on with my strobes. I will give the 758 a go and see how things turn out.

Thanks

When I compare my Pentax to the L758DR the Pentax seems to be off. I bought it used so who knows. If the Pentax says EV = 8 the L758DR says EV = 9. Is there a way to calibrate the Pentax?

[Łukasz Owsianka]

Maybe you should consider the ultimate classic - minolta spotmeter f

It is small and light.

[Alan Gales]

Tim, if I was going on a once in a lifetime trip I would take some kind of back up meter.

I'm sure you are familiar with Murphy's law.

[Jody_S]

I am considering using my Spotmeter V for infrared (just adding a 46mm IR filter to the front), because it uses a silicon photodiode, and their sensitivity peaks at about 900nm. Apparently the V doesn't have internal IR filtering. This leads to a lot of people getting unreliable readings from foliage, etc, because the meter is reading reflected IR, in fact it is about twice as sensitive to the IR as it is to the color green. You might want to go with the more modern meter, assuming it has built-in IR and UV filtering.

[Otto Seaman]

In what upside down world would a complex Sekonic beat a Pentax spot, even the analog version.

[JMO]

I recently took my first 35 or so LF images in the field, and used my Sekonic 758 meter on spot mode to analyze each subject and decide exposure using the Zone system. As Tim K explains, it was easy with the 758 as I saved each spot metering into memory and watched the 758 place each onto a scale with its corresponding f-stop. And if you want you can ask it to give you an "average" exposure setting of those you have saved to memory, or (as I did) look at the upper and lower EV values and decide where you want to make your exposure (i.e., which EV will be at Zone 5 for the f-stop I had chosen). The Sekonic 758 makes it pretty easy, and when I got my films back all my exposures were right where I expected (even though I had the 758 set to the same film ISO setting as on the film box, so no exposure correction shift built into the metering). There are always price/value considerations when deciding which gear to purchase, but my experience with the Sekonic 758 was very good - and I am a neophyte LF user. It meters in EV, and not foot candles. ...

Jeff, I struggled to figure out to "zone" as you say with the 758. But one day a light bulb came on. Its really quite simple. Just take a bunch of readings of your scene and save them to memory. As you do this, the meter puts a tick mark next to the proper f stop on the f stop scale. Then you just look at the available options, and pick one that puts things where you like em.

[Bill Burk]

In what upside down world would a complex Sekonic beat a Pentax spot, even the analog version.

Half pound vs. Pound .... Backpacking.