Your advice on the best spot meter for LF color & b/w photography?

[l2oBiN]

I would like to invest in a light meter. Something which will hopefully reliably serve me for years to come. I will be using it for transparencies and b/w. I have used the sekonic L508 and i dont find it intuitive. There is no in viewfinder display and it does not meter even in dim light. I woul prefer a meter that displays EV readings in the viewfinder and can be used continuously while the meter button is down. That way I could quickly determine the range in a swoop. I would also like it to be good in low light. It should be rugged, reliable and easy to find batteries. It would be great if it had both spot and incident, but spot is more important feature.

What are your suggestions?

[vinny]

pentax digital. search it here and you'll find more info that you can shake a stick at.

[falth j]

I'm not as experienced as the rest of the joiners on this forum...

but I've owned perhaps 50-10 meters since 1955, and I have to admit, even one of the earlierst meters is still working excellently in its designed reflective mode.

Over the years, I own others, but kept looking for the 'perfect' meter.

Like the 'perfect' car, bike, or wife, there has to be a lot of trade-offs...

I bought the sekonic you mention, and with some practice find it's better than most, and even the meters with the read-out in the display... as they say your MMV.

Have you looked over the material here:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...s/meters.shtml

[Leigh]

Sekonic L-558. Excellent product, no longer in production but readily available used.

It's two meters in one... incident and spot.

Modern meter with lots of features. Much better value than its "digital" replacement.

- Leigh

[Peter De Smidt]

I'm a fan of the Pentax digital meter as well.

[jcoldslabs]

I've been using the same Pentax digital spot meter for over twenty years and it is still going strong. It has continuous readings and is good in low light, although I am not usually spot metering in really low light.

[johnmsanderson]

Sekonic L-408 is what i use, therefore its the best

[chassis]

I like the Sekonic L-758DR. The incident and spot functions are easy and intuitive. I admit I haven't mastered all of the many other features. It is an accurate and easy to use meter. They are plentiful on craigslist, although not the least expensive.

[John NYC]

I don't the the OP is going to want another Sekonic after he said he doesn't like his current one.

[johnmsanderson]

Hehe you would think a bunch of lfers wouldnt have such short attention spans