Is This Any Good?

[Kirislin]

My work was having a chuck stuff out day and I grabbed this out of the rubbish. It's a light meter I suppose but I've no idea how it's used. I remember Rocco talking about them once but I kinda thought they'd be redundant now with modern cameras. When would you need one.

[PossumCorner]

... When would you need one....

Whenever you want to get the exposure right.

Set the ASA (which is somewhere equivalent to ISO these days) - film comes in ASA of 100, 200, 400 or whatever - you can't just set it in the camera as you do with a DSLR, the light sensitivity is built into the film emulsion. Then point at what you would like exposure to be set for, whether an animal in general, a wide landscape or a close-up of a face/flower. The needle moves according to the light, the lines drawn from where the needle comes to rest will show you the recommended shutter-speed/lens aperture combinations, but the ASA dictates it, same as ISO dictates what exposure we can use on a DSLR. Everyone had that base model, or the Sekonic Leader Deluxe, or something seriously better if they could afford it.

They're not redundant by any means, professional photographers use them to fine-tune the exposure in many circumstances even with DSLR. Maybe more up to date models though, digital readout and all that. Nice to see a blast from the past now and then.

[Kirislin]

any idea how old it is Possum?

[PossumCorner]

Something towards 50 years, not much less. Of course I could be majorly wrong (as so often) but that's my guess. My old one is positively over 50 and in a box "somewhere" I think. They are still made under the Sekonic name, a new one is about $300-600 depending on model - they still are not a waste of money. The old ones though, I guess just a collector's thing. Reminds self to have a clean-up and a chuck-out day.

[Kirislin]

I wonder how they work, obviously not batteries so how does the sensor react to light. hmmmmmm

[Ashanali]

That looks like an ambient light meter. These are used for metering for available light. Totally relevant and still able to be used often with better results than in camera metering. Nowadays you can use them when you have too many distracting features in an image that will confuse the camera... (eg - lots of black or lots of white that your camera will automatically attempt to over or under expose).

Set your ASA (ISO) then your desired aperture and the meter will tell you the correct shutter speed to set your camera on.