L-208
From Silvergrain Labs
Contents |
Sekonic L-208 on TLRs
On current market, there are three small light meters that can be mounted on flash shoes. They are Sekonic L-208, Gossen Digisix and Cosina VC meter. There are a lot of user reports, discussion and spec comparison on these meters, with meterless classic cameras in mind. Most of those discussions focus on 35mm photography, especially Leica. On the other hand, use of these meters on medium format equipment is very rarely reported, especially on TLR's. This might be because Rolleiflex models usually lack flash shoe. This article focuses on the use of Sekonic L-208 with Mamiya C3 TLR, but it is intended to provide adequate general information so that users of other cameras can determine if this product works for their applications.
Incidentally, this web page would be totally unnecessary if the manufacturers provided detailed dimensions, photographs or other descriptions of the clip-on mechanism of these meters on their web sites. This sort of information is totally lacking from manufacturer's and retailer's web sites. I recommend users finding this web site useful to send comments to Sekonic and Gossen to urge them to provide adequate product information.
Anatomy of Sekonic L-208
These are quick photographs of rare views of this light meter. The scale is in centimeters (2.54 centimeters in an inch).
Figure 1: Sekonic meters side-by-side. From left, L-208, L-408 and L-398M. L-208 is particularly small and lightweight. Sorry about the reflection on the L-208. This happened because I didn't bother to take the clip off, so the meter was tilted a bit and this reflected the light.
Figure 2: The inside of L-208. The implementation is pretty low density, and the physical dimension is determined by the size of the meter and the dial.
Figure 3: Bottom view of L-208. There are battery well, battery check button, a hole to attach a strap, and a screw hole to attach the flash mount clip, which is included in the box. There are four small indented holes for anti-slipping.
Figure 4: Antislip protrusions of the clip adapter. Two of the three protrusions are engaged to prevent rotational slipping of the clip while one screw holds the clip to the meter. Incidentally, the O-ring comes in the box, and it can be used to make the fit to the flash shoe tight. In my case, the fit was tight enough even without the O-ring, but the ring improved the fit, so I decided to put it in place as shown here.
Figure 5: A clip is held off the place to show how these things engage. One of the protrusion is not engaged with the holes but rather go off the meter. There are 3 holes on the clip side, and any of these can be used to hold the clip at slightly different location. Also, the clip can be oriented in the other direction.
Figure 6: Clip's size is shown.
Figure 7: L-208 with the clip attached. This is just one possible location to attach the clip, and it can be attached slightly to the left, slightly to the right, or the clip could be attached the other way around. See captions for above figures.
L-208 on Mamiya C3 TLR
Figure 8: L-208 on Mamiya C3, side view. The meter is located at a convenient location, without interfering any operation. The meter is also far away from any important operation, without any annoyance during shooting operation. The meter reading, the shutter speed, and the aperture can be all read from the same angle, which is very convenient.
Figure 9: L-208 on Mamiya C3, front view. The meter is out of the way from any operation, including exchanging lenses.
Figure 10: L-208 on Mamiya C3, top view. As expected, there is no interference or cluttering from waistlevel viewfinder angle either. The metering button is facing up, and it is very easy to press. The angle of metering is roughly identical to the angle of view of 80mm lens, and with 80mm lens it works pretty much like an average metering. Since this is not TTL, the meter sensitivity falls off near the edge of the image on the viewfinder, and it does not sharply lose sensitivity to the subjects just outside of the viewfinder, but this presents little difficulty in practice.
L-208 on Yashica MAT 124
Figure 11: L-208 on Yashica MAT 124, oblique front view. Again, the meter is small enough not to interfere with any camera function.
Figure 12: L-208 on Yashica MAT 124, top view. Of course, Yashica MAT series have CdS meter incorporated and there is no need for the external meter, but this is just an demonstration. Also, with this camera, lens aperture and shutter speed are displayed on the top, so they can't be read from the same angle as the L-208 as attached on the flash shoe.
Limitations
First of all, the plastic exterior of the meter is fairly cheap, and is nothing like the heavy plastic exterior of L-398M. However, this is understandable because of the lightweight design. The major complaint, however, is that the flash shoe mount adapter is made from similar plastic and I am not sure if this adapter can take the same degree of abuse as my Mamiya C3 or the L-208 meter itself.
The limitations of this meter comes directly from the trade-off between size, simplicity of operation and reading accuracy. Unlike L-398M, there is no need for a "high slide" to extend the metering range. That is, the full scale of the meter must cover the entire metering range. Consequently, even with rather careful reading, the meter deflection for one half stop is the practical limit. On the dial, shutter speeds are indicated in full stops, apertures in half stops and film speed in half stops. Although I don't quite understand why film speed is graduated in half stops, this is pretty much the degree of precision needed for classic camera operations.
The inside views reveal that the implementation is fairly low density. The size of the meter is determined by the precision of reading the meter needle and the scales on the dial. If someone come up with a simple and quick-operating user interface that does not require an analog meter or the dial, the circuitry could be implemented much more compactly. (Unlike spot meters, the sensor part is very small and is an insignificant part of the meter's space usage.)
Gossen Digisix uses an LCD panel instead of an analog meter, but also uses a dial as the way to calculate the actual shutter speed and focal aperture ratio (f-value). Although LCD may be a bit more shock-resistant and space saving, the need for the dial practically vanish the advantage of the LCD. Also, the extra functions such as timer in Digisix is hard to use because of limited buttons and complicated sequences.
I would like to see a meter that uses a LCD display showing film speed, EV value, shutter speed, f-value simultaneously. The user input shall be made with a wheel button used in computer mice. Pressing the button should meter the light, and rolling of the wheel should change the shutter-aperture pairs. Rolling the wheel while depressing an film speed button should change the film speed setting. In the dim lighting situation, backlight should turn on for 5 seconds, while the metered value should remain displayed for 10 seconds in all situations. The meter should be smaller than Digisix and lighter than L-208 and cheaper than both of these. The meter should come with brass flash mount adapter. Strap and porch are unnecessary.
Conclusion
While nothing is perfect, and nothing is exactly in the way I want it to be, this meter is pretty usable as a reflective meter to go with a meterless camera. For a medium format users, there are two major classes of meterless cameras. One is twin lens reflex such as Mamiya C series and some of the Rollei knock-offs (most Rollei TLRs do not come with a flash shoe), and another is Fuji's 6x7 and 6x9 rangefinder cameras. This meter mounted on Mamiya C3 is found to be a very functional combination, because it is easy to press the metering button while composing through the waistlevel viewfinder. Reading values off the meter and setting the shutter and aperture is also easy, because all can be done from one side of the camera. The angle of metering also corresponds to the angle of view of the 80mm lens on 6x6cm format. Users of cameras with unreliable or unresponsive selenium cell based meters may find it useful addition as well.
However, this meter is not a good substitute for full spec meters. The exposure reading is no more accurate than 1/2 stop, and the meter's incident mode has been questioned by many users.
