Equipment - Light Meters - Classic

by Karen Nakamura

Overview

This page discusses classic and vintage light meters (pre-1970s). If you visited this page directly, please be sure to read the main Lightmeter page before continuing on here.

Before Cadmium-Sulfide (CdS) and Silicon (Si/Sbc) battery-powered meters came onto the scene in the 1970s, most camera light meters were selenium* and didn't require batteries. The light itself provided the power. The older meters were extinction meters, where your own eyes provided the metering engine.

* Selenium is a wonderful compound for use in light meters. It produces a small current in response to light like a solar cell. Unlike Cadium-Sulfide (CdS) or Silicon, Selenium has a very broad response to light frequencies that mimics the response curves of film. And it doesn't require batteries! So in many ways it was ideal except.... selenium eventually deteriorates in the presence of light (some say moisture is the real culprit). So most of the selenium light meters that ever saw any use a few decades ago are now useless. Some cameras such as the Contaflex had metal protective caps over the meter cells, so they're in better shape, but still your selenium cell will eventually die, it's not a matter of 'if' but 'when'. For some reason, though, handheld selenium light meters seem to have fared much better, with most surviving until now -- that is, responding to light but usually with unreliable meter readings.

Vintage Extinction Meters

Drem Instocope: Some of the earliest light meters were called extinction meters and didn't require batteries (see comment at very bottom of the page about the history of early early lightmeters). Extinction meters worked by looking through their viewfinder at a small strip of letters that were progressively darker. The darkest letter you could just barely read was your light value. You then used the handy barrel to convert the light value to your exposure, taking into account the sensitivity of your film emulsion. In the example to the right , that is 'H' or 'B' or 'K' depending on how many carrots you eat. And that was the problem with extinction meters, people have varying degrees of light perceptive abilities. This meter is calibrated in Scheiner degrees and not ASA. It has allowance for filter factors (2x, 4x, 8x), the apertures are geometric (f/1.4, 2.0, 2.8 up to f/22), but the shutter speeds are old-style (1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50 up to 1/1000). It was made in Austria by the Drem Company, which I'm not familiar with.

Expophot: The next extinction meter that I picked up was a Expophot made by Photo Utilities, Inc.. of New York NY. There's no date on the package, but the meter has a patent #2195640, so I'll run a search on that later on, which should put me in the ballpark. My guess is mid 1950s.

A reader writes in with this info: I was reading your page on lightmeters (I shoot with old digitals and a Leica III) with interest when you mentioned the lightmeter with patent 2195640 marked on it. The USPTO shows it to have a patent date of April 2nd, 1940 - a decade before your guesstimate. Andy Beals (US Patentee 7,190,686) 2007.05.30 Thanks Andy! I've posted a picture from the patent filing to the right. In my own defense, if it was patented in 1940 it might have taken several years for it to enter into manufacturing, especially with the war going on - so mid-1950s wasn't so far off. In any case click on the image for an expanded view!

The Expophot is much easier to use than the Drem. First, it's styled like a selenium reflective meter. You open up a little window on the bottom and read the numbers, which are clearly visible. It has compensation for the "sky condition" (Dull Cloudy / Bright Cloudy / Hazy Sun / Clear Sun / Sunlit Sea-Snow). There's no indoor setting, which isn't surprising since consumer lenses were fairly dark and films were pretty slow.

I'm not sure what it's calibrated in since film speed has three sets of numbers, for example the highest speed is: 1000 / 800 / 650. My guess is the middle (800) is ASA, the lower one (650) is Weston. I'm not sure what the top number (1000) is.

This is still a very usable meter and I'm thinking of making it my meter for those days when I want to be totally batteryless. Maybe I'll use it with my Leica M3 just to prove the point.

Technical Details - Vintage Extinction Meters

Vintage Extinction Meters

General Electric DW-68 Exposure Meter: I think this is the same vintage as the Tower meter below because it has an ASA dial that reads from ASA 1.2 to 800. This meter has the flexibility of three types of metering: 1) reflective with the cover closed; 2) reflective with the cover open; and 3) incident with the top hood removed. The meter reads in foot candles from 0 to 70 footcandles. The dial above converts to the proper f/ stop (f/1 to f/45) and shutter speeds (120 sec - 1/800 sec). The meter came in a very solid leather case with a belt loop. Just the thing every mini-Ansel Adams needs.

Tower: My Sears Roebuck lightmeter is a joy. It oozes "1950s" - right down to its Bakelite™ case. The meter reads out in Light Values which you then dial into the chart below to get your f/ stop and shutter speed. The amusing thing is that the ASA speed goes from a blazing ASA 800 to a veeeeerrrrrryyyyy slow ASA 0.8. What the heck is an ASA 0.8 speed film?? or a 1.6 or ASA 3? Nonetheless, these are listed just in case you have something that fast... err.. slow. On the back of the case is a handy guide. "Tower Roll Film" is rated at ASA 50, Plus-X @ 50, Super-XX at 100, Kodachrome Day @ 10... there isn't yet a row for Tri-X.

Walz Direct f:Stop Meter: This is also straight from the 1950s and still works, carefully kept in dark storage. The Walz was made in Japan. Rather than those confusing dials, the Walz is the essence of simplicity. You fix your shutter speed at 1/50th of a second. Then with the Walz you measure the light and rotate the tumbler dial to your correct film speed (Tri-X @ ASA 200 [yup], Super Ansochrome @ 100, Anso-Ektachrome @ 32, Panatomic-X @ 25, or Kodachrome @ 10), then Walz dial will give you the f/stop reading. Thus its name: the Direct f: Stop Meter. If you want a shutter speed other than 1/50? Well tough luck! Do the calculations in your head, you lazy schmuck!

Sekonic L-VI Meter: I picked this up in an antique mall in Stillwater, MN. The meter still works perfectly but the door's missing a small screw that keeps it closed, so the meter door pops up into the Open (or 'low') position. This is for metering indoors and in the shade. To meter in the sunlight, you have to hold the door Closed ('high') position, in which it meters through a small slit. You change the metering index using the color coding. It's simpler than it sounds. This meter is quite small, rivalling my Digisix in size. The meter is made of solid steel and bakelite and seems like it could last another few decades.

Sekonic 21b Meter: This is a very nice selenium meter. The body is a white ivory plastic and the top is entirely transparent. It looks straight out of something from Star Trek (The Original Series) or Gattaca. With the leather case (see the photo at the very top of this page), this meter is entirely transformed into something entirely chic and cool. What I like about this meter is the high/low meter sensitivity is built into the dial itself. As you rotate the dial, red and white match-needle "match" prongs pop up accordingly.

Weston Direct Read Meter: This is a bit more sophisticated type of direct read meter than the Walz meter above. Weston is of course made famous by being the brand that Ansel Adams used later on. The Weston direct meter works by dialing the ASA on the rear panel (not shown). The ASA selections is a rotating dial that rotates to show part or all of the selenium cell. The meter on the front side reads the direct f/ stop for the exposure at 1/50 sec. There's another notch on the back if you want to expose at 1/30 sec. Want a different speed? Do the calculation in your head or play with the ASA setting as an equivalent. Sheesh, people expect their toys to do everything for them. :-)

Technical Details - Vintage Selenium Meters