Light Meters

[Byron Lentz]

I have recently purchased a couple of old film cameras, I have worked with digital for awhile and they all have built in meters. Now I plan to drag out the Yashica D TLR and attempt to take a few images. But I need a light meter. Any suggestions from anyone? I have been searching e-bay ,and there so many, but have no idea what I should be looking for.
Thanks
Byron Lentz

[another view]

If you could find a used Sekonic L508 that was guaranteed to be accurate, you'd have incident, spot and reflected all in one. I had an L358 which is very similar but needs a fairly bulky attachment to be used as a spot meter, but this is a good one too.

[freygr]

There is so much exposure leeway with film, for general use any old CS light meter will do the job. But collectors are collecting them know

[Dougjgreen]

The biggest problem with older meters is that if they use an analog mechanism, they are likely to be out of calibration and thus, inaccurate.

Most of what sells cheaply on ebay is either junk, or good older meters that are not likely to be accurate due to years if not decades of neglect.

Ideally, you'd get a solid state meter from either Gossen, Sekonic, or Minolta, as those were the most widely available quality brands, and the solid state mechanisms are much more likely to still be accurate. I personally use a Gossen LunaLux that I bought new about 20 years ago. They go for all over the map on ebay: I've seen them sell for $35, or as high as $150. You might pick one up for under $50. You could easily get an analog Gossen LunaPro for that price, but it would probably need to be re-calibrated to be accurate after years of disuse.

[AgingEyes]

I have recently purchased a couple of old film cameras, I have worked with digital for awhile and they all have built in meters.

Simple. Use the digital camera to take the exposure readings, then shoot with your film camera.

[icicle]

You also can look on craigslist under the photo+video section.