Using the M9 as light meter

[mrk_webber]

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Hi everyone,

 

I was on a stroll today and walked by a great camera store. They have a Fuji GSW690 III for sale, for a great price. I am very tempted to buy it. Only side effect is that it has no light meter build-in, but for that price, no biggie. I either buy a good meter or....

 

And here is the "or..." question. Could I use the M9's build-in light meter as a meter for camera's as the Fuji? - It makes perfect sense to me, but I wondered if there were people who use this method.

 

Very curious.

 

Many thanks.

 

Mark

[stunsworth]

Mark, I tried something years ago when I had an M2 and an M6. My conclusion - and yours may be different - was that it was a pain to use and using a separate light meter was far easier in practice. If you want the Fuji buy a small light meter

[jaapv]

History comes full circle - Barnack designed the Leica precursor as a light meter. But Steve is right, get a small lightmeter. The little Voigtlander one that slips into the hot shoe is very practical, or, if you want more options like incident light there is the Sekonic L-208.

[scott kirkpatrick]

I've been shooting film some of the time with 25-50 year old cameras. I have a Gossen SuperPilot meter (with a fresh battery, even tho they haven't been allowed for sale for 20 years!!!) but it's slow to respond, overshoots when I switch from the sensitive setting to the outdoor setting, so I only use it as an incident meter. My real light meter is a GR-D2, which easily switches to the ISO I am using, covers a 28mm FOV, but can display a histogram for a smaller field when I zoom in. So I get the advantage of Polaroid to test the exposure, plus the histogram to decide whether shadows or highlights are in danger, and the GR-D in its little case is no bigger than a meter.

 

Carrying the M8 or M9 for this purpose seems like too much effort.

 

scott

[Chroma project]

A few months ago I was up in northern Sweden on a photo trip with a friend of mine, world famous Hasselblad Master, when i made photographs with my Leica and would take the same scene but with a much richer medium and here I refer to the medium format specifically Hasselblad. firstly,it was extremely cold winter and add on it little laziness from my part so I've used the same light measurement from my Leica M9's reading on the Hasselblad 503 CW camera with Kodak Ektar film, the results is beautiful.

 

My friend said, an interesting way to get things moving on, but why not....I do it .... sometimes!

for the rest of us, i would guess it is quite okay to do so when a Hasselblad Master has certainly done that.

[250swb]

I think Japp is right, just get a Sekonic. Using a proper meter will give you much more information than just 'the correct exposure'. For landscape its often useful to check shadow and highlight readings to quickly eyeball the range of the scene, and a hand held meter is much better at accurately placing your mid grey (Zone V) where you want it if you are going to process B&W film. These things are possible using a camera meter, but tiring, and of course you don't get the option of using an incident reading for difficult to gauge subjects.

 

Steve

[mrk_webber]

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A light meter it is then!

 

Many thanks to all of you. Very much appreciated.

 

Mark

[msk2193]

Mark, I have the latest Sekonic L-758 meter, but tend to grab the much-older Zone VI modified Pentax spot meter. I even use it with my M9. It has the zone scale taped on it and I can dial in on any subject within a split second without failure. They seem to be available through many forums and on e-bay. Servicing for these 20-30 year old meters is not a problem either here in the US.

[stealthman_1]

I've fallen in love with the GSW very quickly. Much more useable than the GW for my shooting. With the f5.6 lens however, in hand held use there's only 3 stops to learn. Sunny 16. Cloudy13 and shade10...

 

Seriously though, I have the voightlander mounted on mine and it works just fine...I also like to have a small incident meter with me. The big sekonics are great, but they are a bit overkill, for most shooting.