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Anyone still use a Weston?


john_r_smith

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Just a thought -

 

is anyone here still using a Weston light meter? I always have, since the 1970s, and would feel totally lost without one. I've got a Master II (1946!) and a Master V which is my "new" meter. Both are still working perfectly. And in the UK, even the oldest ones can still be serviced and rebuilt by Megatron of Tottenham.

 

John

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John,

 

I went through 3 or 4 Master V's. I did love them but found them to be too fragile for (this) professional to work with. The moving coils always seemed to fail eventually. I also was frustrated with the 'overlap' of ther two ranges. I always seemed to work on that damned overlap and I could not ever get thew two scales to really agree with each other. Probably that is a reflection on me. I did love those meters though. Finally, I moved to a Sekonic Brockway which I considered superior, even though it still had the moving coil. That one got stolen.

 

Now, I am a 'in camera' meter man except when shooting studio on the Blad. Then I use a Minolta flash meter.

 

My mainstay is now the M8 where exposure is on an entirely different planet!:rolleyes:

 

Such is ther progress of life. Thanks for stirring my nostalgia.

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Hi John,

yes I use a Weston Master V (and a Ranger n.9). I bought them few weeks ago from John de Vries (Holland) and cannot say that I am a very skilled user yet. I'm shooting with an M4, but I have to say that my pictures taken with my R4s (internal meter) are usually better exposed.

I bet I'll reach the same result in short time :-).

 

Anyway I like Weston Master as much as Leica. I see the maker's soul in those instruments.

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I've got a Master V which I occasionally use with the Invercone for incident light readings when I feel that my R9 might find things problematical (which isn't really very often). It was given to me, and all it needed was the meter zero set readjusting. A check against my R9 spot meter on a grey card found it to be spot on.

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Guest Metroman

I have my father's 1946 Weston II ( Sangamo) and I use a 1965 Weston Master V (Sangamo) and a 1980 Euro-Master (East Kilbride Instruments).

 

My 1965 one has taken a hell of a beating having accompanied me all over the world in my 25 years in the Royal Navy. Been in tropical jungles and at the other extreme -57C in Norway. Just love them.

 

My favourite resource for everything Weston and repairs

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In 1965 I went in to a Camera store to pick up a roll of developed film. The photos for the most part were underexposed pretty badly. The owner offered the suggestion that I should invest in a light meter and showed me the brand new Weston Master V ( Sangamo). I used it all these years and 99% of my shots were spot on. Recently I have noticed that in low light levels it is not very accurate. Outdoors though, it is very useable and I use it mostly in the incident mode. I have been very pleased with it. I use a Sekonic with incident capability(L-428) I think, as a back-up to Sunny -16 rule now.:)

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Used a Master V for years with my M4, and had it overhauled in California by Quality Light Metric; however, like Eri said above, I was continually stymied by the "low-level-vs-high level" readings not agreeing.

 

Since I use incident metering 90%+ of the time, I switched to a Sekonic 308. Never been sorry.

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I have an old Weston Master II that my father bought new, and gave me in the 1960s. It is a great meter; it was dropped in the mid-80's and I had it repaired in NYC, including a new cell. The shop is no longer there, and for fear of beaking it again, I do not use it much anymore in favor of a small Gossen.

Stuart

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I have a Weston Master V I bought while still at school in the early 70's and along with my HP-55 calculator, it's one of my longest standing possessions which I use regularly. More recently, I've bought a Gossen Variosix F2 which is better at lower light levels and also has a 5 degree spot, a Gossen Colormaster 3F which I like to use to dial in the colour temperature into the M8. Finally, for night shooting, I have a Pentax Digital Spotmeter which is just great for metering those highlights and shadows.

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