pentax digital spotmeter and minolta m

[game]

Hi,
The metered prism of my pentax 67 has broken. And because I like the principle of spotmetering I decided to buy either the pentax digital spotmeter or the minolta m spotmeter.
Some things are important for me but I can't really find too many info in the internet including this forum about it.
What meter would you guys recommend?
Till what exposure time can they measure? Are they both readible in low light, read night. Do you set aparture first, or exposure time?

Hope someone can tell a bit more about any of this. thanks for the effort! Best regards Sam

[glbeas]

I like my minolta spotmeter because it's reasonably accurate and only needs a single AA battery to power it.

[jbbooks]

I am not familiar with the meter prism on the Pentax 67, but if I were thinking of the meter prism on the 67II vs a Pentax spotmeter, I would spend the money on the meter prism. I don't think the smaller angle on the spotmeter would make it worth giving up the capabilities of the camera meter prism or putting up with the inconvenience of a separate, hand-held meter.

[Soeren]

The Minolta Spotmeter M Manual
http://66.49.230.119/flashes_meters/...potmeter_m.pdf
Cheers Søren

[jbbooks]

Meant to include this earlier.

The Pentax f stop scale reads from two-thirds less than one to f 128. Shutter speeds shown are from 1/4,000th of a second to 4 minutes and EV scale reads from 1 to 19 2/3's.

You enter the film ISO number and set the pointer to the number shown when you look through the eyepiece while depressing the trigger.
Pentax calls the number the EV (exposure value). However, if you are familiar with the Hasselblad system, for example, the number given by the Pentax meter as the "EV" cannot be used directly except for an ISO of 100.

Practically speaking, then, what you do is, with the correct ISO selected, set the pointer to the meter reading and the suitable pairs of f stops and shutter speeds can be read from the dials.

[Alexz]

IMHO, metering in EV is a great advantage over direct exposure that regular meters provide. EV allows you to customize actual exposure to your preferences (especially with Pentax Digital Spotmeter calibrated for Zone VI or at least just with Zone sticker).
Coming from auto-everything 35mm world, even though my EOS-3 metering system is very robust and procesie in 90% of cases, I find working with Pentax Spotmeter to be a breeze. It provides you with EV of the spot metered area, then you decide where to put it into Zone scale thus being able shift your film dynamic range over the entire brightness range of the scene. For instance, I meter for highlights (usually shoot slides), then set the EV to zone VII and obtain a full set of appropriate exposures.
If you happen to be familiar with electrical engineering field, this is quite similar to a convolution operation (or wavelet transform) over scene brightness range, i.e. shifting the the window of particular film dynamic range over the brightness range of the scene, thereby making you a Master of the scene interpretation in terms of brightness range.
If your shooting style doesn't involve rapid actions allowing you to invest some time into exposure, composition, etc..., IMHO, Pentax Spotmeter is a clear winner.

Alex

[game]

thanks for all the replys, have to go to work now but when I come back I'll surely take a better look.
Maybe someone can elaborate a little more on the differences between both spotmeters? in raction to the suggestion to buy a new prism, I deceided to buy a seperate because the pentax67-1 has no spotmetering, just an overall metering. and because I might wanna get into LF. So the choice has been made wether to buy a spotmeter. Which one of the two is not clear yet.

some point that have not really been discussed, except for one post saying 4 minutes, is:

> till what exposure time will they put out? I do, night photography every now and then, and mostly I guess the exposure time. mostly it turns out fine, but it would be nice if a meter could perform there too. are there differences between the both in this aspect?

> as a concequence, will any of the two give some form of light, making themm readible in low light?

> is setting them up a matter of chossing aparture first, or time first?? and do they differ in this aspect?

hope to get an even better image of their performences and differences, thanks so far! Best regards Sam

[Soeren]

As you will see in the link I posted earlier the Minolta will meter to 30min.
from EV 1 to EV 22,5
You choose your Time and the meter gives you the appropiate apperture.
You can meter a highlight and press the h button and it gives you a value 2,5 stops wider.
When pressing the (s)hadow button it gives you a value 2,7 stops further down the scale. I would recommend you to read the manuals of both meters before you decide.
Cheers Søren

[game]

good suggestion,
I'll search the internet for a pentax digital spotmeter manual.
Thanks SAM

[Soeren]

Have you found the Pentax manual ?
You can find it here
http://www.pentax.com/docstore/index...how=6&app_id=1
Cheers Søren