© mike connealy

Exposure Meters Vintage Cameras Index     Home All of these old selenium exposure meters remain responsive to light, some more than others. The heavy, bakelite-cased Weston at the top was one of the earliest to be made available to photographers in the 1930's. The General Electric DW58 on the left, nearly as old as me, seems as sensitive to light as when it was on the dealer's shelf. The feather-weight Sekonic L-158 on the right accompanies me on every photo outing.     Match-needle operation like that on the Sekonic was a big step forward over the early meters which required first noting the light value on a scale and then transferring that value manually to the circular dials. Also, given the tiny numerals on the old meter dials, one has to assume that the early photographers were blessed with both better vision and more patience than their current-day counterparts.

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