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A young friend of mine was given (by his grandfather) a bag full of old camera gear, including this British made "exposure meter". Any idea of how this was used? It is obviously a manual metering device.


Device2 by Ozimax, on Flickr


Device1 by Ozimax, on Flickr

Shouldn't be too hard.

On the dial where you have the ASA/DIN settings, set your film/sensor sensitivity. Today we call this the ISO.

Next, take a reading of the available light, and note the number on the meter dial where the needle is coming up to.

Find that number from the red numbers that sit on the outer edge of the movable dial, and align those with the red triangle along the rh side of the meter, taking care to not change your ISO setting.

On the opposite side of the dial you will now have sets of exposure settings, each of which correspond to the derived exposure value, which is also available just counter clockwise from the red triangle. Any of those settings should yield a correctly exposed image at the given ISO, but obviously shutter speed and aperture settings must be chosen by the photographer in order to get the optimum exposure characteristics for the image being taken.

What Gary said.
Just be aware that those old selenium cells became inaccurate with age. Also, note the flip up part on the rear, from memory that stays down for an incident reading and is raised for a reflective reading. (Incident reading is when you point the meter AT the light source....reflective is when you point the meter at the subject....just like the one in your camera). Also, in reflective mode, the meter always presumes you are pointing it at an average daylight scene, that is, something that is mid grey. On some models you had to fit a white diffuser dome over the cell for reflective readings. (I think I got that the right way around).

I prefer Ludo to figuring out ancient light metres. However, your responses are appreciated. I shall forward them on to my friend for his knowledge. Many thanks gentlemen.