Vent: my light meter died halfway through a shoot at Golden Gate Park

I was out last Saturday trying to get some shots of the fog rolling in over the bridge, using my old Pentax Spotmeter like always. About 20 minutes in, the needle just froze and wouldn't budge no matter what I did. I ended up having to guess my exposures by matching the sunny f/16 rule with the cloud cover, and I'm pretty sure half the roll is going to be trash. Has anyone else had a meter fail mid-roll and had to just wing it?

2 comments

2 Comments

victorcoleman1mo ago

Yeah, that thing about "winging it" reminds me of my buddy Dan. He was shooting a wedding in a dim church and his handheld meter just died on him. He had to guess everything for the ceremony and reception. He told me he basically just set his camera to f/4 and 1/60th and prayed the whole time. Some shots came out okay, but a lot were dark or blown out. He ended up switching to digital after that.

michael6931mo ago

Oh man, that brings back memories of my first time trying to shoot a lunar eclipse. I was so focused on getting the moon right that I completely forgot my cheap Sekonic meter had been acting flaky for weeks. Sure enough, right as the eclipse starts turning red, the thing just goes dark and refuses to turn back on. I ended up having to use my phone's light meter app through two layers of plastic wrap because it was starting to drizzle. But you know what was really funny? I had a old Kodak Duaflex in my trunk that I'd been meaning to sell, and that thing has a built-in meter that's probably from the 1950s. I figured what the hell and started shooting with that instead, just guessing based on the little red indicator. Some of those shots actually came out better than the ones from my fancy camera. Not saying you should go buy a vintage camera, just that sometimes the backup plan ends up being the one that works.