recently acquired a leica iii to play around with. need to know what to do with metering... if i was to get a shoe-mounted meter, which one should i get?

-- howard shen (hshen@praxidigm.com), September 18, 2001

Answers

Check out the Voigtlander VC meter at the Cameraquest site:

http://www.cameraquest.com/voivcmet.htm

-- Bill Lee (Bill_Lee@telus.net), September 18, 2001.

what about the leica MC or MR?

-- howard shen (hshen@praxidigm.com), September 18, 2001.

The M, MC or MR were designed for the M cameras and will interfer with the movement of the shutter dial on a LTM camera. Remember the shutter dial on an M camera does not rotate. Leica also made a Leicameter for LTM cameras and they are repairable but VC meter is going to a much more sensitive for low light use. I beleive that Sekonic also makes a small shoe mounted meter as well.

Cheers,

-- John Collier (jbcollier@powersurfr.com), September 18, 2001.

I recommend the Sekonic L-208 Twin-Mate as a user meter. It has a converage angle roughly equivalent to a 90mm lens and a memory lock button to hold the reading, thus permitting aiming the meter at a portion of the subject using a Leica multi-focal viewfinder which has an accessory shoe on top for the meter, or simply the standard viewfinder by imagining the 90mm coverage. The Voigtlander VC has no such lock function, thus requiring metering to be made at waist or chest level, and aiming is all guesswork.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), September 18, 2001.

I second Jay's recommendation. The Sekonic meter is great for use with unmetered Leica M or LTM cameras...............

-- Muhammad Chishty (applemac97@aol.com), September 18, 2001.

How big is that 208 in comparison to the VC meter? I can't seem to find a photo anywhere of it mounted on a camera.

-- Josh Root (rootj@att.net), September 18, 2001.

is the sekonic a shoe mounted unit?

did leica make one for the iii?

-- howard shen (hshen@praxidigm.com), September 18, 2001.

The Sekonic 208 is a traditionally-shaped needle-analog-dial meter, so it is hard to compare it size-wise to the VC meter, which is an LED-type. The Sekonic is smaller than the Gossen Pilot-II, which is another mini-meter (Selenium-cell) with an accessory shoe-mount. If you're looking for esthetics, go with the VC meter. For functionality, the Sekonic is hands-down the best.

Yes, it comes with a mounting foot, which can be attached in 3 different positions so as to offset the meter with respect to various top-mounted camera functions such as the shutter speed dial. The Sekonic also uses one of those flat lithium batteries (like some automobile door-lock remote controls) which lasts a *long* time.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), September 18, 2001.

http://www.sekonic.com/Products/L-208.html

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), September 19, 2001.

Howard, you should get a plain selenium Leica meter Metraphot (especially made for a II, III series), which fits in accessory shoe but does not couple with a speed disk of a camera. You have to read from the meter disks then transfer readings from the meter disks to the camera speed disk and f-stop ring.

-- Victor Randin (ved@enran.com.ua), September 20, 2001.