Sekonic 508 Views
Hey everyone, just a quick question. Does anyone else have problems reading shadow areas with the Sekonic 508 meter in spot meter mode? Mine reads E.U. every time I try to make a reading in pretty much any shadow area. I already tried changing the battery and reading the manual, but In've had no luck. Any help would be greatly appreciated. -Dan Responses 1 | 2 Next Last Mike Stacey , Dec 29, 2006; 08:58 p.m.
When I made the decision to purchase a medium format camera kit I knew that I would have to include a good flash meter in with the package because I was also buying a small, studio-type monolight kit. The Sekonic 508 was always number-one in my mind as the meter to buy because of its great set of features in one nice-sized package. Okay I lied, the 508 wasn't always number one, its predecessor the 408 was what I had in mind until the 508 superceded it.
It seemed like the ultimate meter that could do ambient in both spot and incident mode as well as flash metering. Put it all in a weather-resistant case and you have the kind of meter that outdoor landscape photographers are going to fall for in a big way. I did and I find it very convenient to use but perfect it's not and perhaps when Sekonic comes out with the 608 they will have addressed the major weakness of the 508 just as they addressed the major weakness of the 408, which was that the 408 lacked the ability to zoom in to a 1 degree spot reading, being restricted to just a 4 or 5 degree spot reading.
There are two versions of the 508, the standard photographer's version and the Cinema version. I ordered the standard model first in early 1999 but ended up with the Cinema version because supply was not meeting demand for the 508 in Canada. It was a pretty hot item when first introduced and most stores in Vancouver didn't have it in stock and then when Olympus, the Canadian distributor of Sekonic products finally did bring some 508s in it was the more expensive Cinema version. I had already waited several weeks and had prepaid it with my major Bronica purchase. I had the Multiblitz flash kit sitting at home unused because I had no flash meter so when the store finally had the 508C in I bit and paid the extra $80 for it. I suppose I could have figured out a manual flash to distance calculation and then set the aperture accordingly but then my head would have hurt too much from doing so.
Sekonic 508 Images
