Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/04/25

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Subject: Re: [Leica] light meter
From: Harrison McClary <harrison@mcclary.net>
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 23:08:04 -0500

>I have been thinking of the Minolta Auto Meter IV F, as I do need flash
>metering capabilities often in my daily course of work.  I will be using the
>meter primarily as an incident meter.  I also want to know if any of you
>have used this meter and whether it comes with a decent case.  A meter case
>really helps a meter last a lot longer.

Gary,

I have been using this meter since someone stole my Flash Meter V or 
whatever it was at Farm Aid 94.  Anyway the IVF is a nice meter works 
great as an incident meter and equally well as a flash meter.

As a flash meter it is excellent for ambient combined with flash.  The 
meter is dead on accurate...have never had any problems with meter 
readings being erroneous, except when I do something stupid like shooing 
velvia all day with meter set on 100.. ouch THAT hurts!!

The only gripe I have with the meter is that the display is not back lit. 
 This is really bad when taking readings in dark locals...the meter goes 
down to 30 minutes and, well, sometimes when it will meter you can't see 
the display, I wonder what the heck Minolta was thinking.  My old meter 
was back lit and I miss this function.

It comes with a decent case...kinda a velcro/material thing.  I still 
have my old case from my original minolta and still use it as it seems to 
be better built.  The meter is plenty rugged for a plastic device...I 
dropped it this past week onto a gravel drive (about a 5 foot drop) and 
it only got a little scratch, was more worried about the dog that then 
tried to chew it up!!  I shouted at the dog in front of its owner and 
dived for the meter.  Hard to explain to someone not into photography how 
expensive a little black plastic rectangle is.  Meter survived and the 
dogs owner was howling with laughter.

Best regards,
Harrison McClary
email: harrison@mcclary.net
http://www.mcclary.net
preview my book: http://www.volmania.com