BudsOwl Loc: Upstate NY and New England

I recently acquired a Minolta SRT 100 film camera with three lenses (more about that in a later post), and included was a Gossen Pilot 2 light meter and operating instructions. Is anyone here familiar with it? It doesn't seem to need batteries.
Bud

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

It may be a selenium cell meter (I don't own one any more). They do not need batteries.

Camlane Loc: North Carolina

It is a selenium incident and reflected meter that does not use batteries. It did not have a great reputation so you may want to verity its accuracy with another meter.

BudsOwl Loc: Upstate NY and New England

Thanks Richard

BudsOwl Loc: Upstate NY and New England

I'm not sure I would use it, but will try to check its accuracy if my favorite local camera store has a light meter.

Kuzano

It's the successor to Gossen Pilot I. It is a selenium meter. I believe the Gossen Super Pilot was the first CDS cell, and required the now outlawed "mercury 1.35V" battery.

All of those meters came in a clamshell style case that when closed, also closed off the light.

Selenium cell (no battery) usually degraded over time for various reasons... the worst of which... was constant exposure to light. With the closed, light tight, Pilot and Pilot 2 case, the Selenium Cell often lasted a long time with proper metering. With the Super Pilot and CDS cell, powered by a battery, the battery is the lowest common denominator.

The Selenium Pilot/Pilot 2 if it's been stored out of the light, often checks against todays meters very well, but Selenium is not great for low light. Great little handheld in it's day, when people were shooting fairly regular photography.

The Super Pilot was better, provided use of a fresh battery (mercury NLA. Some workarounds) and had better low light, but that doesn't sound like what you have. On the Super Pilot, the battery cover is on the bottom of the meter.

So, check it out against a contemporary meter. If it checks out, keep the case closed. It's probably ok as a walkabout handheld. I used two or three of those variations for years. Pocket, or shirt pocket, or around the neck. Good luck.

They can all do incident and reflected light metering if the little white plastic opaque sliding door has not aged, and crumbled away. Slide the white door over the selenium cell of Incident reading.

BudsOwl Loc: Upstate NY and New England

Thanks. It is in a clamshell case, so I will take it with me the next time I go to the Photo Lab (a camera and photo finishing store in Schenectady).

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Yes, note all the cautions. But don't get the idea that all Gossen light meters are "bad", if anything their "better" one are great. See if you can hunt down a used Gossen Luna Pro or Luna Six. I currently have a Luna Six, I used to have the slightly better Luna Pro but that was stolen. There are a few different types of Gossen Luna Pro and Six meters, and other models. Basically, avoid any vintage light meter that does not have a battery (and a battery model that can be replaced today), meaning in most cases a Cadmium Cell meter. Though there were Selenium battery powered (usually high end) meter light cells as well. Another OK brand was Sekonic. Though that being said, I much more often use my Minolta Spot Meter. You can guess how old this stuff is. All pre-digital. Like your Pilot, another common but usually dead meter today was the Weston Meter.

Yes, those evil 1.35v Mercury batteries. My old Pentax Spotmatic needs 1.35v batteries for its meter, so I just use a hand held meter. Luckily all my Pentax K film cameras use 1.5v Silver Oxide or Other "76" batteries. And some of those have electronic shutters!

Carl D Loc: Albemarle, NC.

I have one and it doesn't need batteries. Ch class the accuracy against something you know works well.

Kuzano

The best "old" Gossen meter is/was the Luna Pro SBC which was a much improved chip in the meter, with a higher dynamic range. It's a bit big, but my favorite handheld. It's true that Gossen is a known "good" product in meters. I would only use Sekonic and Gossen, and I compare them equally. I have a couple of very light selenium cell Sekonics, which are in leather cases, and as a result have kept a good selenium cell. The other factor weighing in on degrading selenium is humidity, but I live in very low humidity, so selenium has worked well for me. It's often nice to have a batteryless meter, since almost all camera's are functionless without battery. A good meterless film camera body and a selenium meter are what the doctor ordered as a travel backup if room is available.

Here is a Gossen Luna Lux SBC refurbished meter. Notice this one uses a standard 9 volt battery... readily available and a very long life span.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GOSSEN-LUNA-LUX-SBC-LIGHT-METER-90-DAY-WARRANTY-EXCELLENT-PLUS-CONDITION-/351810507446?hash=item51e98a52b6:g:nP0AAOSwPcVVrBjn

You can buy the luna lux SBC from about $30 up on eBay. Plenty available. The SBC stands for Silicon Blue Cell or chip.

James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)

Here READ this:

http://mypage.siu.edu/eo11/Gossen.pdf

Took 5 seconds to find on Google --- All that I did was type (( Gossen Pilot 2 [PDF] ))..

Now you have an Instruction Manual.

Also for On-Screen Reading....

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/minolta/minolta_sr-t_100/minolta_sr-t_100.htm

I have used (still do) my 101SRT since 1969. Still one of the Best cameras out there for 35mm film.

rook2c4 Loc: Philadelphia, PA USA

I have a Pilot 2, a nice little meter, and easy to use. However, if the meter on your Minolta SRT 100 is working, you probably won't be using the Pilot very often. I only use my Pilot with cameras lacking a meter or a dead meter.

James R. Kyle Loc: Saint Louis, Missouri (A Suburb of Ferguson)

================

YES! That IS correct - Thanks, "Rook", I forgot about that feature. Years ago I used the Film Info Sheet that came with the film being used to get a "ballpark" figure of what was out there. I was using my first camera (Argus C-3) and, of course, that camera did not have a light meter in the camera.
My 101 SRT Did (does) have a through the lens light meter... and did a very good job of it. I still have the Pilot 2 and the 101 SRT....

Thank you for mentioning that.

Phreedom Loc: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

View http://www.buhla.de/Foto/batt-adapt-US.pdf for all you need to know on adapting from discontinued mercury batteries to the modern silver-oxide equivalents. Note that Alkaline cells put out a somewhat lower voltage and are not constant enough over their life time for dependable readings from your meter.

In 2006 I purchased PX625 battery adapters for a Lunasix and an SRT-101, from Frans de Gruijter in the Netherlands. The adapters have step-down resistors dropping silver-oxides from 1.6 V to 1.35 V and they have worked perfectly. His email address is given at the bottom of the above .pdf.

Kuzano

Great information, Thank YOU!!

And to further explain the problems with Alkaline, you are correct, and I add for detail that Alkaline batteries suffer from a falling discharge curve from the moment one starts using them. Therefore metering changes over the life of that battery which compromises the metering consistency. An example is what I refer to as the "flashlight shake" you see when using flashlights. You put new Alkaline batteries in a flashlight and after a bit of time, you are walking around "shaking" the flash light to brighten the beam. Doesn't work very well, but we have deluded ourselves into thinking.... "shake that flashlight, and it might brighten up enough to see the boogeyman".

That's why I call Alkaline batteries the "Boogey Man Battery Solution". SHAKE THAT THING!!!!!