mrchunko

I resurrected my Nikon 35mm film camera to tinker a bit with film and have noticed that on the light meter to the right in the viewfinder sometimes the meter will center on the middle light (optimum) and at other times show an ideal light setting (center) but the high and low exposure light also comes on. Does this mean the light is either high or low but still usable? I have used the aperture and film speed settings to compensate but still find these multiple settings appearing. Any ideas about what to do?

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

I have an FM and I use a hand-held incident meter.

DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

ignored the question

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

Poor reading comprehension? I answered the question, which was "Any Ideas what to do?" I told him what I do. which is to ignore the camera's meter.

Now I will ignore you.

DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

OK. I dug out my FM and installed fresh batteries and found that when you are at about a 1/2 stop or so between correct exposure and under or over, both lights will light up to make you aware of the exposure "leaning" one way or the other.

BebuLamar

When it displays:
1. + it's more than 1 stop over
2. + o it's more than 1/5 stop and less than 1 stop over
3. o it's within +/- 1/5 stop.
4. o - it's more than 1/5 and less than 1 stop under
5. - it's more than 1 stop under

You can set the aperture in between stop to get it displays o.

BebuLamar

I have the FM and a few hand held meters. How do I set the exposure if my meter said it's 1/125 and f/5.6 and 7/10?

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

What is the 7/10?

BebuLamar

In the example above
The ISO is 100
The Time or shutter speed is 1/125
The Fno or Aperture is 5.6 and small number 7 which means f/5.6 and 7/10 of a stop or in other word f/7.2. This is common on many meters.

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

If I got that reading I guess I would take one at 5.6 and one at F/8.

BebuLamar

I wanted to point out that using a handheld meter doesn't solve the OP problem. The best way for the OP is to set the aperture in between stops to get the Nikon FM meter to display o. In the case if I were to use the handheld meter I would set the aperture about 2/3 pass the f/5.6 near f/8 but not quite f/8.

Spirit Vision Photography Loc: Behind a Camera.

When the middle light only is on, your exposure is dead on. When the middle and the + or - is lit, you are half a stop off. I used the Nikon FM for decades, and found the meter to be very accurate. 👍

User ID

Thaz a UHH Sacred Tradition.
Terrymc is just following protocol.

User ID

Despite its use of LED indicator lights the meter is mechanically linked to the cameras controls. Unlike modern totally electronic meters, there are mechanical limits. For example trying to meter for a high ASA at a slow shutter speed can cause the described effect cuz youre outside the coupling range.
If youre lucky enuf to still have the user manual, the allowable combinations of exposure settings are shown in the manual.

If you dont encounter such effects at middle range settings, theres nothing wrong with the camera. IOW if settings like ASA 200 and 1/250 sec at around f8 thru f16 in daylight cause no metering anomalies then all is well. But if you get weird readouts at such "plain vanilla" settings then you likely DO have a repair problem.

A typical failure is the analog variable resistor operated by the aperture tracing ring on the lens mount. It can be like a scratchy vvolume control on an old audio device. The "scratchy" effect makes the LEDs act weird. Sometimes it only needs cleaing but sometimes its worn out :-(

Fotunately, the rest of the camera is fully independent of whether the meter is working OK or not.

BebuLamar

When the + or - is lit then you're more than 1/5 stop off not 1/2. Thus it's kind of tricky to get just the o on. And yes I have 3 Nikon FM and their meters are all accurate.