Lightmeter Problems

Hey, Will:

I’ve been a fan since you were coming to Pittsburgh and doing road shows with film and color meters and those big old medium format cameras. I have a Sekonic L-508 Zoom Master that I really like.  I’ve had it a long time.  Lately, it seems to be off a bit, I mean one to two stops.  When I take a reading, with the dome up,  and set my camera (Nikon D600 & D200) on manual, the monitor on the back of the camera is very dark and the histogram is way to the left.  Not trusting either I down loaded the file to my computer (with a calibrated monitor.  See I have been listening!) and they were very dark indeed.  I checked to be sure the ISO was correct and that no compensation was used on either the meter or camera.  The problem of being dark seems to happen when using both continuous light or flash.  If I increase the exposure compensation on the camera   1 – 2 stops I can get a good file to work with, but lets face it that’s not how it should work.  It seems to work better with film than digital, but it shouldn’t be that big of a difference.  Am I doing something wrong?  Do I need to get it re calibrated or do I need a new one?  Any help would be appreciated.

Bob Patterson

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