The only problem with selenium meters is their poor (some would say null) performance in low light (typically exposures longer than 1/30 or 1/15 sec at f2 or 2.8 are beyond their capabilities). IMHO it´s not bad but also not the best exposure meter available today. Good luck with yours, and enjoy it! Cheers Ernesto. The most important thing to take care of is cell aging, which takes place at a slow pace so you don´t get noticed inmediately.Ĭheck it from time to time with a known accurate meter if possible, to avoid unpleasant surprises. I have one and it worked OK for as long as the cell was in good shape, so no complaints.īest of all, it doesn´t require any batteries. Working Norwoods and Westons tend to be 20€ a piece - there is no good reason not to get one. Compare it with a known good meter or metering camera, and if it does not match up to one f stop, toss it and get a better one. I've recently bought a variety of nice and clean looking Gossen selenium meters as the cheapest source (at any rate here in Germany) of relatively young rectangular cells for a Super Ikonta repair, but five out of six were dead, while all dead Westons and Sekonics I've come across were visibly wasted and decayed. Gossen never managed to seal their selenium cells to a reliability anywhere near that of the Weston and Sekonic circular cells. And the reliability is less than stellar. IMHO the Pilot II is inferior to the Sekonic Studio Deluxe or Weston Master - the handling, when it works, is nice, with a match needle rather than the value lookup and transfer on Sekonic and Weston meters, but its incident diffusor is flat and of limited use, and the directivity in reflected mode is pretty arbitrary too. I now have the Gossen Digipro F but most swear by one of the modern Sekonic meters. The Silicon blue diode meters give instant readings including in low light. Useless indoors unless you have loads of time. I used the CdS Super Pilot (Sixtar in Europe and Australia) from the '70s until recently and it was frustrating in low light of any sort. A modern rangefinder (leaving aside that most now have a built in meter) is not much different to a 50 year old one but meters have come a long way.

The Pilot II still has a Selenium meter which is fine in good illumination outdoors. On top of the meter sits a small lamp with a red filter. The Gossen Majosix is a selenium cell spot darkroom photometer for. NO 2 exposure meter Buy Gossen Sixtino 2 - copy of the instruction manual by Gossen (ISBN:) from Amazon's Book Store. We stock 1000s of high quality printed Gossen Sixtino 2 manuals.

Gossen sixtino 2 user manual