My light meter went haywire mid-shoot last Saturday

I was out in Austin fixing a customer's old Hasselblad and the selenium meter started jumping all over the place. It would read f/8 one second then f/16 the next without me moving. Took it apart and found a corroded wire on the coil terminal that was barely hanging on. Re-soldered it and now it's steady as a rock. Has anyone else run into flaky readings on those old meters or is it always the same spot?

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3 Comments

the_drew1mo ago

Was the corrosion obvious or did you have to hunt for it with a magnifying glass?

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lunah121mo ago

Maybe the meter was too embarrassed to show its ugly side.

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barbara_grant41mo ago

Oh, doesn't it always end up being something tiny like that? I had a similar situation with an old Gossen Luna-Pro that went totally crazy at a wedding shoot. One reading would say bright sunlight, the next would say dim as dusk. I looked it over for an hour before I spotted a cracked solder joint on the battery contact wire, just barely visible.

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