Metered Light Pocket Pocket Spot™ Spotmeter
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Introduction
I've watched the online comments on the Pocket Spot Spotmeter with interest. The company manufacturing/selling these is Metered Light, the same folks who brought us the well known Red Light Metrolux and Metrolux II enlarging times.
To me, that reputation meant that the Pocket Spot was probably a well thought out, well built unit. But I'd never held on in my hands, and the price listed on the website ($450, more on this later) was a bit high. Ok, not too high for a good light meter, really, but high considering I already own three spotmeters. I'm an equipment junkie, sure, but there are limits.
Enter Matthew Cordery, who lives not far from me. Matthew bought a Pocket Spot, and generously offered to get together with me so I could snap a few pictures, and we could compare the results from the Pocket Spot to the results from my other meters.
The Meter
The Pocket Spot is a well thought out spotmeter. Despite its small size, there's no missing functionality - the small size is a result of cunning design, not shedding ability.
Instead of having the usual optical viewfinder, with a small hairline circle to indicate the metered area, the Pocket Spot instead has a bore sight - you look through an open hole to aim the meter and select the metered area. In the photo above, the bore sight is on the left end of the meter, and you can see that I didn't have it lined up quite right. When I first read about the Pocket Spot, I worried that it would be easy to look through the bore sight and have the meter at a funny angle, so that you'd be metering something other than what you expected. In practice, though, as the photo shows, any misalignment is immediately visible, and thus misalignment just doesn't seem to be a problem.
In order to have the bore sight cover the correct 1 degree view (and not a smaller area or larger area), you need to hold the meter the right distance from your eye. This is accomplished by the cunning trick of looping the lanyard around your neck, and letting the lanyard length dictate how far away the meter is from your eye.
The meter display uses a format that will be familiar to users of the Pentax Digital Spot - a two digit LED display with two extra LEDs to show one third stop increments. In the photo, the meter is thus reading EV 10 2/3. The display is actually quite a bit crisper looking than the photo - in the photo, the limited depth of field with the camera lens wide open makes the display look a little mushy.
The top of the meter has a device that will be familiar to Pentax Digital Spot users, as well. Here, there's a little analog calculator which works the same way as the dial on the Pentax meter. You can see that the center section of the calculator rotates to set the ISO speed of the film used (here, set to what looks like ISO 32). The setting of the film speed is a little squinty, but not too bad. The rest of the calculator is clear and easy to read.
To calculate exposure, you transfer the meter reading to the calculator by setting it next to the desired zone, then read off the choices of shutter speed/aperture from the inner part of the dial.
You turn the meter on by pressing the small red button in the bottom of the meter. If you press and hold the button, the meter turns itself off after 30 seconds, to prevent running the battery down when the meter is in its case or in a pack. The screw to the left of the button apparently holds the meter innards in place.
The case appears to be milled from a single block of aluminum, with an anodized black finish. The machining and finish of the meter are excellent - this is not a cheaply built meter.
The optical path for the sensor has the lens well recessed, and appears to be very well baffled. I'd worry a little bit about the recess becoming a home for grit and lint.
The Pocket Spot measures 2" x 2.25" x .9", and weighs 4.5 oz with battery. It takes PX-28 batteries - the same as those used by the Pentax Digital Spot, and thus available easily at most camera stores (but not at 7-11).
The meter comes with a nice padded case with a velcro closure and a belt clip on the back. The meter fits snugly into the case, but is easy to put in or take out.
The specifications for the meter list its range as -2 EV (yes, that's really minus 2) to 25 EV - a broader range and a full four stops more low light sensitivity than the Pentax Digital Spotmeter.
Comparison
Metered Light Pocket Spot on left, Pentax Digital Spotmeter on right
Matthew and I took some time to compare the readings from the Pocket Spot to those from my Pentax Digital Spot (both the modified and unmodified meter).
For one round of comparisons, we read the values off a Macbeth Color Checker under incandescent light:
For all but 4 of the patches, the both the Pocket Spot and the Pentax Digital Spot gave exactly the same reading. For 3 of those 4 patches, the two meters disagreed by 1/3 of a stop. For one patch (the purple on on row two, third from the right) the two meters disagree by 2/3rd of a stop. This is closer agreement than between my Zone VI modified Pentax Digital Spot and my unmodified Pentax Digital Spot under tungsten light. I'd use the Pocket Spot without any worries about it's accuracy when metering differently colored object.
For the second phase of our comparison, we just walked outside and metered different objects, including open patches of blue sky, pavement, foliage, house siding, bright white painted trim, etc. In all cases, the meters were in close agreement.
We did some informal flare testing, as well, and the Pocket Spot doesn't seem to suffer from any problems with flare (or at least, it doesn't seem more flare prone than either of my Pentax Digital Spotmeters do).
Conclusion
Based on seeing and handling Matthew's meter, I'm very impressed by the little Pocket Spot. It's a wonderfully thought out, well built meter that does everything the Pentax Digital Spotmeter does. It's easy to use, weighs exactly half what a Pentax Digital Spotmeter does, and is far smaller.
It's a lot of uncompromising meter in a very small package. If weight and space are an issue for you, but you don't want to yield accuracy or utility, it seems to me there's no competition, and this meter is the obvious choice.
The manufacturer's web site is at http://www.meteredlight.com./spot1.htm. Matthew says that although the price listed on the website is $450, he got his for $400.
Special thanks to Matthew Cordery for letting me interrupt his weekend, come over to his place, and play with his meter so I could write this review!
Update: Sadly, the link I have (above) for Metered Light is now dead. To answer the obvious questions: No, I don't know what happened. No, I don't have a newer link that works. No, I don't know how you might buy a Pocket Spot other than buying one used. No, I don't know if Metered Light will come back to life.
