GOSSEN DigiSix Ambient Light Meter

Rating:
Summary: Good little meter but too many unused extras
Review: The digisix meter is advertised as a "five-in-one" device, but truthfully speaking, I've only ever found it useful as a light meter. Besides the meter, it has a countdown timer that you can set to whatever length of time you want after which it starts to beep incessantly in a high pitched electronic chirp; it has a clock; it has an alarm for the clock; and it has a temperature thermometer. I've never really used the temperature thermometer although it's there whenever I end up pushing the mode button by mistake and have to cycle through all of the other modes to get back to the light metering mode. That's another thing that's wrong with this meter, besides having all these extra "modes" that I never use, if the meter is the only mode that you want to use then accidentally pushing the mode button makes you have to push the mode button four more times to cycle it back into light metering mode.

As a light meter, this Gossen is nice little gem. It's small (just about the size of a well-sized skipping stone), it's light (made almost entirely of flat black matte plastic on the outside, and not the cheap kind), it's got a sliding incident reading bulb (for taking incident reading light measurements or in other words, readings from the subject to where the camera is going to be), a digital readout (it's a digital light meter after all, or in other words with one push of the metering button it will display its light reading almost instantly), and an analog reading wheel (or in other words, a dial that you can turn that will simultaneously show all the readings for all the aperture settings and shutter speeds that are available for that current reading, for that current film speed that you're using). As a light meter by itself I've found this meter to be very accurate for exposing normal everyday black & white and color negative film. I'm not exactly sure how accurate it would be for slide films (which have less exposure latitude than negative films and are more sensitive to small variations in exposure).

Now, some caveats for this meter. The analog dial only runs from 4 minutes down to 1/2000 seconds, but that won't stop you from etching in your own readings on the edge of the dial if your camera can go longer than 4 minutes or shorter than 1/2000 seconds (it is a simple geometric scale in other words, a doubling or a halving of the speed of the shutter to let double or half the amount of light through the camera and onto the film; it's not like the wheel stops turning just because it gets to the end of the numbers, Note: the wheel turns all the way around).

Another caveat is that it is a multiple step process to change the ISO Speed reading of the film that you are metering for with this meter so if you're changing filmspeeds very often using this meter is going to be a pain in the behind. If you only use one speed of film or if you're not going to change it very often then the multiple step process to change the film speed shouldn't be too much of problem, but it will be a caveat.

A third caveat is that the way this meter works is you take your light reading with it and then dial into the analog wheel the number that it gives you in its display. The analog wheel, in other words, is split into three layers: the outside layer has all of the shutter speeds on it, the middle layer is etched into the meter itself and has all of the aperture sizes on it, the inside layer is visible through a little magnifying bubble at the "twelve o'clock" portion of the meter and in it is displayed the "EV" numbers which correspond the actual number that the meter itself digitally displays after you press the reading button when taking a reading of a scene. Now, this may seem kludgy at first but in actuality it combines the best of both the worlds of digital and analog light meters (and by the way is the only meter I've found that does this). In other words, it combines the analog physical wheels (that Gossen is famous for) with the speed of the digital meter.

I like it, if you haven't noticed, but this little meter really doesn't need all of the extra modes that Gossen put into it as it slows down the operation of the meter on occasion and they're never really used. If you ask me where they could improve it I would say make it solely a light meter, make it easier to quickly change the ISO speed of the film for the readings (maybe even include the ISO speed on a fourth layer on the wheels, as by the way it is done on Gossen's normal analog wheel meters). Combine the wheels of the old with the fast digital readout of the new and you've got yourself a bonified five star light meter, but cluttered as it is now, although the meter itself is accurate and quick and easy to use, I'll have to say that in the end it's only really worth four stars.