Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/05/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Skip - The CL meter is very much a spot meter. Try it with a bright light fairly close, move the camera to bring the light in and out of the rangefinder spot and notice how rapidly the meter readings climb and drop. The rangefinder spot has rounded ends. If you imagine these extending around in a full circle, that's the area metered with a 90mm lens. For the 40mm lens it's about twice as large. This per the owner's manual, p.15, which does not indicate whether the measuring area with the 40mm lens is twice as wide (4x the area) or 1.4x wide (which would be 2x the area.) We frustrated mathematicians think of problems like this. In actual operation, you're measuring a relatively small spot in the center of the field of view, and you center the meter needle in the notch in the middle of the right edge of the viewfinder to get proper exposure (at least what the meter thinks will be proper exposure.) The proper battery check procedure is to rotate the shutter speed dial until a pointer appears in the cutout in the top right edge of the viewfinder field. Then press the battery test button, the small chrome one at the 5 o'clock position next to the lens, and if the meter needle moves down into the cutout in the middle of the right hand edge of the viewfinder, the battery is OK. Hope this helps. An owner's manual is a useful investment for these cameras. I got mine from John Craig (www.craigcamera.com). Cheers, Kip Skip Williams wrote: > I just got a heavily used CL from a list member (Thanks John), and It seems > to work OK (no film evidence yet). I put a new PX625 Mercury battery in > it, and the battery check button works OK. > > My question is: How do you use the TTL meter? Do you press the film speed > dial in? I assume that it is a match-needle meter with a heavy center > weighting. In that area, how do you understand the metering area vs. the > viewfinder? I can't figure it out. > > Skip > ----------------------------------------------- > Skip Williams > Westfield, NJ > skipwilliams@pobox.com > http://www.skipwilliams.com > -----------------------------------------------