Has anyone had any experience of the Shepherd 'Polaris' lightmeter, please?
The appearance and specification of this meter look good for the money, but is it accurate and reliable? I've given up trying to keep my old Weston meters in working order, and I'm now looking to buy one of those black digital readout boxes with half a ping-pong ball on the front.
Any advice welcome. (except I don't feel the need for a spotmeter) Thanks!

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), May 14, 2001

Answers

It's not bad for about a year... then it gets really fickle. At work, we had them and ended up going with the Sekonics 408's.

-- Scott Walton (scotlynn@shore.net), May 14, 2001.

I bought one but found it to be neither accurate nor reliable.

-- Garry Edwards (bestsnapper@aol.com), May 14, 2001.

I never felt mine was inaccurate, but it no longer meters flash. Thanks for reminding me---I've been meaning to send it in for repair.

-- Stewart Ethier (s_ethier@parkcity.net), May 14, 2001.

get yourself a seconic, they have a cheap model (forgot which) able to work for incident and reflected and for both flash and continuos light. Many of my students use it and never found any problem with it, otherwise Gossen has also something cheap in that range. A lightmeter is an investment not worth saving on!

-- Andrea Milano (milandro@multiweb.nl), May 14, 2001.

Hi Pete, I've got the Gossen Luna-pro digital. It works OK, even after dropping it and sitting on it. I've even gotten used to using the half ping-pong ball, and I like it. It has a feature where you can measure the number of stops of contrast in a scene too, but I don't use that much. Best, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), May 15, 2001.

Got mine 3 years ago and have used this meter a lot. I've had no problems with this meter used both as a flash meter and also as an everyday meter. If I need to buy another meter, I would not hesitate buying another one.

-- Archie Alcantara (kulambo_61@yahoo.com), May 15, 2001.

Thanks very much guys.
Sorry Archie, but the 3 to 1 vote against the Polaris means I'll probably go with the equivalent Sekonic model, even though it is 30% more expensive. :-(

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), May 15, 2001.

My polaris is doing good from some years. I miss a 1° spot metering but you cannot have all. Last I got some photo lesson from a known (here of course!) Prof. and he used a Polaris too and he said that it works fine!

-- Fabrizio Della Manna (fabrizio961@virgilio.it), October 01, 2001.