AVO exposure meter

[short wave]

On our local Facebook marketplace there is an AVO exposure meter for sale (£15) didn't know Avo did these

[pmmunro]

These were designed and sold in the mid to late 1930s. The incentive for their production is likely to have been from two sources: The fine work in the ACWEECO (AVO) factory needed good lighting and there was a similar light meter to measure workplace lighting levels.

The attachment is a photograph of what seems to be a prototype for the light meter, based on an Avominor case and movement - there are no other components inside.

This once belonged to Hugh S. MacAdie, son of the patentee of the original Avometer.

There was a LM4 light meter which was sold into the 1960s.

H S MaCadie was a keen photgrapher who seems to have developed an interest in light measurement. A later version of the exposure meter looks like a shrunken AVOminor.

PMM

[barrymagrec]

Hurter and Driffield scale - that`ll confuse modern photographers.

Sangamo Weston (another meter maker) did the same, theirs took off though. Here is my Weston, still works.

[Radio Wrangler]

Salford Electrical Instruments (SEI) also did light meters for photographers. L Ron Hubbard (not exactly famous for photography) was a big fan of the SEI 'extinction' meter.

SEI were the arm of GEC which made the rather nice 'Selectest' multimeters in competition with AVO.

David

And I present an SEI spot photometer, they where the equivalent of £1000 in their day.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell

And I present an SEI spot photometer, they where the equivalent of £1000 in their day.

I had a Cornfield in my darkroom. The same grease-spot principle as the SEI I imagine. I remember that the 15W pigmy bulb it used was a special, it was over-run to give the correct colour temperature.



I still have my Western

I also have a cine version somewhere.