James's Light Meter Collection: GE Model 213 Exposure Meter
GE Model 213 exposure meter USAclick for manual
Maker: General Electric
Model: Model 213
Circa: 1962
Cell type: Selenium
Measure type: 2D Incident

This meter came from Michael White, who was kind enough to give this to me with the box and original instruction booklet. Thanks!

This is an updated version of General Electric's DW-40; it's not so much an exposure meter per se as simply a footcandle meter. Yeah, they do the same thing, but a footcandle meter simply tells you the light level in footcandles, whereas an exposure meter has some sort of aparatus (i.e. a calculator dial) so you can convert it into camera settings.

The application, therefore, is really meant for graphic arts or other areas where all you're really doing is measuring illumination levels, either to see if they meet a certain criteria, or to see if the level is even across a given area. For that you only need a simple unit like this, something you can slip in your pocket.

Sekonic still makes (or did until recently) a footcandle meter; it's simply their L-398 without the calculator dial.

Nice little meter. Like the DW-40, it has two ranges, the marked range on the face, and a x10 "high" range. On the DW-40 you have to put a metal mask over the cell. On this one you just flip the switch up and it does the work electronically. This meter also claims to be color and cosine corrected, so you can get good readings regardless of the color temperature of the light source or the angle of the light striking the cell. Nice.

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