Two little meters - one Achilles' heel

Want to add an exposure meter to a meterless classic camera, or make a quick fix to one with a dead meter? These third-party clip-on meters offer solid basic specs at two-digit prices. But are they any good?

UPDATE TO THE ORIGINAL REVIEW: The TTArtisan meter made it to its second battery change, but at that point one sidewall of the beige plastic battery compartment broke off while I was removing the dead battery. Without this, there's nothing to hold the battery against the side contact, making the meter useless. There's not enough area on the plastic to re-glue it, so it's a throwaway.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: To my surprise, I WAS able to repair the battery compartment on the TTArtisan meter. I removed the three screws on the bottom and one more inside (it holds down the black housing that covers the light sensor) and the two chrome screws that hold the setting knobs on the top. (TIP: Make sure you note the position of these knobs before disassembly to avoid a lot of fiddly trial-and-error when replacing them later.) With all these removed, the circuit board can be lifted out, and if you're careful, you can keep the power button from falling out when you do so. The back wall of my battery compartment was cracked very neatly and fit back together tightly, so I decided on a few drops of cyanoacrylate glue to secure it; it still seemed likely to crack off again, so I slipped a bit of foam tape down between the back of the battery compartment and the inside wall of the case to absorb side force. I still can't believe this is going to be a permanent repair, but I expect it will last a while now that I know the battery compartment can't stand much pressure; when changing batteries, it's probably better to push back the metal side contact with a small screwdriver to release pressure on the battery and allow it to be lifted out.


PS - Apologies for the visual quality of this video. Adobe has been tinkering with the color profile settings in Premiere Pro again, leaving me with only the choices of a gray, flat-looking video or a blown-out, posterized one. [sigh] May be time to go back to iMovie...