Last year, I found a Kenko KFM-2100 on eBay for incredibly cheap—if you know how ridiculously expensive spotmeters are—and immediately bought it. It works very well, except that the batteries last much shorter than the nominal 100 hours of continuous use. Today was my day off and a good opportunity to tackle the problem.
The contacts in the battery compartment were blackened, possibly as a result of chemical corrosion that had not been cleaned enough, but luckily they could be fixed by re-tinning. After my attempt to take apart the meter was blocked by too many tiny ribbon cables, I resigned to tin the contacts in-situ. I proceeded carefully to avoid melting the plastic case with the hot tip of the soldering iron and achieved a successful repair, confirmed by the absence of the ‘bc’ battery check symbol when the meter is switched on.
For further tests, I set up LED lights and took pictures of various household items, using the Kenko for metering. The same battery that was previously reported as low was still working after the few hours of the session. I could now say that the repair was a success.
I then developed the film in the bathroom, P needing the kitchen to prepare dinner, and I agitated the tank in a figure-eight motion, which I had just read about—two changes to my process. The new agitation method is now my favourite, as it saves me from fiddling with the tank lid and from dealing with leaks. Developing in the bathroom was also more convenient, because I had the entire bathtub as a work area and did not have to worry about spillages.
Anyway, here are the pictures that I like from today’s development.
Leave a Reply