That's a pretty old beast. I would prefer the L-558 which seems the best of its kind, and is quite affordable since it is also long discontinued. The "R" version supports PW triggering.
I remember liking the L-508. It used a normal AA battery which was handy. The later L-558 and L-608 used a 3V CR123 battery that I could never find when I needed one and were always expensive. At some point I did find a rechargeable CR123 which was an improvement. I was very happy Sekonic went to AAA batteries for the L-858.
If you don't need radio triggering, you might look for an old Minolta Flash Meter VI. Those had a 1 deg spot meter. They were rebranded as Kenko KFM-2100. The later KFM-2200 added a backlit display and lux unit readings for cine. They're all discontinued now so you're rolling the dice on repairs and parts availability just like with the L-508. I really liked the Minolta meters. Quality was always top notch. The front facing incident eyepiece which made the meter much smaller to carry versus the Sekonics.
Norm Shapiro wrote:
Thinking of gerring one to replace my old Pentax 1degree spot meter.
Does anyone have experience with this meter? TIA
Great meter - only limitation as compared to the L-558 and later is that it doesn't provide any readouts in the finder in spot mode, but it does have a handy 1-5 degree zoom function on the spot meter that the later models didn't have.
I used mine enough that the button labels have largely worn off the case, so I have to half-remember what the buttons are which.
Have had the L-608 for years. Never skips a beat. So not to mislead, never skips a beat, but lightly used. I use to use it with a radio trigger setup. Also, happy with the L-358 which is much smaller, but less capable (no spot capability).
I have one and used it with my Hasselblad kit. It’s a good meter, my one complaint is that the text labels rub off after a while, which is poor as this was not a cheap meter.
