Old camera light meters, can they be fixed?

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Mark
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So I have a lovely little Minolta Hi-Matic F and it's mechanically and optically sound.

Down side, the light meter is way off, about 4 stops. Which is somewhat a pain as the camera is automatic [emoji1745][emoji1787]

I have a work around, I have a variable ND filter on it set to about 3.5 stops. It seems to work, well some of the time.

Setting the ISO to say 400 and using 100 film does nothing so I guess the iso doesn't work either.

And this lead me to think, can these light meters in these old cameras be fixed?
 
Is it the actual light meter or the incorrect battery voltage. I cannot relate to the actual camera but often their original batteries through out different voltages than modern equivalents.
 
Strangely I just picked up a Hi-Matic off eBay. Meter appears to be 1 stop off and my next roll has a changed ISO to compensate so I'm hoping it's just that.

I have 2 stacked LR44 batteries on one side, and the other side is a piece of rubber (old school eraser) that I cut up to fit the gap. I pushed a paperclip through to complete the circuit.

I don't think the batteries have a great lifespan, so I'd start there.

Also, I couldn't get mine to work with one battery either side and the "foil fill" trick. Much more solid job to use a rubber.
 
Strangely I just picked up a Hi-Matic off eBay. Meter appears to be 1 stop off and my next roll has a changed ISO to compensate so I'm hoping it's just that.

I have 2 stacked LR44 batteries on one side, and the other side is a piece of rubber (old school eraser) that I cut up to fit the gap. I pushed a paperclip through to complete the circuit.

I don't think the batteries have a great lifespan, so I'd start there.

Also, I couldn't get mine to work with one battery either side and the "foil fill" trick. Much more solid job to use a rubber.
I too am using 2 LR44's. I have the little adapters.
 
Is it the actual light meter or the incorrect battery voltage. I cannot relate to the actual camera but often their original batteries through out different voltages than modern equivalents.
That has crossed my mind.
 
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