Miha Podlogar’s Light Meter Collection

What does it take to take a good photograph? In addition to a camera and the right moment, photographers once had to assess the light correctly. This is where light meters played a crucial role – devices that helped photographers determine the appropriate exposure and thus increased the chances of achieving a successful shot.

The exhibition The Third Eye presents approximately 520 light meters, exposure calculators and tables donated to the Technical Museum of Slovenia in 2025 by collector, photographer, editor and researcher of the history of photography Miha Podlogar. The collection offers a remarkably comprehensive overview of the development of light-measuring devices and their use in photography. Its significance lies not only in its scope, but above all in its thematic completeness. It covers all the major principles of operation and use of light meters and related devices up to the 1970s. The exhibits include exposure tables and calculators, actinometers, photometers, optical light meters, selenium-cell light meters, CdS-cell light meters and colour temperature meters. The diversity of the collection is further enhanced by products from numerous manufacturers from Europe, the United States, Russia, Japan and Australia.

Miha Podlogar’s decades-long collecting and research on light meters also resulted in the bilingual publication Belichtungsmesser und Kameras mit eingebautem Belichtungsmesser. Chronologie 1818–1970 = Exposure Meter and Cameras with built-in Exposure Meter. Chronology 1818–1970. Together with the exhibits, the publication provides an important resource for understanding the development of devices that, for more than a century, enabled photographers to determine exposure more accurately and, consequently, produce better photographs.

The exhibition is on display until 31 December 2026.