Polaris Karat Flash Meter

The Polaris Karat is a Japanese-made digital flash meter designed for photographers who want precise control over both ambient light and flash.

It can take incident or reflected-light readings and works with flash either through a sync cable or without one. One of its particularly useful features is flash-duration measurement, which shows how long the flash actually lasts rather than simply giving you the resulting exposure.

It can also display the percentage of the exposure coming from flash, which is useful when balancing flash with existing ambient light. There are several other practical functions too, including memory for readings, averaging, contrast measurement, Auto ISO and a multiple-flash mode that works out how many flashes are needed to reach a desired aperture.

The colour LCD keeps the information easy to read while you're working, and the meter supports ISO settings from 50 to 32,000.

A more modern option than many of the older analogue-style meters, the Karat is particularly suited to studio lighting, flash photography and photographers working with more controlled film setups.

This is a vintage item, so please use the supplied photographs to assess its condition and check what is included before purchasing.

Best for

Flash photography, studio work, portrait photography, film photography and balancing flash with ambient light.

What to expect

A compact Japanese-made digital flash meter with incident and reflected-light metering, flash-duration measurement, flash-ratio display and multiple-flash functionality. It takes two AA batteries.