Sekonic L-308b - shows underexposed?

ok guys, this is something new to me. my sekonic l-308b is acting a little funny. it used to correctly meter my AB800 flash + 430EX slaves but recently, its been reporting underexposure. this is the weird part, when i look at the histogram on the camera, the exposure is spot on.

i have the sekonic set at ISO400, 1/200, flash meter. the incident and reflectance meter works fine.

i am firing the AB800 via a sync cord and the 430EXs via the 580EX (manual mode). any ideas? thanks in advance!

Try new batteries in the Sekonic.

thanks Dave, ill try that. interestingly, the battery meter on the Sekonic still shows full bars. ill try fresh batteries anyway. thanks again!

You haven't "adjusted" the meter in any way have you? Say changed a dome or biased the zero setting? I can do that with my Minolta meters and that has an effect on the exposure's read out.

no, the only change ive made on it when metering flash is the shutter speed value (to match the shutter speed value on my camera).

How did you trigger the 430 when metering? Did you press the test button on the 580 to do that? Because the light meter will read the command flash from the 580 first before the 430 fires when using the camera shutter botton, even both flashes are in manual mode, unless you made the 580 to go "full" manual by taping the 4 contacts.

Before you start wondering about the meter, get rid of all the Speedlites in the setup and use only cable-connected studio flash equipment (and any other flash equipment that uses simple optical slaves to trigger off the studio flash firing). Then set the camera's aperture to what the meter reading indicates and determine if the exposures look right or need adjustment.

Adding Speedlites to a studio lighting mix can cause a lot of problems with metering if there are additional flash bursts for communication, etc., going on.

Sekonik as issues with battery meter...it's the same with all their models. the first sign of a weak battery is querky readings, the battery ico will then tell you it's weak... bizarre but that how life is! just change your batteries and life will be good again...and if not good, well at least it will be properly exposed!