Abstract. High-resolution photoionization experiments were carried out using beams of Be-like C 2+ , N 3+ , and O 4+ ions with roughly equal populations of the 1 S ground-state and the 3 P o manifold of metastable components. The energy scales of the experiments are calibrated with uncertainties of 1 to 10 meV depending on photon energy. Resolving powers beyond 20,000 were reached allowing for the separation of contributions from the individual metastable 3 P o 0 , 3 P o 1 , and 3 P o 2 states. The measured data compare favourably with semi-relativistic Breit-Pauli R-matrix calculations.