iPhone light meter apps

[muser53]

Anyone care to chime in on your experiences with these?

 

[mchgst]

i use fotometerpro on a 3gs so it gives me just the reflected value, not the incident 🙁
works great, you can set iso and aperture. it features also a timer for long exposures.
best one for design and functionality imho

 

[emayoh]

After trying a couple attempts at lightmeter apps that all disappointed me, I've taken a different tack to the problem. I take a photo of the scene with the iPhone (while locking in the exposure on whatever I choose as the subject) then I use an app called ExifWizard to tell me the relevant exposure information for that photo as the iPhone saw it. ExifWizard will show the Ev and and the aperture and shutter, as well as the equiv ISO. I can do the conversions in my head to tell me what I would need for e.g. a shutter that's two stops wider.

This works especially easily for ASA 100 film, as the iPhone is about ISO 80, but multiplying for 400 is not too bad.

 

[shiro_kuro]

Light Meter http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-light-meter/id381698089?mt=8

works great ..... though I still prefer using a hand held meter or my own judgement which with practice is very accurate ....
Something about holding an iPhone and tapping and sliding buttons with my fingers make me crazy ...... out of the pocket .. finding the meter app ..sliding ,pushing buttons ... back in the pocket ... simple I know ,but still makes me crazy

 

[divewizard]

Light Meter http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocket-light-meter/id381698089?mt=8

works great ..... though I still prefer using a hand held meter or my own judgement which with practice is very accurate ....
Something about holding an iPhone and tapping and sliding buttons with my fingers make me crazy ...... out of the pocket .. finding the meter app ..sliding ,pushing buttons ... back in the pocket ... simple I know ,but still makes me crazy

I second Pocket Light meter. It works great so long as part of the image on the screen is not "blown out."

 

[kshapero]

I use (I think) Pocket Light Meter for my M3 and F. I Live by it.

 

[malthusiantrap]

I also use the Pocket Light Meter but what I do is I use the front camera and tape a small piece of white paper in it.
I don't trust it entirely but it is a sort of a "sanity check" to base my exposure decisions on.

 

[muser53]

Thanks for all the responses, I love this place, ask a question and voila you're off and running. 🙂 Think I'll try photo meter pro as I've just received pin lens caps for both my Nikon and Leica bodies and the timer function is just what the doctor order for pinhole work.

 

[Aristophanes]

I've tried both Light Meter and Fototmeter Pro and they are both basically interfaces for the built in light meter of the iPhone camera.

Question is: Are they accurate?

Answer: Yes. Ive tested against my DSLR and SLR meters and it is within half-a-stop or less 9 times out of 10.

 

[hteasley]

I've done comparisons between Pocket Light Meter and my Sekonic L-208, and they read similarly 100% of the time. The Sekonic has sadly confirmed the effectiveness of its replacement, and condemned itself to a life on the shelf.

 

[muser53]

I'm liking the consistency you are reporting. Now I'll have that much more room for film in my bag/pockets ;-)

 

[MichaelW]

Pocket Light Meter is very good. i often use it for things like pinhole and large format.

 

[kanzlr]

I also use the Pocket Light Meter but what I do is I use the front camera and tape a small piece of white paper in it.
I don't trust it entirely but it is a sort of a "sanity check" to base my exposure decisions on.

+1

[..............................................]

 

[Film dino]

i use fotometerpro on a 3gs so it gives me just the reflected value, not the incident 🙁 works great, you can set iso and aperture. it features also a timer for long exposures. best one for design and functionality imho

+1 Fotometerpro works well & accuracy is consistent with my Gossen Variosix. I use on a 3gs too. "Incident" metering can still be done by pointing the phone camera back at the camera position- taking care with the angle
Edit- Most days I no longer carry the Gossen 🙂

 

[HuubL]

Anyone wants to extend this thread with suggestions/experiences of apps for Android?

 

[anjoca76]

I think I've bought them all at one time or another. Some are better than others. I use Pocket Light Meter most often, except for slides, for which I tend to use what I think is called Fancy Light Meter. I use it for slides because it has a multi-spot meter and computes the average for up to 3 selected spots. I'm not in love with the interface, though, so if I'm not shooting slides I usually pick something simpler, such as Pocket Light Meter.

 

[Aristophanes]

I'm liking the consistency you are reporting. Now I'll have that much more room for film in my bag/pockets ;-)

The CMOS sensor in the iPhone is actually larger than in some dedicated, high-end light meters.

Light Meter on the iPhone can do effectively a spot meter as well, though the spot is pretty large, it can be metered in select areas of the frame. However, i think that is where the accuracy tends to drop off (the 1 time out of 10 where it's a half-stop off).

Just my experience.

 

[SausalitoDog]

Wow... You guys score for the iphone again.

A couple of other apps that help me a lot are FOCAL for DOF calcs and Field Tools for the same...both free apps.

I couldn't live without Tide Graph which shows tide info as well as sunrise and set and moon phases (this isn't free).

Thanks for the tip

Tom

 

[bjornkeizers]

Wow, and here I thought I was the only one who used an iPod Touch as a light meter 🙂

I've used FotoMeterPro (paid) and Light Meter (free). FMP does incident and reflected light and with compensation. However, it does crash often. Light Meter has a simpler look but does AV/TV priority, which is really handy with fixed stuff like the 1/125 - f8 Holga.

I was surprised how well it works! Both spit out reasonable results, though you might want to compare several apps to find your own device's sweet spot. I found that FMP metered a bit lighter then LM for instance, though the margin is small enough not to bother me.

Definitely a good alternative for an expensive light meter. And you can play Angry Birds while waiting at the photo counter. 😀

 

[Jamie123]

I generally use my Sekonic L308s but I have Light Meter on my iPhone as a backup. It's proven to be very useful quite recently when I was out with my 4x5 kit and realized I had left the Sekonic with the medium format kit. It was late and it was getting darker by the minute so I couldn't trust my eyes for an accurate estimation. Without the iPhone App I would probably just have gone home.

It's also quite practical for when I'm out location scouting and want to know what the light conditions are at a certain hour of day, i.e. what kind of film I have to bring.