Which light meter app for android phone?

[Steve M.]

I have one film camera left that might take a decent portrait (Canon FT B beater w/ FL 135 3.5 lens), and would like to take some portraits of the gal and I for sending to family for X-mas. Unfortunately, the only light meter here is an old, tiny, selenium Pilot 2 that can be trusted only in sunlight.

Are all android phone light meter apps created equal, or is there one that someone could recommend? Thanks.

 

[Tim Murphy]

Pocket Light Meter

Pocket Light Meter

Dear Steve,

I'm sure you'll get several suggestions but I like Pocket Light Meter. It's within 1/4 stop of every meter I have ever compared it against and I have had no problems with exposures made based on it's measurements.

I find when shooting digital that it helps me if I save the Color temp measurements. I almost always use AWB on my digital cameras but I can also see the difference when I change the WB in post to the measured temp. It's amazing what can be done indoors with available light when you know it's temperature and can adjust it in post.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg, PA 😀

 

[Steve M.]

Thanks Tim. 1/4 stop is more accurate than I would ever need for B&W negative film, so that should work fine. I seldom use incident metering, but might for low light portraits. If I can find a store here in Albuquerque tomorrow that has one roll of 36 exp Tri-X, we'll be good to go. I never even considered color temp and white balance for B&W film photography, as pretty much everything I shoot (which is Tri-X 90% of the time) is panchromatic.

 

[f16sunshine]

Hi Steve

I don't know for sure it's available for android but for iPhone I use "myLightMeter" from David Quiles.

Found it for android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dq.fotometro&hl=en

I'm just using the bare bones free version for B+W film.
The Pro version is cheap at $4 and has many options and seems pretty capable including... presets you can program for lenses and film.


Here is a screen grab of the free version.

 

[sebastel]

david quiles' +1

 

[Pioneer]

I use david quiles meter as well (the free version) and it does seem reasonably accurate. There are however a couple of things that irritate me.

First, it always defaults to ISO 100 rather than saving your latest ISO setting. This means I have to reset it each time my phone shuts off.

Second, the contrast on the meter interface is hard for me to see in sunlight so I have a terrible time reading the numbers sometimes.

Perhaps the pro version takes care of those issues.

For me a simple meter like the Sekonic 208-L is small, easy to carry and much easier for me to see.

 

[aicardi]

I've tried several. The one I have settled with is Light Meter for Photo. I find it very accurate. Ambient only.

 

[monopix]

The pro version of David Quiles' meter does remember the iso setting. It also does incident as well as reflected and has a zoom function to do selective metering.

 

[Steve M.]

To give some feedback on this, I ended up going with the light meter app below. The link below it is to Ollinger's light meter collection, which is a real fun web page to peruse because he covers most analog meters known to humans. If you love analog meters, this will be a real treat checking out some of the odd ones he has featured. Some of them are works of art. The app I chose for my Android phone is very much like a traditional analog light meter. It's also free:]

The last thing I wanted was some sort of digital readout display because I find those slow to read and counter intuitive in the way they work. This one works almost exactly like my old Sekonic L 188 meter. So far it seems accurate, but all I have to go on is confirming it's readout using Sunny 16. Low light? I wish I knew! Especially since that's the one purpose I bought it for.

So I bought 3 rolls of film and plan on bracketing the heck out of my shots. Something should work out amongst all those. Went w/ T-Max 100, Tri-X 400, and since I couldn't find any Kodak Gold 200 locally, a roll of Kodak ColorPlus 200. People seem to either hate this film or like it. Looking at samples online was a waste of time, as some looked wonderful and some looked crazy bad. But google Kodak Gold 200 and you will see exactly the same thing, so that means less than nothing.

The general web consensus seems to be that no matter what light meter app you have, it's only as good as your phone. Mine seems pretty decent, so hopefully things should work out. In a sense, this was sort of a not-so-smart way to go, as I could have bought just one roll of film and a better analog light meter for what I paid for three rolls of film (local stores really mark things up compared to buying online), but now I know of at least four stores here in Albuquerque that I can bike to and get some film that day, which is nice when you want something right now vs waiting for it in the mail. I also discovered a store that will develop traditional B&W emulsions for $6 a roll, which enabled me to buy the Tri-X and T-Max instead of relying on desaturating the cheapo Fuji 200 that Walmart carried. They were the ONLY store I could find by the way that sold film besides the photo places I eventually uncovered. Riteaid, CVS, Walgreens, and the local drugstores carried no 35mm film at all, only some disposable cameras.


https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dq.fotometro&hl=en

http://www.jollinger.com/photo/meters/meters/sekonic_l98.html