iphone light meter app

[Brian Drysdale]

Adam Wilt has come up with a reflected light meter app for the iphone.

Cine Meter for iOS

[Gary Nattrass]

Thanks for the link and that looks very useable as most of the photo ones you can get are totally useless for video work.

Only $4.99 or £2.99 in the UK so a bargain and bought mine already to have a look.

[John Richard]

This is a FANTASTIC app!

Combines a light meter and waveform monitor all in one handy iPhone. And it was developed by a very knowledgeable camera geek who has been sharing knowledge with us all for years - Adam Wilt.

Looks like my old Sekonic is headed for the storage room after some trials.

Thanks for the better and inexpensive light meter tool Adam.

[Gary Nattrass]

Thanks from me too it all looks very usuable and replaces the meter I have been carrying in my lighting kit to check contrasts between light sources!

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Wow, this looks brilliant. Great job, Adam.

[Paul Cascio]

Looks like a great app. Could someone explain what False Color mode is? Thanks.

[John Richard]

False color mode shows you exactly where in the shot your hot spots/over-exposed parts are. Example: those false color sections showing red are over-exposed/clipping. You could then make the choice to flag those, reposition to remove reflection, remove from scene, use glare spray, whatever you need to do to fix the overexposure. The same idea for underexposed bits in the scene.

[Paul Cascio]

Thanks. So, it functions like Zebra Stripes?

[Jonathan Levin]

This is really a cool thing. But I was wondering if the results differ/drift from say an iPhone 4 to 4s to 5 IPad etc. I guess what I'm asking is what and how is this calibrated for lack of a better analogy?

[Evan Donn]

The app has a calibration slider, so you can tune the sensitivity to match your camera or traditional light meter.

[Jonathan Levin]

I ran a few brief tests with my dslr and the Cine Meter matches my Nikon pretty much dead on. I also like that it has a kind spot reading too.

If this could give you a light balance reading in kelvin, well, that's just asking to much.

Jonathan

[Brian Drysdale]

Since quite a few don't live in Apple land, I gather a number of people are requesting an Android version,

[David Knaggs]

Adam said on PVC that there will be an Android version.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Don't put too much stock in typical light meter apps for phones. Depending on the hardware, they can be less than worthless and downright misleading. Rather than use the camera, many of them use the Automatic Brightness Control sensor used to dim the LCD screen when indoors. The sensor circuits only provide a gross measurement of the light in very big steps.

Last year, I was involved in a CEA study of home illuminance for TV viewing. We had an online method of collecting data from anyone who was interested. In the end, we threw out all data from cellphone-based light meters (about 15% of data collected.)

That's not to say that all light meter apps are bad on all hardware. I'm saying, "buyer beware".

I'd like to add that Adam's iPhone app is likely top notch. (Developed by a camera guy for specific hardware.)

[Steven Digges]

Thanks for the tip, just bought it.

And speaking of junk apps not to get... do not buy LuxMeter Pro...it is junk.

Steve