Pocket Light Meter for iPhone

[Hamish Gill]

I have been looking for a decent lightmeter for my iphone for a while and i think this is the best one of the bunch!
I prefer to use a Voitlander vcii or western master 5 and invacone as my as the next man. But lets face it, an iphone app is always going to more convenient for fairly basic reflected readings!

The nice thing about this app is that you can lock 1 or 2 of the values.
eg. If you know you want to be shooting at a particular aperture, and you have a 200iso film you can lock the aperture setting and shutter speed. It will then give you an aperture reading.

It is also not reliant on you taking an image to give you a reading.
you can see the effect of the of the settings that it is showing you live on the screen!
I dont know of any other light meter that can do that!!
I have just pointed it at the lamp in my living room and it gave a fairly similar reading to a D700

The d700 said 1/50 f/4.5 iso 200
This app said 1/40 f4.5 iso 200

slightly further away from the lamp
The d700 said 1/50 f/4.5 iso 200
This app said 1/20 f4.5 iso 200

Not bad id say ... Ill test it a bit more in day light and see how it gets on
I have also shot half a roll of film with it this evening so i will let you know the results of that too

I really am quite impressed with it!
But it seems im not the only one, it gets very good reviews on itunes too!

One of the most, if not the most useful app for anyone wanting to play with old film cameras and not want to have to carry, or in fact buy a "real" light meter!

I'd still recommend a western master 5 every time ... but actually i can see me using this more just for the convenience of it!

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

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Hamish - I've been using the same app, mainly because it has a Movie Camera mode, where you set the film FPS (Frames Per Second), and it gives you the aperture for the film's ISO.

Very handy when your 50 year old cine camera has no light meter!

I can see this killing the light meter market for Joe Public - unless you're in need of Pro levels of features/accuracy, this will probably more than fit the bill - especially compared with spending hundreds on a real meter

And, unlike a real light meter - you're likely to always have it with you...

 

[Hamish Gill]

Here we go then, day time reading that matches what the sunny 16 rule would suggest as the correct setting

More on sunny 16 rule

 

[Hamish Gill]

I think your right Chris!
It certainly makes a point about how capable such a small thing as an iPhone can be
The thing that always strikes me is that a huge company like apple have stacks of money to put into r&d to create a very capable device! It only takes the intelligence of other devs to harness what apple have already done!
If a small company were to make a device similar to the iPhone in terms of screen size and quality etc but it just be a light meter it would cost a fortune!
Same goes with it being as a remote for my linn ds ... It would be daft for linn to make a remote device when they can just harness what these smart phones can do! I imagine there is a lot more to come down this road!!