Thursday
Jul292010
New iPhone App: Pocket Light Meter
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 7:32AM | Glyn Evans 
Description from the AppStore: A light meter that is always in your pocket. It is indispensable for film photography with all manual camera. Measures reflected light, and allows reciprocity calculations.
AppStore Link: Pocket Light Meter - Price: FREE
Editors comments: I don't know how good or how accurate this app will be for those using a SLR/DSLR, but it's free so worth a try.
Reader Comments (11)
I just got this tonight and the Ad on it is annoying because part of the time you are trying to use it, it blocks the info you need to read and then it slowly moves up the screen blocking whatever you are trying to meter =/
I don't have an ad on my version so I can't comment on therightamt's comment. The interface that I have is as per the screenshot above.
The app is low on bells & whistles but seems quite responsive. What I am seeing is that it doesn't seem to dip below f5.6. It's happy to go the other way; if I shoot into a bright sky it stops down to f16. But otherwise, it's like someone told it that f5.6 and ISO400 should be the default options every time. But then I've only tried it for five minutes indoors, so maybe it will behave differently outdoors.
Would be nice if this app could be shown to be accurate - would save a bomb buying an actual light meter!
I tried this against the metering on my Canon G9. It was spot on. Tremendous boon for photographers in a hurry. And free. Gets 5* from me.
Compared with a Nikon D3, this app seems to be accurate within +/- 0.5 to 1 stop. Should be a useful tool for those of us still shooting with meterless cameras. (I haven't seen any ads so far..)
Once again, iOS4 only. Like I said previously, that'd be useful information.
michelle, Why haven't you upgraded to iOS4 yet?
No luck, only iOS4
Yes, I concur. The iAd is annoying as hell. It is a banner at the bottom of the screen when you start the app. It then jumps up every 1 minute or so and it does block the display of info. It is accurate outdoor imo, sunny day at noon w/ hard shadow, I was able to get a 1/8000 @f2.8 200 iso high above the sky and 1/4000 near the horizon.
However, it is unable to pick up conidition slower than 1/4 sec. Perhaps it is still limited by iphone camera's spec. Just 1 sec. will be good enough for me. I was testing it in a restroom with two mini fluorescent white light. Not extremely dark, you can read a book perfectly. Image shows up on screen but the app shows "UNSTABLE" until I move the metering square on top of the light source, and a reflective surface where it's brighter, only then it was able to get a reading.
I use Expositor app for light meter, this one is not bad honestly, but it does have limitations, the iAd issue included. I probably will continue using Expositor until I see major improvements on this app.
Sorry for the 2nd post, just an update. The iAd banner eventually will jump out of the screen and disappear to the top. Will it come back and how long, I dunno. It is able to pickup 1/4 sec and slower as long as the focus locks on.
@therightamt, @Howard F.
I've now downloaded this app, and I have no ad. Also the app is capable shutter speeds from 32 seconds to 1/8000, aperture settings from f/1.0 to f/256 and ISO 6 to 102400. To select these setting it's as simple as touching the T, F and ISO and selecting from the pop up.
I am the developer of this application.
I am deeply sorry for my USA users because of the annoying issue with iAds.
This was a bug both Apple reviewer and I missed.
I am from the United Kingdom and iAds are not available here, so I couldn't test it on anything but mock-ups that Apple provide for debugging.
I have now uploaded an updated version to Apple, and it will be out as soon as they approve the update. Usually it takes about a week.
In the future version I am going to add several more features:
1) Ability to select the scale in whole stops, halves or thirds
2) Ability to introduce filter correction factor and compute the exposure accordingly
3) Ability to buy me a pint (and get rid of ads altogether) with in-app purchase
I am tracking feature requests here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ishootfilm/discuss/72157624609700318/