It is useful but not easy to use
Response from developer
You're right, I don't have a How-to for that. In a nutshell: measure one light; hit EXP LOCK, turn DIFFERENCE MEASUREMENT on, then tap the screen to lock the reading. While the lock is on, you'll see the difference between the locked reading and the current reading for both exposure and color. I hope to make some tutorial videos later this summer, but that'll depend on my work schedule, so I can't promise anything.
Handy to have..
Response from developer
Thanks for taking the time to post a positive review. I appreciate it!
A gimmick
After I purchased I finally read the fine print in the manual that says “tint correction values shown are appropriate for full spectrum sources with fluorescent LED’s and other “discontinuous spectrum sources” you typically need 1/2 to 2/3 of the tint correction shown.
Response from developer
Yes, a $25 app running on the $15 camera module built into a phone needs calibration for best results! For color, you can get a spot-on incandescent source (a light bulb) for about $2. For exposure, use any other light meter or camera that has an exposure readout. You can also calibrate by taking a reading, shooting a gray card using that reading, and measuring the resulting gray level in the image; if you're shooting film, a bracketing test can give you your needed correction in one go, even using a fully manual camera without its own exposure meter. As the instructions say, lux/fc won't change as you adjust compensation, but once you set calibration they *will* change. And no, they probably will not perfectly match your other meter, as Cine Meter II can only be adjusted to 1/10 stop accuracy, not to +/- 1 lux or fc (none of my four calibrated pro meters perfectly match each other in lux/fc mode either, even though they match to within 1/10 stop in aperture reading). Tint corrections are as accurate as with any other tristimulus meter (e.g. Sekonic C-500) but spiky spectra can fool all such devices. You need a spectrometer ($1200+) for more accurate readings; that's just the nature of the technology. See https://www.dvinfo.net/article/production/lighting/on-the-color-of-light-and-the-measurement-thereof.html for a discussion of the problem; see https://cinematography.net/LED-Camera/LED-Camera-Index.html for some real-world measurements.
Very useful
Not for professional use
Response from developer
That's not "poor UX design", that was a bug! It's been fixed: no more system pop-up when you enter settings and iOS thinks you don't have any email accounts available. Sadly, Mr. Wack never contacted me, so we weren't able to find out why his iDevice reports no email accounts when he claims he had several set up. That's not normal behavior and I wasn't able to replicate it on my own iDevices.
The best $25 I have spent in recent memory
Finally a colour temp meter for ios.
At this price its a dream come true.
Thanks Dev.
Great tool!
It is an accurate spot meter (matches my venerable Pentax and my newer Sekonic perfectly after one calibration) and with a Luxi sphere works as an incident meter also (matches my Sekonic too, after calibration). Even better, it is a color meter, and seems *more* accurate than my old Minolta, matching my Kinos to cheap fluorescents.
While this won't replace my meters (but it probably could) I don't bother carrying my older ones any more...
The developer is super responsive too!
Most recent upgrade is broken
Only thing, the app received an update a few days ago, and now it won't open. At all. I deleted it and downloaded it again, in case I had a rare corrupted copy — but nope. The fresh download is busted, too. There was a catastrophic bug that shipped in the last package.
I hope you are on it, Adam Wilt. I won't give you one star for a bug that will hopefully get fixed immediately (since low stars are forever). But, well, it's a zero star app at the moment, because it's working zero percent. Please fix soon.
Response from developer
I've downloaded the store copy on several iPhones, iPads, and iPods touch, and it's working normally on all of 'em; I can't make it crash for trying, whether they're updates or fresh installs, on my account or on others. PLEASE contact me directly (cinemeter@adamwilt.com) so we can fix this! (Also, did you try the other troubleshooting steps at https://www.adamwilt.com/cinemeterii/support.html ?)
Lumu Power Support in future?
Great product!
Response from developer
Lumu Power support requires an updated SDK that communicated with the Power. So far, Lumu hasn't published it; once they do, I'll integrate it.
