Pocket Light Meter vs Long Exposure Toolkit
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Pocket Light Meter
This app functions as a portable light meter, essential for film photographers using manual cameras. It accurately measures reflected light and provides reciprocity calculations for precise exposure control.
- Portable light meter
- Reflected light measurement
- Reciprocity calculations
- Indispensable for film photography
- Manual camera compatible
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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.
Long Exposure Toolkit
This app provides DSLR photographers with a suite of tools for creating long exposure photographs. It includes calculators for ND filters, light metering, time-lapses, and exposure values, along with tips and a photo feed for inspiration.
- ND Calculator
- Light Meter
- Timelapse Calculator
- Exposure Value (EV) Calculator
- Star Trail Calculator
- Exposure Timer
- Flickr Photo Feed
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Beautiful light doesn’t happen by accident. Long Exposure Toolkit gives creative photographers the tools to plan the light, find the moon and stars, calculate long exposures, and get the shot right — from golden hour to deep into the night. PLAN THE LIGHT, NOT JUST THE SHOT Track every phase of natural light throughout the day, including civil and nautical dawn, blue hour, golden hour, solar noon, sunset and dusk. Follow the live sun-path arc, see exact times for every transition, and get a live countdown to your next photographic window. MOON, STARS, AND THE NIGHT SKY Point your iPhone at the sky and the Moon Finder guides you towards the moon using the live camera and a precision compass rose. Follow the moon’s path through the night, check moonrise and moonset for your location, and plan for upcoming lunar eclipses. For star-trail photography, choose any star or constellation from the built-in catalogue and view its declination arc — ideal for planning and compositing very long star-trail exposures. LONG EXPOSURES, MADE PRECISE Use the built-in light meter to measure the scene, select your ND filter strength, and quickly calculate the corrected shutter speed. When exposures run into minutes or hours, the built-in timer counts them for you and chimes when they’re complete. THE COMPLETE TOOLKIT • Golden Hour — a light planner for golden hour, blue hour, dawn, dusk, solar noon and live sun-path tracking • Moon Finder — locate the moon, follow its path, and check moonrise, moonset, eclipse and other information • Star Trails — view declination arcs for stars and constellations to help plan long star-trail exposures • Light Meter — live camera metering with ISO, aperture and shutter-speed readout • ND Calculator — calculate corrected exposure times for ND filters • Timelapse — calculate the interval and number of shots required for your chosen movie length • Stops — calculate the exposure difference between any two f-stops, shutter speeds or ISO values • EV Calculator — calculate exposure value from camera settings or measure the EV of the current scene • Timer — time long exposures with an audible alert when the exposure is complete • Torch — adjustable LED torch plus a screen light with a full colour picker for light painting; save your favourite colours for quick access • Inspiration — browse long-exposure photography from the Flickr community and see the camera settings used to create each image • Technique — more than 70 tips covering long-exposure technique, ND filters, subjects, camera settings, focusing and field craft Whether you’re photographing silky water, moving clouds, city lights, the moon, blue hour or star trails, Long Exposure Toolkit gives you the essential planning and exposure tools all in one place.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Long Exposure Toolkit at none against Pocket Light Meter's 3. Long Exposure Toolkit also leads on price ($5.99 vs $9.99) and review sentiment (100% vs 87%). Pocket Light Meter's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 3 months) and ratings volume (1K vs 4). On rating, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Pocket Light Meter costs $9.99 and Long Exposure Toolkit $5.99 up front. Pocket Light Meter sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Long Exposure Toolkit asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Pocket Light Meter against 4.5 for Long Exposure Toolkit. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pocket Light Meter has 1K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 87% of Pocket Light Meter's written reviews are positive against 100% of Long Exposure Toolkit's.
Pocket Light Meter ships an update fortnightly, Long Exposure Toolkit every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 19, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Pocket Light Meter | Long Exposure Toolkit |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | $5.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.5 (1K ratings) | 4.5 (4 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 87.1% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1K — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #124 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 34 MB | 30 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Nuwaste studios | Andrew Offield |
Customer experience
Pocket Light Meter
Long Exposure Toolkit
Bugs and requests
Pocket Light Meter
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes or freezes with recent iOS updates
- Inconsistent metering in low light conditions
- Issues with saving metering data to photos
Requested features
6 requests- Add histogram display
- Implement manual mode to lock aperture/shutter
- Support for flash metering
- Improve low-light performance
- Provide more metering mode options (spot, center-weighted, etc.)
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- Add option to save metering data to photo metadata
Long Exposure Toolkit
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Pocket Light Meter
- ads remover$1.99
- pint for the developer and get rid of the ads$5.99
- donation to the developer$5.99
Long Exposure Toolkit
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Pocket Light Meter free?
Is Long Exposure Toolkit free?
Which has better reviews, Pocket Light Meter or Long Exposure Toolkit?
Do Pocket Light Meter or Long Exposure Toolkit have ads?
Which is updated more often, Pocket Light Meter or Long Exposure Toolkit?
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