Pocket Light Meter vs Cine Meter II
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.
Cine Meter II
This app functions as a professional light and color meter for cinematographers. It offers zoomable spot metering, RGB waveform monitoring, and false-color capabilities to analyze and adjust lighting for optimal shots. It also provides calculations for exposure settings like shutter speed and aperture.
- Zoomable spotmeter
- RGB waveform monitor
- False-color mode
- Incident meter with lux/foot-candle
- Color temperature and tint readings
- Exposure calculation (shutter speed, aperture, ND, ISO)
- Shutter angle support
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Cine Meter II measures light and color, so you can light and shoot and know what you'll get. “Cine Meter II is an essential app for every cinematographer.” — Jon Fauer, ASC “[T]he perfect app to have with you at all times.” — Roberto “Ganzo” Schaefer, ASC, AIC It's a zoomable spotmeter with an RGB waveform monitor and a false-color picture. It's an incident meter using a Lenny Hat or other diffusion, or Lumu™ Lite attachment, with lux and foot-candle readouts. (Lumu Power is NOT supported, and flash metering is NOT possible.) It's a color meter, showing color temperature and green/magenta tint, and giving you corrections to or from your target color. Measure more than just shutter-priority or aperture-priority: calculate shutter speed, shutter angle, aperture, ND, or ISO directly. • The exposure meter shows your stop as a decimal value (for cameras with EVF iris readouts) or as a full stop and fraction (for cine lenses with marked iris rings). Cine Meter II lets you use shutter angles – ideal for Digital Bolex and Blackmagic cameras – as well as speeds, and you can dial in ND filters and arbitrary exposure compensations. The spotmeter is zoomable up to 15x magnification (on devices that support camera zooming), using either the front or back camera. • The waveform monitor shows you how light levels vary across a scene. You'll see how smooth and even the lighting is on a greenscreen or background, and find subtle hotspots and shadows at a glance. The waveform’s RGB mode shows you color imbalances in the image and gives you a handy way to check color purity and separation for chroma-keying. • False-color mode lets you define allowable contrast ranges, and see instantly which shadows are underexposed and what highlights risk clipping. _______________________ READ BEFORE YOU BUY: Cine Meter II is NOT a flash meter; it can't measure strobes. Cine Meter II does NOT work with Lumu Power (the Lightning port Lumu), only Lumu Lite (the headphone jack Lumu). Cine Meter II gives you *absolute* light meter readings, but *relative* picture and waveform monitor levels: Cine Meter II’s picture and waveform monitor do not use the *exact* exposure shown by the light meter (they are close to the meter reading, but can differ from it slightly). The picture and waveform monitor show you *relative* levels within a scene, not *absolute* levels based on the meter reading. Shutter speeds, apertures, and ISOs shown in Cine Meter II are for metering purposes only and do not control the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO of the iPhone camera. The iPhone camera uses whatever exposure settings it needs to capture a reading. Cine Meter II is a light and color meter only; it is *not* a camera simulator. See http://www.adamwilt.com/cinemeterii/details.html#How_It_Works for details.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Pocket Light Meter at $9.99 against Cine Meter II's $24.99. Pocket Light Meter also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 3 months) and ratings volume (1K vs 25). Cine Meter II's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3). On rating, review sentiment, 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 Cine Meter II $24.99 up front. Pocket Light Meter sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Cine Meter II 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 Cine Meter II. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pocket Light Meter has 1K ratings behind it against 25, 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 79% of Cine Meter II's.
Pocket Light Meter ships an update fortnightly, Cine Meter II every 3 months. Both last shipped on November 6, 2026.
| Parameter | Pocket Light Meter | Cine Meter II |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 — better | $24.99 |
| Rating | 4.5 (1K ratings) | 4.5 (25 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 87.1% of reviews — better | 79.2% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1K — better | 25 |
| 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 | #63 — better | #200 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 34 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Nuwaste studios | Adam Wilt |
Customer experience
Pocket Light Meter
Cine Meter II
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
Cine Meter II
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
Cine Meter II
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Pocket Light Meter free?
Is Cine Meter II free?
Which has better reviews, Pocket Light Meter or Cine Meter II?
Do Pocket Light Meter or Cine Meter II have ads?
Which is updated more often, Pocket Light Meter or Cine Meter II?
Which is more popular, Pocket Light Meter or Cine Meter II?
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