Comparison

Lighting Designer vs Cine Meter II

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Lighting Designer

Create professional overhead lighting plots for film, TV, theater, and events. Quickly illustrate and communicate lighting setups with a vast library of equipment and intuitive tools. Sync your work across all Apple devices.

Highlights
  • Create overhead lighting plots
  • Extensive equipment library (2000+ items)
  • Organize setups into Shows
  • Custom fixture creation with own images
  • Detailed light specifications
  • Floor plan drawing tools
  • Email editable Plots
Features
Read full description

Never draw a lighting setup on a scrap of paper again. Lighting Designer is a quick and intuitive way to create overhead lighting plots for film, theater, television, concerts, and anything else you can light. The wide selection of equipment and simple yet powerful interface makes it easier than ever to illustrate and communicate your lighting setups, from most Apple devices. Your Silicon Mac is powerful and gives you the most screen to work with; your iPad is large and versatile; your iPhone will go with you anywhere. And if you like, your work can sync among all your Apple devices using iCloud, so you can start plotting on one and finish on another. LD is perfect for tech scouts, working while traveling, or just choosing the couch over your desk chair. While expensive drafting programs can take hours to use and years to master, Lighting Designer is an accessible way to plan your next show! Features: • Organize your setups into Shows, with details like shooting dates and crew members • Choose from over 2000 built-in types of lights, grip equipment, camera gear, actors, and objects like furniture and musical instruments • With a Crescit Premium account, you can have access to an additional 25,000+ pieces of lighting equipment, gels, and gobo templates • Use your own images to create custom fixtures on your Plots (read the User Guide for image specs) • For each light, specify wattage, beam spread, light output, DMX address, color, and many other details • Certain fixtures include info for exposure approximation; all can be user-configured and have their exposure reverse-calculated from real-world readings • Use Groups to create flexible collections of lights • Notes allow you to describe every detail of your setup • Pack your Truck to share gear among multiple Plots • Draw a Floor Plan using basic shapes, and images from your device • Lights can target other objects, and objects can rig onto each other for easy adjustments • Email editable Plots to the crew, with images, equipment, and crew lists • Undo/Redo functionality • Dark Mode presents a dark workspace to reduce eyestrain and minimize your device's light in a dark environment

About

Cine Meter II

This app functions as a professional light and color meter for filmmakers. It offers features like a zoomable spotmeter, RGB waveform monitor, and false-color mode to help users precisely control lighting and color in their shots.

Highlights
  • Zoomable spotmeter
  • RGB waveform monitor
  • False-color mode
  • Incident meter with lux/foot-candle
  • Color temperature and tint readings
  • Shutter angle and speed calculations
  • ND filter and exposure compensation
Read full description

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

Lighting Designer4 screens
Cine Meter II4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Cine Meter II at 4.5 against Lighting Designer's 4.0. Cine Meter II also leads on review sentiment (79% vs 46%) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 14.0). Lighting Designer's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 3 months) and monetization model (freemium vs paid). On price, ads, in-app purchases and chart position 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Lighting Designer costs $24.99 and Cine Meter II $24.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Cine Meter II holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Lighting Designer has 144 ratings behind it against 25, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 46% of Lighting Designer's written reviews are positive against 79% of Cine Meter II's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Lighting Designer ships an update every 3 weeks, Cine Meter II every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 26, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Lighting Designer versus Cine Meter II: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLighting DesignerCine Meter II
Price$24.99$24.99
Rating4.0 (144 ratings)4.5 (25 ratings) — better
Positive reviews46.3% of reviews79.2% of reviews — better
Number of ratings144 — better25
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemium — betterPaid
Best chart rank#181#127 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS14.012.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size80 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperScenario Software LLCAdam Wilt

Customer experience

Lighting Designer

All ratings144 ratings
Positive74.3%
Neutral6.3%
Negative19.4%
Written reviews80 reviews
Positive46.3%
Neutral18.8%
Negative35.0%

Cine Meter II

All ratings25 ratings
Positive84.0%
Neutral8.0%
Negative8.0%
Written reviews24 reviews
Positive79.2%
Neutral4.2%
Negative16.7%

In-app purchases

None

Lighting Designer

No in-app purchases

None

Cine Meter II

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Lighting Designer free?
Lighting Designer costs $24.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Cine Meter II free?
Cine Meter II costs $24.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Lighting Designer or Cine Meter II?
Cine Meter II is rated higher. Lighting Designer averages 4.0 out of 5 from 144 ratings, while Cine Meter II averages 4.5 from 25 ratings.
Do Lighting Designer or Cine Meter II have ads?
Neither Lighting Designer nor Cine Meter II shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Lighting Designer or Cine Meter II?
Lighting Designer ships an update every 3 weeks, and Cine Meter II every 3 months. Most recently, Lighting Designer was updated on September 22, 2026 and Cine Meter II on September 26, 2026.
Which is more popular, Lighting Designer or Cine Meter II?
Lighting Designer currently peaks at #181 in the App Store charts, and Cine Meter II at #127. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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