Comparison

LightMeter vs Light Meter Classic

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

Head to head
About

LightMeter

Features
Read full description

LightMeter is a professional exposure metering tool designed for photography enthusiasts and film photographers. It uses your iPhone camera to analyze scene brightness in real time and help you quickly determine suitable exposure settings. 【Professional Metering】 Supports spot, center-weighted, and average metering modes. Choose the method that best fits your scene and get real-time exposure guidance. 【Exposure Controls】 Adjust aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, with exposure compensation support to help you find the right combination for different shooting conditions. 【Real-Time Image Analysis】 View EV, color temperature, and Tint information in real time. The luminance histogram helps you understand highlight, midtone, and shadow distribution for more confident exposure decisions. 【Digital & Film Modes】 Switch between digital and film workflows. Film mode supports film presets and full-stop shutter settings, making exposure metering more intuitive for analog photography. 【Metering Hold】 Freeze the current metering result so you can continue checking the measured values while recomposing, adjusting camera settings, or changing your shooting position. 【Exposure Advice】 Get clear exposure references and shooting guidance based on the current metering result to help you make faster decisions in the field. Whether you are shooting street photography, travel, portraits, or film, LightMeter is designed to be a simple, intuitive, and reliable light meter you can always carry with you. LightMeter does not aim to press the shutter for you. It helps you understand light better.

About

Light Meter Classic

Features
Read full description

A reflected-light meter for film photography. It uses the phone camera as its sensor, lets you choose exactly which part of the frame to measure, and works out the ISO / aperture / shutter combination to set on your camera — restricted to the values that camera actually has. It exists for the situations a film camera's own meter gets wrong: a face against a bright window, a subject lit from behind, a stage. Those are exactly the cases where averaging the whole frame throws the exposure away, and where being able to say "measure here, not there" fixes it. MEASURE WHERE YOU WANT • SPOT — a small area, for a face or a shadow • CENTRE — weighted three-to-one towards the middle • AVG — the whole frame • BOX — drag to move it, drag the corner to resize it The preview is a 3:2 window: the frame a 35mm camera gets, whatever the shape of your screen. SOLVES FOR THE SETTING YOU NEED One setting is computed, the other two you set by hand. Each of the three tiles carries its own AUTO switch — tap AUTO on aperture and the app finds the aperture; tap it on shutter and it finds the shutter. One button hands both to the app at once. Every value the app returns is one your camera has. Settings holds three ranges — shutter, aperture, film speed — each with its own step size (full, half or third stops), a bulb switch, and the speed below which to warn you about camera shake. That covers any body and lens without a library of them. FREEZE Hold a reading so you can recompose without it changing. The value turns blue and the label reads FROZEN. MULTI-SPOT AND ZONES Store several readings with + SPOT and the app places the scene midway between its extremes, rather than letting any one reading pull the exposure to middle grey. Each stored reading is shown as a zone against the chosen exposure. CALIBRATION A phone differs from a reference meter by a fixed amount. Measure it once — fill the frame with an evenly lit surface, dial in what a camera you trust says, and save the point. Check at a few light levels and add a point where it is out; the app interpolates between them. Calibration is keyed to the phone and lens, so it stays true across sessions, and exports to JSON so it can be backed up or moved to another phone. The readout shows CAL +0.42 when an offset is being applied, or NO CAL when there is none — so you always know which you are looking at. No offsets are shipped for devices that have not been measured. An invented number is worse than none, because it looks like a measurement. RECIPROCITY AND FILM Long exposures need more time than the maths alone says. Where a manufacturer publishes the figure for a film, the app applies it; where none is published, it applies nothing rather than guessing. SHOT LOG Keep what you metered and what you set, so a roll can be read back later. NO ACCOUNT, NO NETWORK, NO TRACKING Nothing is uploaded. The camera is used to meter light and nothing else — no photo is captured, stored or sent.

Screenshots

LightMeter3 screens
Light Meter Classic4 screens

Verdict

The call

LightMeter and Light Meter Classic are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
LightMeter versus Light Meter Classic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLightMeterLight Meter Classic
PriceFreeFree
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.616.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size2 MB37 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer鹏 张Carabala Pte. Ltd.

In-app purchases

None

LightMeter

No in-app purchases

None

Light Meter Classic

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is LightMeter free?
LightMeter is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Light Meter Classic free?
Light Meter Classic is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do LightMeter or Light Meter Classic have ads?
Neither LightMeter nor Light Meter Classic shows ads.

Other comparisons