Cine Meter II vs Light Lamb
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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.
Light Lamb
This app acts as a light meter for film photographers, offering both automatic and manual control over camera settings. It helps ensure correct exposure by suggesting adjustments based on your chosen parameters and scene conditions. Features include spot metering, safe shutter speed awareness, and the ability to save settings with scene photos.
- Automatic exposure mode for film cameras
- Assisted manual control of aperture, shutter, ISO
- Histogram for exposure visualization
- Safe shutter speed matching
- Spot metering with 5x zoom
- Customizable ISO, aperture, shutter speed ranges
- Save settings with scene photos and location
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Light Lamb is a free photographers’ light meter app for iOS. You can let Light Lamb decide everything for you like getting an auto mode for your manual film camera, or you could have full manual control of the parameters, or whatever you want in between. - Now with histogram (New in 1.3.0) Use the histogram to make sure the scene is exposed just like how you envisioned. - From full auto to assisted manual control In most cameras if you pick a parameter like aperture, shutter, or ISO, the camera would stick to your chosen values even if it's too dark or too bright for the scene. The reason we made Light Lamb is to have a light meter that would suggest different settings if the chosen parameters are not suitable. For example, you can keep your settings at f/8 and 1/125 for deep depth of field and fast shutter speed, but if it's too dark, Light Lamb would suggest brighter values to make sure it's correctly exposed. Or say you want to set the aperture to f/1.4 for shallow depth of field, and if it's bright outside and the shutter is already at its fastest speed, Light Lamb would suggest a smaller aperture. Just set the parameters to what you want and Light Lamb will handle the rest. - Safe shutter-aware Pick a preferred slowest shutter speed you want and Light Lamb will match it. If the scene is too dark, Light Lamb automatically pick a slower shutter speed beyond the safe shutter to achieve the correct exposure. - Spot metering Zoom in 5x to focus the measurements to small areas in contrasting scenes. - Match your equipment Choose the range and increment of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed to match your equipment. Choose between whole-stop, half-stop, and one-third EV increments for each parameter. - Keep a memo Keep a memo of the settings used, including a photo of the scene and the location. Export it as a beautiful picture note formatted in 4:5 aspect ratio, great for posting to Instagram along with your photo.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Light Lamb at Free against Cine Meter II's $24.99. Light Lamb also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.5) and review sentiment (100% vs 79%). Cine Meter II's advantage is ratings volume (25 vs 1) and chart position (#162 vs unranked). On update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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
Light Lamb is free to download; Cine Meter II costs $24.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Light Lamb holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Cine Meter II has 25 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 79% of Cine Meter II's written reviews are positive against 100% of Light Lamb's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Cine Meter II | Light Lamb |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $24.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.5 (25 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 79.2% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 25 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #162 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Adam Wilt | CHUN YIN FUNG |
Customer experience
Cine Meter II
Light Lamb
In-app purchases
Cine Meter II
No in-app purchases
Light Lamb
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Cine Meter II free?
Is Light Lamb free?
Which has better reviews, Cine Meter II or Light Lamb?
Do Cine Meter II or Light Lamb have ads?
Which is updated more often, Cine Meter II or Light Lamb?
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