cell phone light meter

[Tim Meisburger]

Seems to me it ought to be fairly simple to write a cell phone app that measured light through the phone camera lens. Anybody ever seen one?

I could not find one, but perhaps there is not much demand for that sort of thing these days.

[cjbroadbent]

Tim, get yourself a patent NOW!

[Lachlan 717]

Haven't seen one, but "Photobuddy" is a good bellows factor app!!

[Joanna Carter]

Tim, get yourself a patent NOW!
Too late, I know of someone who is already working on one :D

[Tim Meisburger]

Patent don't matter, as it would cost more to get it than you could ever get selling it.

[jeongyun]

There is an app for that.
http://iphone.ambertation.de/lightmeter/
http://www.appstorehq.com/lightmeter-iphone-57542/app
Only works on iPhone 3GS.
(Pictures taken with older models don't have exposure info in the EXIF data)

[Thebes]

Is there anything for Windows Mobile or the Droid phones?
I suppose these would be harder because the hardware varies so much, but I would consider choosing a phone based upon it. The iPhone isn't an option for many of us living in rural areas.

[jp]

Maybe someone could make a fitting for the phone so you could attach an incident light meter dome over the objective? And a USB<-->X-sync interface for flash testing.

[Dan Baumbach]

I can see using one in a pinch but to take a very mediocre digital camera that probably costs less than $10 and use it to replace a good hand held meter is absurd.


- Dan.

[Curt]

Checked it out, iPhone lightmeter reading of a scene 10 EV, meter reading 10 EV. Spot reading of my mouse on the desktop EV 7, iPhone reading EV 7.

One costs 99 cents, the other hundreds.

My iphone is my new extra backup lightmeter.

[Tim Meisburger]

But I guess the iphone meter does not work on other phones? Still, if the software exists, should not be to hard for someone to adpat it to other phones. But what the heck do I know (I still use a wooden camera, and would still be using a wooden TV if the dang thing hadn't slipped a transmission belt or somtin...)

[domaz]

I looked into making an app for Windows Mobile- there wasn't enough information available in the API to do it. So this is very phone implementation dependent. The fact that they had to use EXIF data to use the iPhone as a light meter kind of illustrates this- using EXIF data is kind of a hackish way to do it- the phone has to take a picture and then your program has to open the file to get the exposure info it used. Not very elegant.

[Daniel_Buck]

I'd grab one if there was a lightmeter application for the Android OS! :-)