A Sekonic L-858 Speedmaster — the handheld light meter most working photographers name first — retails for $599 as of July 2026. The phone in your pocket, meanwhile, carries a light-gathering sensor and more than a decade of metering software written on top of it, much of it by film photographers, for film photographers. For most people loading a roll of HP5 this weekend, the honest question is no longer whether a phone can meter film. It is which app to trust.
That choice is harder than it looks. Search "light meter" on either store and you get hundreds of results: lux meters aimed at electricians, abandoned side projects, subscription traps. Only a handful are genuinely built for film — ISO-first controls, output in real apertures and shutter speeds, film-stock awareness, and accuracy claims you can check. We compared the six that matter in 2026, with every price and feature verified against the store listings and developer pages on July 3, 2026.
For most film shooting, a well-built phone meter is not a compromise. Negative film forgives a third of a stop without blinking — the real question is which app earns a permanent place in your workflow.
One disclosure before the list: Pellica is our app. We build it, so we are not neutral about it. We have placed it where we honestly believe it belongs, we explain the specific reason it is there, and in every other entry we tell you where that app beats ours. If you want the metering fundamentals first — incident versus reflected, why box speed matters — start with our guides on how to use a light meter for film and understanding film ISO.
1. Pellica — best if you log what you shoot
Every app on this list can give you a reading. Pellica is the only one where the reading has somewhere to go. Its light meter app for film cameras lives inside a film roll tracker: open the meter from any active roll and your film's ISO is already set; take the reading; tap once more and the exposure, your adjustments, and the scene become frame N of that roll. When your scans come back, the settings behind every frame are already written down.
As a meter, it covers the three modes that matter: incident via the front camera, center-weighted reflected via the rear camera, and 5-degree spot metering with a Zone System overlay for black-and-white work. A filter-compensation library handles the math for stacked filters — a yellow #8 over an ND 0.9 becomes a corrected shutter speed instantly — and the ISO range runs from 6 to 12800. In our published calibration testing, 1,200 readings against a Sekonic L-858 and a Gossen Digisix 2, incident readings averaged within a third of a stop in daylight.
Where the others beat us, honestly: Pellica does not meter flash (it is on the roadmap), it does not auto-compensate for reciprocity failure the way Lightme does, and below roughly EV 2 the sensor noise makes readings unreliable — true of every camera-based app here. The meter is part of Pellica's free tier on iOS and Android, with no separate purchase and no ads.
2. Lightme — the best free meter on iOS
Lightme, by developer Giuseppe Bertolini, is what happens when one person builds the meter they actually want to use. It is free on the App Store, with optional in-app purchases from $1.99 to $59.99 that exist mainly to support development — as of July 2026 it holds a 4.9-star rating from 837 reviews, the highest of any app on this list.
The film-specific depth is remarkable. Lightme automatically compensates for reciprocity failure on more than 25 film stocks, carries a searchable database of over 70 films, and includes a dedicated pinhole mode with precise long-exposure times. Metering covers reflected, variable-zoom spot with averaging, and incident via the calibrated front camera. Its signature interface trick — showing every valid aperture and shutter combination at once, like the needle-and-wheel meters of the 1960s — is genuinely faster than scrolling a picker wheel.
The limits: iOS only, and readings live and die inside the app. If you shoot long exposures on Acros or Delta 100 and want the reciprocity math done for you, this is the app that does it best.
3. myLightMeter Pro — best one-time purchase
David Quiles' myLightMeter Pro is the sentimental favorite of the film community, and the numbers back the sentiment: a 4.8-star rating and version 1.9.114 shipped in June 2026, more than a decade after the app first appeared. It costs $3.99 as a one-time purchase — no subscription, no ads, per its App Store listing as of July 2026.
The interface is a faithful recreation of a classic analog selenium meter, needle and dial included, with incident and reflected modes plus point metering directly from the camera view. Shoot It With Film's long-term review called it "the easiest to use and most streamlined light meter application" its author had used, after a year of relying on it as his primary meter in place of a $150 Minolta handheld.
The trade-offs: no automatic reciprocity handling, no logging, and the retro dial — beloved by some, dated to others — is the whole personality of the app. An Android listing exists, but the iOS version is the maintained flagship.
4. Light Meter by WBPhoto — best on Android
Android film shooters have historically been an afterthought in this category, which is what makes WBPhoto's Light Meter the default recommendation on Google Play. The Lite version is free; a paid version removes the ads. The developer states it has been tested against Gossen and Sekonic meters, and the app was still being actively fixed as of a March 6, 2026 update, per its Play Store changelog.
Beyond reflected and incident metering — incident is Android-only, using the front sensor — it packs a toolbox film shooters actually use: a reciprocity calculator, a Sunny 16 calculator, an exposure converter, a depth-of-field calculator, and a white balance meter. learnfilm.photography's five-year review reports never losing an image to a bad reading from it, crediting the spot-metering function in particular.
The limits: the interface is utilitarian, the iOS port lacks incident mode, and like most of this list, readings vanish once you close the app.
5. Pocket Light Meter — the veteran that went paid
Nuwaste studios' Pocket Light Meter is one of the first metering apps ever shipped on the App Store — its listing dates back to 2010 — and for years it was the free, ad-supported default. That era is over: as of July 2026 it costs $9.99 up front, plus in-app purchases, which makes the once-free veteran the most expensive pure app on this list.
It remains competent. Version 9.6.1 was, per the changelog, "completely rewritten to avoid crashes," and the core loop is unchanged: reflected metering with tap-to-spot on the live preview, reciprocity calculations, and incident metering only if you attach a Luxi diffuser accessory over the lens. It holds a 4.5-star rating from roughly 1,000 reviews.
At $9.99 it is hard to recommend over Lightme (free, more film features) or myLightMeter Pro ($3.99, better interface) unless you already know and trust it — which, after fifteen years, many film shooters do.
6. Lumu Power 2 — when an app is not enough
The Lumu Power 2 is not an app; it is a Slovenian-made incident dome that plugs into an iPhone and turns it into a true handheld meter. The Power model sells for $399 and the Pro for $499 at B&H as of July 2026, with the Pro adding flash metering and color-temperature measurement — the two things no camera-based app on this list can do. The hardware line dates to 2018, per CineD's launch coverage, and each unit is calibrated before shipping.
The caveat has grown with time: the Power 2 connects via Lightning, and as of July 2026 Lumu does not list a USB-C version — so owners of an iPhone 15 or later should verify compatibility before spending $399. If you meter studio strobes on film, this is the option that genuinely replaces a Sekonic. For everyone else, it costs 100 times more than the next most expensive entry here.
Side by side
Five of the six options cost under $10 as of July 2026; the sixth costs $399 because it is a physical sensor, not software. Here is the whole field at a glance.
| App | Price (July 2026) | Incident / Reflected / Spot | Platforms | Film-specific features | Logs into a roll log |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pellica | Free (meter included) | Yes / Yes / Yes (5°) | iOS, Android | Zone System overlay, filter factors, ISO 6–12800 | Yes — one tap to frame |
| Lightme | Free, optional IAP | Yes / Yes / Yes (zoom) | iOS | Reciprocity for 25+ stocks, 70+ film database, pinhole mode | No |
| myLightMeter Pro | $3.99 one-time | Yes / Yes / Point | iOS (Android port exists) | Analog dial UI designed around film | No |
| Light Meter (WBPhoto) | Free Lite, paid upgrade | Android only / Yes / Yes | Android, iOS | Reciprocity and Sunny 16 calculators, WB meter | No |
| Pocket Light Meter | $9.99 + IAP | Via Luxi accessory / Yes / Tap | iOS | Reciprocity calculations | No |
| Lumu Power 2 | $399–$499 hardware | Yes (true dome) / No / No | iOS (Lightning) | Flash metering, color temperature (Pro) | No |
If your film work runs through your phone anyway, two companion roundups may help: our looks at film negative inversion apps and the best film photography apps of 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Are phone light meters accurate enough for film?
For negative film, yes. Color negative and black-and-white stocks tolerate a stop or more of overexposure, and learnfilm.photography's five-year review of a phone meter reports no images lost to bad readings. In Pellica's published calibration testing, incident readings averaged within a third of a stop of a Sekonic L-858 across 1,200 readings. Slide film is stricter — bracket when in doubt.
What is the best free light meter app?
Across both platforms, Pellica includes a free incident, reflected, and spot meter on iOS and Android, and it is the only one that logs readings into a film roll log. On iOS alone, Lightme is an outstanding free meter with reciprocity compensation for more than 25 film stocks, and WBPhoto's Light Meter Lite is the strongest free option on Android, as of July 2026.
What is the difference between incident and reflected metering on a phone?
Reflected metering points the rear camera at your subject and reads the light bouncing off it, which bright or dark subjects can fool. Incident metering measures the light falling on the subject, typically with the front camera held at the subject's position, so the subject's own tone cannot skew the reading. Apps like Pellica and Lightme offer both.
Meter it, then log it
A meter reading is worth the most in the ten seconds after you take it — and again three weeks later, when the scans come back and you are trying to reconstruct why frame 14 glows and frame 15 is mud. Whichever app you choose, the habit that improves your photography is the same: meter deliberately, note what you set, and compare it against the results.
Pellica folds that habit into one motion. The built-in light meter reads incident, reflected, or spot, and one tap sends the reading — with your camera settings and location — straight into the film roll tracker as a frame on your current roll. When the roll is done, the lab map finds you a place to develop it. All of it is in the free tier, on iOS and Android.
The best light meter app is the one whose readings you still have when the negatives come back.