Zone Light Meter and Pocket Light Meter

If you are choosing between these two for film work in 2026.

About Pocket Light Meter

Pocket Light Meter is a long-running light meter app by Nuwaste Studios, available on iOS and Android. It has been a go-to choice in film communities for years. For its current pricing and feature list, see the App Store or Google Play listing. This page does not describe Pocket Light Meter's capabilities; we focus on Zone Light Meter so you can decide which workflow fits how you shoot.

What Zone Light Meter offers

The Zone System as a first-class workflow

Zone Light Meter is designed around Ansel Adams's zone scale. Spot a tone, place it on a specific zone, and the app shows where every other tone in the scene falls on the 0 to 10 scale. Multi-spot readings can be biased so a face counts more than the wall behind it. If you want to learn or practise the Zone System, this is the workflow the app is built around.

Analogue corrections built in

Reciprocity failure runs from a per-stock curve. Bellows extension is a dedicated setting for large format. IR filter factors apply automatically when you select a Wratten 87 or similar filter. Expired film gets a per-year or custom ISO offset. Each correction is explained in plain language with the math available if you want it.

A 693-stock film catalogue across 70+ brands

Cinema, discontinued classics, Soviet and Eastern-European stocks, boutique rebranders, and instant film all ship pre-loaded with reciprocity curves, push and pull development times, and notes. You can clone a stock and tweak it to make your own custom profile. Profiles are stable, so saved data still resolves correctly when you come back later.

Multi-spot metering with bias

Take three or more spot readings of the important tones in a scene, bias them by importance, and the app averages them into a single exposure recommendation. This is the workflow studio and portrait photographers use to weight skin tone above background or highlight above shadow on slide film.

Bracketing wizard, bulb timer, shot log

A bracketing wizard suggests what to bracket and by how much for tricky scenes or slide film. The bulb timer counts down with voice and haptics so you can keep your eye to the finder. Every metered frame logs to a searchable shot log with CSV export and a Lightroom-compatible metadata preset.

No ads, no tracking

Zone Light Meter ships with no advertising SDKs, no analytics SDKs, and no third-party data collectors. The full feature set is in the free build. No account, no subscription.

Choose Zone Light Meter if

You shoot Android today, or you are happy to wait for the iOS port
You work with the Zone System, large format, slide film, or any contrasty scene
You do long exposures and want reciprocity handled per stock
You log your rolls and want a real shot log with CSV export to Lightroom
You want a meter that teaches as you use it, with plain-language help on every modal

Another tool might suit you better if

You need a meter on iOS today (Zone Light Meter iOS is in development)
You want the simplest possible tool with a learning curve of seconds, not minutes
You already shoot with another meter app you like; switching is friction

FAQ

How does Zone Light Meter approach the Zone System?

Zone Light Meter is built around the Zone System as a first-class workflow. You can spot-meter a tone, place it on a specific zone (Zone V for midtone, Zone VIII for an important highlight), and the app shows where every other tone in the scene falls on the 0 to 10 scale. Multi-spot readings can be biased so a face counts more than the wall behind it.

What does Zone Light Meter do for long exposures and expired film?

Reciprocity failure is handled per film stock with a customisable curve. Expired film gets a per-year ISO adjustment or a custom override. Bellows extension and IR filter factors are first-class corrections that fold into the metered exposure automatically rather than requiring manual math.

Can I export my shot log?

Yes. Zone Light Meter logs each metered frame with gear, film, metering choices, optional geolocation, and a timestamp. The log exports to CSV with a Lightroom-compatible metadata preset so your scans can match back to the frames.

Is Zone Light Meter free? Does it have ads or tracking?

Free on Android. No advertising SDKs, no analytics SDKs, no account, no subscription. The full feature list ships in the free build.

How accurate is a phone-based meter?

Any phone-camera meter, including ours, is constrained by the sensor in the phone. Out of the box most phones are within about a stop. After a one-time calibration against a grey card or a known reference, Zone Light Meter typically lands within a third of a stop, which is the same tolerance as a serious film camera's built-in meter. Your results depend on your phone and your reference.

Try Zone Light Meter

Free on Android, no ads, no account, works offline.

See the full feature list

Last reviewed 2026-06-04. This page describes Zone Light Meter's own features. For Pocket Light Meter's current pricing, platform support, and capabilities, see Nuwaste Studios' store listing linked above. Other developers' apps evolve continuously; we do not maintain a feature-level comparison.