White Balance Meter app for iPhone and iPad
Developer: Jonathan Zdziarski
First release : 11 Mar 2014
App size: 334 Kb
Using color gels? You need this. White Balance Meter is a simple color temperature meter designed to measure a gray card to calculate the color temperature of the ambient lighting on a shoot. Tools like this are often used to help blend their portable lighting with ambient lighting using gels, by determining the approximate color temperature of the room. While there are some color meters on the market for > $1,000, most people only need a simple solution. Obviously, given the advanced light sensing hardware in these hand-held units, youll get far more accurate readings from them, however White Balance Meter provides a pretty good approximation, suitable for assisting in gel selection.
Use this tool with an 18% gray card, although some users report better results with a white card. Shoot a photo of your card, being careful not to expose the card to the glare of direct light. Once taken, tap on the most consistent area of the gray card and the application will approximate the color temperature based on your selection. Depending on the brightness level of your selection, the color temperature may change slightly as you tap around the card. In the event that WB meter cannot determine the white balance, the output will read, "Out of Range"; try tapping on a different portion or take a second photo.
Additionally, you can shoot a photo through your gels at varying distances to get an idea of how each gel will change the color temperature of the shot.
White Balance Meter is not a finely calibrated piece of optical equipment, like the very expensive color meters on the market; it uses the iPhone camera and does the best it can with general pixel data. What it is, however, is a reasonably good approximation of color temperature that is good enough to work with while blending flash gels.
Latest reviews of White Balance Meter app for iPhone and iPad
Still testing, but this app is very easy to use. So far the results are consistent and accurate despite using a budget grey reference card!
I am the director of photography and I was expecting a lot from this app; it turns out that the readings Ive made in Shadowlight which were supposed to reach at least 7000 Kelvin read-out 3000 and some Kelvin in one try and 17,000 in another. In resume: it doesnt work dont buy it.
HAS NO ACCURACY, values for daylight vary between 3300 and 38000(!) in the same shooting!?!?!? It is not at all reliable.
I was hoping to have a portable light meter that could give a reliable colour temperature for photography. I used a digital grey card and was pleased with the first reading. It was easy to use. However the readings thereafter varied between 1000K and 32000K. Obviously there is something seriously wrong with this app. Save yourself the time, frustration and minimal expense.
Simple. Simply doesnt work. If you are looking for an app that will tell you the color temperature of light avoid this until somebody reviews it as actually working. Pity da foo dat purchase.