Light meters are a useful photographic tool to have to hand when you’re in the studio, or just out and about shooting. But you don’t want to be carrying around all your gear plus a light meter, so here’s a great product that will make life that little bit easier for you…introducing Luxi, the iPhone light meter.
Luxi is a small diffusion dome that fits over your iPhone’s front-facing camera. Fire up the app, and Luxi behaves just like a traditional (more expensive!) light meter. Once you have a reading, simply enter the same values into your DSLR and you’ll get perfectly exposed photos.
The clever part is how Luxi works, simply put, it measures (reads) the light falling on your subject and not the light reflected by your subject. Your DSLR measures light reflected by your subject, after all, it can only work off the light you see through the viewfinder. Luxi, on the other hand, measures light from the subject’s position, facing the camera. This is called incident light metering and is much more reliable than reflective.
Do I really need one?
If you don’t already own a light meter, or you do but don’t want the hassle of taking it with you on trips, then Luxi will prove invaluable. Sure, it isn’t designed to completely replace your pro light meter (it won’t work with studio flash for example) but it’s still a neat, cheap and very useful tool if you have an iPhone.
How much does it cost?
When released, Luxi will retail for $24.95.
Where can I read more about Luxi?
Head on over to the Luxi Kickstarter project page for loads more info.
