Color meter apps for iPhone, side by side
Cutvey Meter is the most complete phone tool for the light questions a DP or gaffer answers every day: what color is this light, what do I put on it to match, what ND do I need, will this shutter flicker, and when is the light right. It reads through the camera in three color channels, so it is a fast second opinion: for spectrum and color rendering, buy a spectrometer; for incident and flash, an incident meter; for waveform and false color on a phone, Cine Meter II is the specialist.
On this page
Which one for which job
| The job | The one to pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The color of a light, the gel to match it, ND, flicker and the sun, in one app | Cutvey Meter | All of it on the phone in your pocket and on your wrist, $19.99 once |
| Exposure by waveform and false color on a phone | Cine Meter II | The cine standard for exposure since 2014 |
| Incident and flash exposure | A handheld meter such as the Sekonic L-858D-U | No phone camera reads flash, and incident needs a dome or a diffuser |
| Spectrum and color rendering (CRI, TLCI, TM-30) | A spectrometer such as the Sekonic C-800-U | Three color channels cannot see a spectrum |
| A dedicated flicker test | ColourTemp | Its listing describes sampling at 240 fps for 50 and 60 Hz |
| The moon, the Milky Way, or Android | PhotoPills or Sun Surveyor | Sky planners first, with Android versions |
The phone apps: price, devices and languages
| App and seller | Price, US App Store | Runs on | Needs | Languages | Apple Watch | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cine Meter II Adam Wilt | $24.99 to buy. No in-app purchases listed. | iPhone and iPad | iOS 15.0 or later | English | No | App Store |
| CineMeter Pro Farah Aydoni | Free to try. CineMeter Pro $19.99, a yearly subscription per its description, or Lifetime $39.99. | iPhone and iPad | iOS 17.0 or later | 14 | No | App Store |
| CineTemp TKNYE, LLC | $19.99 to buy. No in-app purchases listed. | iPhone | iOS 18.6 or later | English | No | App Store |
| ColourTemp High Water Films Limited | Free to download. Lifetime access $19.99, or ColourTemp Annual $9.99. | iPhone; also Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision as an iPhone app | iOS 26.0 or later | English | No | App Store |
| Cutvey Meter Cutvey LLC (ours) | Free to download. Unlock Forever, $19.99, once. Included in a Cutvey plan, for each person on it. | iPhone and iPad | iOS 17.0 or later; watchOS 10.0 or later for the watch app | 41 in the app | Yes | App Store |
| Kelvy (White Balance Meter) Michael Cerdeiros | Free to download, with 5 captures a week. Kelvy Pro $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year. | iPhone and iPad; also Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision as an iPad app | iOS 18.0 or later | English | No | App Store |
| White Balance Kelvin Meter CCT Contechity AB | Free to try. Ten in-app purchases, from Hobby Subscription $0.99 to Pro Lifetime License $30.00. | iPhone and iPad; also Apple Vision | iOS 15.0 or later | English and 38 more | No | App Store |
| White Balance Meter AI (KEV) Satnam Singh | $2.99 to buy. No in-app purchases listed. | iPhone and iPad | iOS 17.1 or later | English and 5 more | Yes | App Store |
Alphabetical. Every cell is from the app's own page on the US App Store, read November 2, 2026. Prices are US prices and they change.
What each listing says it does
| App | What its listing names |
|---|---|
| Cine Meter II | A zoomable reflected spot meter with an RGB waveform and false color. Incident readings in lux and foot-candles with a diffuser or a Lumu Lite. Color temperature and green/magenta tint, with CTO, CTB and plus or minus green corrections. Solves shutter, shutter angle, aperture, ND or ISO, and records readings over time. Says it is no flash meter. |
| CineMeter Pro | Kelvin and tint from reflected light, or incident with a diffuser. Rosco and LEE gel picks and camera white balance settings for ARRI, RED, Sony and Blackmagic. An ND calculator, waveform, false color and LUT preview. The sun's path over the camera and a 3D dome on a map. Exports, widgets, Siri and Shortcuts. Released October 2026. |
| CineTemp | Approximate color temperature and ND through the camera, on the wide, telephoto and front lenses. A luminance histogram. A location-aware shot library and scene comparison. A sun tracker with the sun path on a map, a 3D view of the sun and video recording. |
| ColourTemp | Color temperature from 2500 K to 9900 K, locked to a 5600 K reference. Flicker detection at 50 and 60 Hz from 240 fps sampling, and a banding risk calculator for your frame rate and shutter. Freeze and compare. Says it is no replacement for a calibrated colorimeter. |
| Cutvey Meter | Kelvin and tint from AWB or a gray card, and lux worked out from exposure. HIGH, MEDIUM and LOW, and DIFFICULT SOURCE for flicker, mixed light on a card or a color past the camera's range. REF or a typed target, and the CTO or CTB that closes the gap, in LEE or Rosco numbers. A live ND figure for your rig. Flicker warnings with a flicker-safe shutter for 50 or 60 Hz power. The sun's path over the live view, golden hour and blue hour, and a map to plan any place and day. A library of readings with their frames. An Apple Watch app with the live reading, the rig, the light windows and a Double Tap to log. |
| Kelvy (White Balance Meter) | Kelvin and green/magenta tint, and white balance settings for cameras from ARRI, Blackmagic Design, Canon, DJI, Fujifilm, GoPro, Nikon, OM System, Panasonic, RED and Sony. The likely light source. CTO and CTB gel suggestions. Saved readings with location. |
| White Balance Kelvin Meter CCT | Live kelvin, Duv (magenta and green) and mired shifts. CTO, CTB and green or magenta filter suggestions, and camera white balance presets. Spot metering, saved readings with notes and an optional calibration. |
| White Balance Meter AI (KEV) | Color temperature in kelvin, live. Snapshots with the reading and the location. An Apple Watch app that shows the reading when the phone is mounted on the camera. |
Handheld meters, for the jobs a phone cannot do
A phone app reads light through a camera, in three color channels. A handheld spectrometer measures the light's spectrum with its own sensor, and gives the color rendering figures (CRI, SSI, TLCI, TLMF and TM-30-18) that no camera app can. An incident meter reads the light falling on the subject, and flash. If you need those, you need one of these.
| Meter | Price as printed | What it measures | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sekonic C-800-U SpectroMaster | $1,899.00 | A spectrometer: spectrum from 380 to 780 nm, color temperature from 1,600 to 40,000 K, CRI, SSI, TLCI, TLMF and TM-30-18, flash, LEE and Rosco filter answers | Maker's page |
| Sekonic L-858D-U SpeedMaster | $689.00 | Incident and flash exposure with a 1° spot and cine modes. No color | Maker's page |
| Sekonic C-4000 | $1,199.00, shown out of stock | A spectrometer run from an app over Bluetooth: CCT, Ra, Duv, lux, TM-30-18 | Maker's page |
| Datacolor LightColor Meter | See their site: the price loads by script and did not show to us | A Bluetooth sensor for lux, CCT, Duv, flash and LEE, Rosco and Profoto gel libraries | Maker's page |
| UPRtek MK350S Premium | See their site: no price on the maker's page | A spectrometer: CCT, Duv, CRI, TLCI, TM-30-18 and flicker | Maker's page |
From each maker's own page on November 2, 2026. Where the maker printed no price we could read, we say so; we did not take prices from resellers.
Where Cutvey Meter leads
Of the apps here, it is the one that answers color, gels, ND, flicker and the sun from one screen and on an Apple Watch. It names the gel in the book you carry, LEE or Rosco, at most two sheets, with the leftover in mired, and shows MATCH within 5 mired against a pinned light or a typed target. Every reading carries a badge that says how far to trust it, and a RAW reading from the sensor's own pixels is one long press away. It keeps the ND for your rig on screen, warns when the camera sees a light flicker and names a flicker-safe shutter, and draws the sun's path over the live view with golden and blue hour on the place's own clock. It speaks 41 languages, and one $19.99 purchase covers iPhone, iPad and the watch app.
Its App Store privacy label lists contact info and identifiers linked to you, used for Cutvey member sign-in, and usage data and diagnostics not linked to you. Readings, frames and location stay on your device and are never sent to Cutvey.
Where it falls short
It has no waveform or false color, and no incident or flash reading: its lux is worked out from the reflected exposure, assuming an 18% gray surface. It shows no spectrum and no color rendering figure. Its flicker warning comes from banding the camera sees, so it does not measure a frequency, and it can miss a light locked to a multiple of your frame rate. There is no export of the whole log, no iCloud sync and no Android version, and it needs iOS 17.
Head to head
- Cutvey Meter vs. Cine Meter II: the color tool beside the exposure specialist.
- Cutvey Meter vs. the Sekonic C-800: a phone beside a spectrometer.
- Light meter apps for filmmakers: incident, reflected and color, by job.
- Sun tracker apps for filmmakers: PhotoPills, Sun Seeker, Sun Surveyor and the rest.
- A Lumu alternative for iPhone: what to use for each job Lumu did.
How we checked
Every app cell comes from the app's own page on the US App Store, and every meter's price from its maker's own store, read on November 2, 2026. We left out star ratings, which move every week, and every claim about accuracy, our own included. If anything here is wrong or out of date, write to contact@cutvey.com and we will fix it.
Cutvey Meter
Walk onto any set and know your light.
Free to download. $19.99, once, for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, or included in a Cutvey plan for each person on it.