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Film Spot Meter

Film Spot Meter turns your iPhone into a reflected-light spot meter for film photography. Aim at one part of the scene, and it tells you the exposure to set on your camera.

It also handles the parts of exposure that most meter apps leave to you: Zone System placement and development, reciprocity failure on long exposures, and bellows extension for close focusing. That makes it a working tool for large format, medium format, and anyone shooting slow film in low light.

Spot metering

An averaging meter reads the whole frame and splits the difference. Film Spot Meter reads only the area inside the spot circle, so you decide exactly which part of the scene sets the exposure: a face in shade, a backlit leaf, the detail you want to hold in a shadow. Tap Hold to lock the reading, then lower the phone and set your camera.

Choose an aperture and get a shutter time, or choose a time and get an aperture. Long exposures are shown exactly, such as 1m 47s, so you can time them by hand.

Zone System

A plain meter reading puts whatever you metered on Zone V, middle gray. Film Spot Meter lets you place it on any zone instead: light skin on Zone VI, or snow with texture on Zone VIII.

For full Zone System work, record a shadow and a highlight. The app sets the exposure from the shadow, shows the scene’s brightness range in stops, and tells you the development to bring the highlight where you want it: N, N+1, N−1 and so on. With only a highlight recorded, it exposes for the highlight instead, which suits slide film.

Zone view colors the live picture by the zone each area will print on, so you can see where the whole scene falls before you expose.

Reciprocity correction

Once exposures run past about a second, film needs more time than the meter says, so a metered 10 seconds may need 20 or more. This is reciprocity failure, and it’s the usual reason night shots and dim interiors come back thin.

Choose your film and the app corrects the time for you. Built-in films include Ilford Pan F+, FP4+, HP5+, the Delta range, SFX and XP2; Kodak Tri-X, T-Max 100 and T-Max 400; and Fujifilm Acros II. For anything else, enter the exponent from the film’s data sheet.

Bellows factor

When you focus close with a view camera, a bellows, or extension tubes, the lens moves farther from the film and less light reaches it. At life size you lose 2 full stops. Enter the focal length and bellows draw, and the app shows the exposure factor, the stops of correction, and the magnification, then builds the correction into the result.

Works without the camera

Switch to Manual EV to enter a light level yourself, for example EV 15 for bright sun. The zone system, bellows and reciprocity all work the same way. A one-time calibration against a meter you trust keeps camera readings accurate.

Made for film shooters

Film Spot Meter is made by Ken Mullinix, who built and runs FilmPhotography.com. The app has no accounts, no ads, and collects no data. It works entirely on your iPhone, and your settings never leave it.

The guide walks through every feature, and the support page has answers to common questions and a form for reaching me directly.