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Hi, I'm Dustin Abbott
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There was a time when most professional photographers had a light meter in their kit
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It was a basic part of photography, and for the reason that a lot of cameras at eras in the past
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really weren't all that fantastic at metering. And one of the things that we often don't give modern cameras as much credit as they deserve for
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is how effective they are at exposing properly for light and even for adjusting for color temperature. But as you've probably found
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out, your camera, mirrorless, DSLR, whatever it may be, it's not foolproof. It makes mistakes
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And so I think that even in the modern world, for those that kind of want the absolute best
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perhaps you're shooting an event in a situation with challenging light or perhaps like me
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you are someone that needs to put together video segments where you set up the camera in advance
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and then you get in front of it, and there's no one behind it to change the settings if you haven't gotten things right
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And so as a result, I have found that a new device that I have been reviewing has been very, very handy
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And it's called the Lumu Power, and it is a light meter. It's also a color meter
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And unlike light meters of the past, the great advantage of this is that there's a good chance because of the compact size
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and the way that it interacts with the smartphone technology that you're accustomed to using already
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there's a good chance you're going to have it along. And because you are a little more familiar
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many of you with using apps on a smartphone like myself, you will find that changing settings
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and getting the information that you need is far more intuitive than with a brand-new standalone device
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The Lumu Power is designed for iOS devices, and it has the lightning plug adapter
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And so as a result, it just clicks into the base of the smartphone, and all of a sudden, your smartphone becomes a very advanced, both light meter and also color meter
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But before we jump into that, let's look at the form factor again for a second. It comes in this little tiny pouch here, and so which also has kind of a vintage vibe to it, a leatherette type thing
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But what I have discovered in the now five, six weeks that I've been using it is that, for example, because it is so small, so light compact
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that I'm throwing it into my appropriately named everyday backpack. And I got a little hidden compartment here at the top where it rest all the time And because it so light I not going to notice the the weight now one thing to note about the design of this it is designed to be durable
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and and looking at it it's made of high grade materials there's some actual metal in there
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and then some plastics that show great deal of durability in my mind the point of vulnerability
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like anything that plugs into the lightning port of your smartphone is going to be at that port
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itself. And while I note that there is some good reinforcing there on the light meter itself
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I would recommend, of course, that you exercise some caution, because if you hit that with a lot
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of force, I don't expect good things are going to happen. So once you insert it into your phone
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if you don't have the light meter app open already, it will often request that you access it
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and so then you open up to that. Now, this highlights one glitch that I have seen with the light meter
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that sometimes at first, I only see the photo spot metering show up at first
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It's as if the other things have been grayed out and aren't there
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and I don't know if that's part of a warm-up type process, but you see here there's no other option on the screen at the moment
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In the app itself, you have the illuminates option, and the illuminates option allows you to just determine how much light is available
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in Lux value in the setting you're in. This is actually a two-sided device
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And so some of these you want to be using the front to record, and the sensors are there
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And in some cases, you're going to want to be using the back. You'll note that when you go into the screen, it will actually show you the direction the light should be coming
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And so in this case, it should be the flat side, and as always you're holding down that
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And so if I'm facing this up towards the light here in my light tent, it shows the illuminates value in terms of the lux value here, which is 5,000, 8,000
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222, so quite high, of course, here inside my tent. The second option here is photo ambient, and that's helping you to determine shutter speed
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or aperture ISO. What happens? There's three different things there. There's aperture, there's shutter speed, there's ISO
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So two of those things you set, and the third you measure four
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So in this case, in the camera right now, I've got a shutter speed, or excuse me, an ISO of 200
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that is set. I've got an aperture value of F2.8. And so if I were to hold that up and expose it exposes at 1 of a second which is what I filming on at the moment You got a spot metering option and that utilizes the built camera in your camera to help you to determine that value One that I using a lot is when it comes to actually measuring these same kind of things like for photo amids
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except for specifically for video settings. For this video, for example, I looked at the settings that I should use for this
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And so since I'm shooting at 30 frames per second and I wanted to shoot at a 130th shutter speed
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I wanted to know what aperture to use for this. And so I measured and 7.1 and you can see the
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results here. Now, another very unique option here is that you can also set up to measure for
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if you're wanting to trigger flash units. And so basically, if you're in a modeling mode where you
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want to measure how bright your flash should be, let's say that you're wanting to expose in a
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certain way and you're wanting to use a manual flash unit. So in this case, I've got it set up to where
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it is, I've got it to start. And so I'm going to model the flash. And so it shows me under the
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settings I have what percentage of flash I should need. In this case, it's 39%. And so for those of you that
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want kind of an extra edge in your actual strobing or lighting, that's a very, very cool option to
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help you to determine value in a little bit more maybe advanced setting than just doing ETTL value
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if you're a cannon shooter, for example. Then very interesting also is you have the option of
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on this side, you have the option of measuring color temperature and then also
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So, chromaticity, which I'm not necessarily fantastic at saying. Maybe you're better at that
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But some very interesting things, for example, that if you're under mixed lighting, for example
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which I've got a little bit going here. But on the set, I can hold that down with it facing that way
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and I can determine what kind of light value I need here
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which in this case measures at 4,720 Kelvin in my light tent here
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I can measure, and I see that I have a light value. temperature of 5,700K. And so that's what I've actually put a manual Kelvin value into my camera
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here. And so you can see from the color balance in the video that I have used that balance
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that was suggested by this. And so what that's allowed me to do is to actually set in an exact
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Kelvin value for this particular video and for the lighting that I'm going to be using on the set
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Very, very cool option on that. And finally, with the chromaticity, you have an option
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let say that if you wanting to do a more advanced calibration perhaps even calibrating a monitor or color space you working in and frankly some of those things are a little beyond my level of expertise or familiarity but it will allow you to establish a value in that as well and some readings and so this is a
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device that can help you in any number of ways when it comes to kind of perfecting your technique
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and your results as a photographer or a videographer a lot of different variables here that you can
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use and in all these you've got different settings you can record notes to help you record what
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the lighting situation might be in a certain venue that you use regularly, or if you wanted to
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quickly access the notes, if you're shooting an event and need to take notes at different places
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and to make switches on the fly, all of those things are, of course, extremely handy. And so
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this little tiny device is extremely versatile and gives you a lot of different options
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Light meters themselves tend to be fairly expensive, and in this case, the price for this
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comes in at about $299 U.S. And so it's not a cheap device, but at the same time, for me, it has more of a practical purpose
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than other light meters, both for the ease of use, and then also because of the fact, as I noted
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it is so compact and easy to bring along, and it utilizes it leverages a platform that I've
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already going to have with me. It means that I'm four more likely to carry this than I would a separate light meter
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that is bulkier, tapes up more space in my bag, and perhaps weighs more as well. Because it is so
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tiny, it's been not a problem at all for me to throw it into my backpack and to always have it
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along with me. Thus, I'm actually using it, whereas I suspect if I had another light meter
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I might use it if I was actually staging a photo shoot on a set, in a studio, but not out in the
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real world, which frankly is often where I need it the most. And so if you're trying to expose
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for challenging light settings or if you're trying to figure out color temperature
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perhaps you're under some weird lights and you're wanting to determine the optimal color temperature
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You can take it a step beyond what your camera is able to accomplish by utilizing the Lumu power
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I'll throw a link in the description to their website to give you more information on it
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Also some buying links there if you're interested. And of course, as always, you'll also find linkage to follow me on social media or becoming one of my
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patrons on my Patreon account. If you haven't already, please click that subscribe button
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Thanks for watching today. Have a great day
