Garrick Fuji about Lumu
Garrick Fuji, from They Shoot Film collective about first impressions using Lumu:
“I’ve been on a serious search for an ultra portable light meter that has great low light accuracy for quite a while and have gone back and forth between wanting to purchase a Gossen or a Sekonic meter, but happened to stumble upon Lumu light meter via Instagram last year. I approached them about being a tester and they noted that they would keep me in mind when the product became available. Well, the Lumu is available now and the team over at Lumu sent one to us to test out in the real world!
The packaging was pretty sleek and the meter itself came with an awesome leather holster that you can attach to your camera strap. It also came with a lanyard that you can wear around your neck to attach the meter to. The first thing you’ll notice is that the Lumu is SUPER compact. Being able to attach it to something that I always have with me (my cell phone), makes it a really convenient tool that takes up about the same amount of space as five stacked US quarters (barely any space at all).
I had the chance to take it out to Banff and Jasper National Parks in Alberta, Canada along with a few different cameras to do some testing. You’ll be seeing some of the photos pop up on here in the future, but I just wanted to share my thoughts on the meter itself in the meantime.
When I first received it, I took it around indoors and compared the readings to my cameras and did some digital test shots so I could dial it in. It was completely accurate up to ISO 12800 at f/1.4 (I didn’t test it beyond that because I never really shoot above 6400 anyways), and it gave me very nice exposures in all differently lit situations.
Previous to Lumu, I was using the Light Meter app from the app store and while it worked sometimes in a pinch, I never got consistent results with it. This has caused me to have some severely underexposed frames on some pretty critical shots in the past. Being an incident meter, the Lumu won’t work in every situation, but it definitely has given me much more control over how I meter my frames.
The Lumu app is another thing that I like about the system. It’s extremely easy to use, very intuitive, and it also lets you adjust the meter readings to your liking. I currently have it set to add one stop of light to the readings and have been quite pleased with the results.
Overall, I’ve been really happy with it, would definitely recommend it to iPhone users who would like an ultra portable and accurate light meter, and it is a piece of kit that will be with me for many shooting adventures to come!
-Garrick”
