White Balance Color Temp Meter

Contechity

About this app

PLEASE NOTE:
POINT THE CAMERA TOWARDS A WHITE SURFACE - NOT TOWARDS THE LIGHT SOURCE ITSELF

Have you ever experienced that the colors of your photos does not seem to correspond to the colors of the scenes in front of you? Let this app help you to get more realistic and better looking photos!

This app measures the color temperature of the lighting so that you can set the appropriate white balance setting on your camera. You can also use it to measure the approximate Kelvin temperature on LED lamps and other light sources.

Problems have been reported on a few Android(TM) devices and therefore we now offer a MONEY BACK GUARANTEE - if you are not happy with the performance of the app on your device, send an email to [e-mail] with the Google Purchase ID and you will get a full refund. Valid within a whole month from the date of purchase.

How to Use the App?
Find a surface that is white or gray. A white paper with or without text works perfectly. Just make sure to avoid any colors. Point the camera towards that surface and click the Analyze button. The app will then show the measured color temperature of the light that falls on that surface. The app will also recommend a white balance setting for you to use on your camera in these lighting conditions.

What is Color Temperature?
Color temperature is a characteristic of visible light that measures the hue of light from a light source. Color temperatures are usually measured in Kelvin (K). Low color temperatures (below 3000 K) are called warm colors (red and yellowish white) while high color temperatures (above 5000 K) are called cool colors (blueish white). Technically the color temperature is the temperature of an ideal black-body radiator that radiates light of comparable hue to that of the light source.

When is Color Temperature Important?
Color temperatures are of special interest in all kinds of color photography. The human eye easily compensates for the color temperature of different light sources. Most cameras today have a feature called Automatic White Balance, AWB, which tries to do the same. In some conditions this works OK, in other conditions the results are poor. Many photographers therefore prefer to manually set the white balance value on the camera to match the color temperature of the current scene. With this application you can measure the color temperature before doing the white balance setting on you camera to get a more accurate setting.

You can also use this app to learn about the color temperatures in your environment. With this knowledge you can develop a better understanding of how the color temperatures varies which helps you when you are trying to master the light and colors in your photography.

How Accurate are the Measurements?
To measure the color temperature accurately is a complex issue. On an Android(TM) device is it complicated further by the fact that all devices are slightly different from each other. See the measured values as fairly good approximations.

Got Feedback on the App?
Please send any feedback, ideas or improvement suggestions on the application to [e-mail].

Ratings and reviews

Good idea in theory, and with the right phone it could be pretty useful. But if your phone does auto white balance like mine does, this app doesn't work. It tells me every light source is ~4500K, regardless of the actual CCT. I tried everything from 2700K to 6500K, and it couldn't tell the difference. I tried on a Nexus 4 and Nexus 7; neither one was anywhere near accurate.

On Note10+ not always does the trick. In dim light it was off, the image was not on real color tones or temperature. Indoor, natural light it was fine, accurate and close to accurate. Outside, sunny daylight, it was off, not accurate. It could be calibration, maybe the paper brightness needs to be 100, not all the papers has the same brightness level. Is not perfect, at least not all gets the right data.Hopefully the dev will take time to update it,no update since 2012 :( Android Eclair 2.1old

Not perfect, but close enough. I bought this to measure white balance on a scene with mixed lighting. I have some studio lights and know their exact color temperatures. On my Galaxy S10+, the measurements are within a reasonable margin of error for all of them. It does seems to read the daylight temps a bit more accurately, however. If you want better, expect to drop major cash on a real light meter.

What's new

Please instead use the brand new variant of this app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.contechity.color_temp_meter