Supplementing Light With Ray's LED

[ALToronto]

Originally Posted by jkt97401

Ray,

I used a light meter app on my phone to test the light intensity for my orchids. I only have a southern facing window and it usually measures between 800 and 900 foot candles. In your expert opinion, would you think that I need supplemental lighting? I was thinking about a lower energy LED bulb like your LED light. What do you think?

There is an active discussion on light meter apps on the Slippertalk forum - and one of the members tested an app against two real light meters, and found that the app under-measured by a factor of about 3. That means the real meter shows 3 times more light than the app.

Apps are consistent, but they use data from the front facing camera sensor, which is crappy by even smartphone standards. I no longer trust the apps.

[jkt97401]

Originally Posted by ALToronto

There is an active discussion on light meter apps on the Slippertalk forum - and one of the members tested an app against two real light meters, and found that the app under-measured by a factor of about 3. That means the real meter shows 3 times more light than the app.

Apps are consistent, but they use data from the front facing camera sensor, which is crappy by even smartphone standards. I no longer trust the apps.

Thanks for this insight! I better head for Jerry's and pick one up!

[lepetitmartien]

To be fair, AlToronto, the app needs either to use the according phone profile if the app has it, or to calibrate with a "real" lightmeter.

I myself started a comparison between my dirt cheap chinese lightmeter and my Canon EOS 7D sensor with conversion formula. It's a bit to early for a coherent idea of the result.

[jkt97401]

Originally Posted by lepetitmartien

To be fair, AlToronto, the app needs either to use the according phone profile if the app has it, or to calibrate with a "real" lightmeter.

I myself started a comparison between my dirt cheap chinese lightmeter and my Canon EOS 7D sensor with conversion formula. It's a bit to early for a coherent idea of the result.

In the case of all of my android devices (i have 4) their light sensor readings were way off! I purchased a light meter and I'm very glad I did. If anyone is wanting a simple way to measure it, I suggest getting one!