The Exposure System Built for Film, Dry Plate, Wet Plate, and Alternative Photography!

Today, after months of development, field testing, and beta testing together with photographers from the analog community (a huge thank you to all the testers who helped shape the app along the way), we are incredibly excited to officially launch ProFilm Meter on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

This is not just another light meter app. ProFilm Meter was built specifically for photographers working with film, dry plates, wet plate collodion, cyanotype, infrared materials, RA4 and alternative photographic processes the kinds of materials most modern metering tools were never truly designed to handle.

For years, while developing Zebra Dry Plates and working closely with the analog photography community, one thing became increasingly obvious:

Photographers using historical and alternative processes spend an enormous amount of time fighting exposure uncertainty. Not creative uncertainty that part is beautiful but technical uncertainty.

The kind that comes from trying to meter blue-sensitive emulsions with tools designed for digital cameras. The kind that forces cyanotype printers to guess UV conditions. The kind that leads to failed plates because warm evening light behaves differently than expected. The kind that requires carrying reciprocity charts, notebooks, calculators, and exposure references into the field just to make one image.

For many photographers, this becomes exhausting. And honestly, it discourages people from exploring the universe of different analog techniques at all.

That is exactly why ProFilm Meter was created!

Finally, a Meter That Understands Alternative Photography

Most light meters only measure the whole spectrum of visible light which is working precisely only for panchromatic materials. .

But historical photographic materials do not simply react to brightness they react to specific parts of the light spectrum.

That difference is incredibly important. Blue-sensitive dry plates do not “see” the world like modern panchromatic film. Orthochromatic emulsions respond differently to skies, foliage, and skin tones. Cyanotype chemistry depends heavily on ultraviolet radiation. Infrared materials ignore visible light almost entirely.

Yet nearly every metering device or app on the market still assumes all materials behave like modern film or digital sensors. ProFilm Meter changes that completely.

One of the app’s most powerful features is spectral sensitivity compensation, allowing the meter to adapt itself to the type of photographic material being used.

Instead of simply asking:
“How bright is this scene?”

The app also considers:
“How will this specific material respond to this light and colours?”

That changes everything.

For dry & wet plate photographers, this means far more reliable exposure readings under difficult lighting conditions. Warm sunset light, atmospheric haze, or scenes dominated by green foliage no longer behave as unpredictably as they would with a standard meter. For cyanotype and UV printing workflows, the difference becomes even more dramatic.

The Creator & Lead Developer of ProFilm Meter

Before going further, we also want to give a very special thank you to Photographer Scott Henderson the developer behind ProFilm Meter whose enormous dedication, patience, and problem-solving helped transform countless ambitious ideas into a real working tool for the analog photography community.

Many of the concepts behind ProFilm Meter sounded almost impossible in the beginning, especially when trying to adapt highly specialized analog photography workflows into a mobile app experience but Scott made it possible. From UV-aware exposure compensation and spectral sensitivity correction to flash metering and large format workflow tools, an incredible amount of development work went into making these features actually function in practice.

Without Scott’s dedication and vision, ProFilm Meter simply would not exist in the form it does today.

The UV Compensation Feature That Changes the Workflow Completely

If you regularly work with UV-sensitive materials or print with alternative processes, you already know the frustration.

Exposure times constantly change. A print that worked perfectly yesterday suddenly underexposes today. Weather changes affect contrast and density. Seasonal UV differences completely alter exposure times. High-altitude sunlight behaves differently than sea-level sunlight.

Most photographers simply learn to accept this unpredictability because no metering tools properly account for ultraviolet conditions.

That became one of the biggest motivations behind ProFilm Meter.

The app actively estimates environmental UV intensity using GPS elevation data and environmental compensation systems built directly into the exposure workflow. In practice, this means the app helps photographers account for changing UV conditions automatically instead of treating them as complete guesswork.

For Alternative Printers we have built a special exposure calculator that takes this into account as well. Instead of wasting paper and chemistry trying to figure out why exposures suddenly changed, photographers finally gain a much more reliable starting point based on real environmental conditions.

And because many dry plates and historical emulsions are also heavily blue and UV sensitive, these same corrections naturally improve those workflows as well.

This is one of the core reasons the app feels fundamentally different from traditional light metering apps. It was not designed around digital photography assumptions but rather around how historical photographic materials actually behave.

Built for Real Analog Photography

As development continued, the app naturally evolved into something much larger than a simple meter.

Because the reality is:
film photographers rarely need just one tool.

Large format photographers need bellows and reciprocity compensations. Alternative process photographers need step wedge tools and UV-aware exposure systems. Studio photographers need flash metering. Infrared and RA4 photographers need filter-aware exposure estimates. Many photographers also need framing references, exposure logging, reciprocity correction, and process notes.

Instead of forcing photographers to juggle multiple apps, charts, and calculators, ProFilm Meter brings everything together into one integrated workflow that is seemingly connected to all of the things we offer at Zebra.

The app includes:

• Spot, center-weighted, and average metering
• Multi-point metering for advanced scene evaluation
• Spectral sensitivity compensation
• Environmental UV compensation
• Flash metering and triggering
• Reciprocity correction
• Bellows compensation
• Infrared exposure estimation
• Large format framing overlays
• Exposure journaling
• RA4 reversal assistance
• Alternative process tools
• Wet plate timers
• Step wedge generators
• Depth of field and pinhole calculators
• Custom film stock and reciprocity profiles

And unlike many apps that overwhelm users with complicated interfaces, every feature in ProFilm Meter was designed around real photographic workflows.

The goal was always simple: make analog photography easier to enjoy.

Fine-Tuned Calibration for Better Accuracy

Another major advantage of ProFilm Meter is calibration.

Every phone camera behaves slightly differently. Every photographer exposes differently. And alternative photographic materials often behave far outside the assumptions of standardized modern film. That is why the app includes a full calibration system that allows photographers to fine-tune the meter to match trusted reference meters or personal shooting preferences. This becomes especially valuable for dry plate photographers and experimental emulsion makers who need exposure tools that adapt to their process rather than forcing them into generic exposure assumptions.

Instead of fighting the app, the app gradually becomes tuned to your workflow.

Flash Metering Designed for Studio Photographers

Flash metering was also treated very differently during development.

Most smartphone meter apps either ignore flash entirely or implement it poorly. But for portrait photographers working with large format, wet plate collodion, or dry plates, flash remains incredibly important. ProFilm Meter includes a dedicated flash metering mode capable of detecting and holding short flash bursts for accurate studio exposure readings. Optical slave triggering is supported directly through the phone, alongside cable sync workflows for photographers using traditional studio strobes and analog lighting setups. Most importantly, flash metering is still integrated into the app’s broader exposure system.

That means photographers can combine flash workflows together with spectral sensitivity corrections, filter factors, and environmental adjustments something almost no other metering app currently offers.

Fully Offline. Built for the Field.

Another core philosophy behind the app was reliability.

No accounts.
No mandatory subscriptions – one time purchase!
No cloud dependency.

Everything works directly on the device itself.

Whether photographing in a remote landscape, abandoned building, darkroom, studio, or temporary field setup, the app remains fully functional without internet access.

That independence feels especially important in analog photography, where tools are expected to remain dependable for years rather than tied to online ecosystems.

More Than a Meter

At its core, ProFilm Meter exists for one reason:

To make film and alternative photography more enjoyable to use. Not by removing the craft. Not by replacing experimentation. And not by simplifying these processes into something generic. But by removing unnecessary frustration that gets between photographers and the images they want to create. The app helps photographers spend less time fighting calculations and more time focusing on creativity, light, composition, chemistry, and process. For experienced photographers, it becomes an incredibly powerful workflow tool. For newcomers, it makes historical photography feel dramatically more approachable. You will even be able to figure out the exposure for the Zebra Autochrome Plates that are coming soon!

And for the dry plate and alternative photography community especially, it finally provides a metering system built around the materials we actually use.

Not digital assumptions.
Not generic film workflows.
But real analog photography.

Available Now!

ProFilm Meter is now available worldwide on both:

Apple App Store -> LINK

Google Play Store ->LINK

If you have ever struggled with exposure uncertainty in film, dry plate, cyanotype, wet plate, infrared, or alternative photography this app was built for you.

We truly cannot wait to see what you create with it.