VEEB Projects' Photon Is a Raspberry Pi Pico MicroPython Incident Light Meter for Photographers
Designed to give you insight into light levels prior to snapping a shot, the Photon is a handheld must-have for photographers
Maker collective VEEB Projects has released the design files and source code for a handy photography tool, powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico and MicroPython: the Photon incident light meter.
"Photon reproduces the some of the functionality of more expensive tools, using a few inexpensive/readily available parts," the collective explains of the open-source project. "An incident light meter can be an essential tool in photography (especially film photography with old cameras). The sophisticated computation baked-in to modern cameras devotes a lot of effort guessing 'how much light is falling on the subject?". If you have the option of getting to the subject and taking a reading, no guessing is required and everything becomes a lot easier."
Commercial incident light meters can be pricey pieces of equipment, but VEEB Projects' version, brought to our attention by Raspberry Pi, cuts the cost considerably: it uses a Raspberry Pi Pico and its RP2040 microcontroller as the driving controller, a low-cost Waveshare 128×128 full-color OLED display, a Pimoroni BH1745 light sensor board, a rotary encoder and two momentary switches to drive the user interface, and a Pimoroni Pico LiPo Shim to connect everything to a lithium battery for on-the-go use — plus a neat 3D-printed chassis to keep everything palm-friendly.
"Currently it measures ambient light brightness, as well as the red, green and blue components of the light, which might allow white balance readings in future iterations," the collective writes of the device's capabilities in its initial release. "There is soldering involved, but don't let that put you off, it's easy."
This isn't VEEB Projects' first Raspberry Pi Pico-powered creation: the collective has previously shown off a "mother" clock system based on "atomic-ish" time, a PID controller to help build a better burger, and an upgraded coffee grinder — while in October last year the group showed off a minimalist ePaper display as a Volumio now-playing indicator powered by a Raspberry Pi Zero.
The source code and design files for the Photon are available on VEEB Projects' GitHub repository, under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3.