Top Mobile Apps for Film Photographers 2023

App 1: Lightmate Light Meter

How accurate do you think the light meter built in to your 30 or 40 year old camera truly is? Not very. During the daytime in bright conditions, your built in lightmeter is perfectly fine, but once you start taking photos indoors, at dawn or dusk, it becomes less and less reliable. This is where Lightmate comes into it, Your mobile phone has an advanced camera that is designed to shoot in all conditions, no matter how challenging. Light mate uses this camera to give you the exact settings (shutter speed and aperture) you need to use to achieve fantastic photos no matter how dark or bright it is.

Ive used a few different lightmeter apps and they are all very similar. Lightmate is a free app which is why Ive chosen it over other options

 

App 2 : Viewfinder Preview

This is a simple app but can be a very powerful tool. It does exactly what it says on the tin. You can choose any film format, stock and lens and see an exact preview of how it looks on your mobile phone screen. This means you can see an exact preview of how your composition looks before you take the exposure. It has a few benefits, such as being able to preplan your photos, use it to observe how tones appear before taking your photo and of course, saving wasted shots.

This app is available on the appstore for €4.99

 

App 3: Reciprocity Timer

If you shoot at night time, Im sure you will have had issues with reciprocity failure. Reciprocity failure is when the relationship between shutter speed and aperture no longer acts proportionally. This often happens at long exposure times when shooting film. This handy little calculator will tell you the exact time you should be metering for when you need to shoot longer exposure times.

This app is available on the appstore for €2.49

 

App 4: Photographers Ephermis

A handy little app for sunrise, sunset and astro-photographers. You access a map and can see where the sun rises and sets, as well as see the suns position relative to your position at any time. It also is able to do this with the position of the moon and tell you what parts of the night sky are going to be visible and what time.

This app is available on the appstore for €11.99

  

App 5: Massive Dev Chart Timer:

This app is fantastic if you develop film yourself. Based off the website, it makes developing black and white film so much easier. Simply put in your film stock, format, and developer and it will create a timer for you to use as you develop your film. This timer gives you your development times and will notify you when you should be agitating your film. Its as simple as that! A very simple but very powerful tool

Its available on the app store for €10.99

 

App 5: VERO          

This is THE social network for photographers. It is a massive community from all forms of photography. It works similarly to instagram where you curate your own feed and can like, comment and discuss other photographers work. It also contains many features that will allow you to network with fellow photographers. One of its massive benefits over other social networks is that it does not downsample and compress your work. Your photos are displayed in fantastic detail meaning you can showcase the true level of your photography

Its available on the app store and android for Free

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