Shoot the street,
not the menus.
The camera is the simplest instrument a photographer carries, and the most honest. basic gives you shutter priority and aperture priority, one ruler, one cream shutter, nothing between you and the frame. Shoot Large or Small JPEG.
One frame. One ruler. One shutter.
The rest gets out of the way.
The camera that demands nothing of you will give nothing back. The one that forces you to choose your shutter speed, to commit to a priority, to see before you press, that one teaches you to see. basic is that camera. Two modes. One screen. The whole app.
Your thumb is the dial.
Drag anywhere along the ruler and the stops glide under a fixed brass needle. In S it drives shutter speed, from Bulb to 1/2000. In A, exposure compensation from −3.0 to +3.0 EV.
The reading turns brass while you move. It turns amber the moment the light runs out and ISO hits its ceiling, no silent correction, no invisible fix. You know when you are at the edge.
The great photographers worked by feel. Winogrand on a New York sidewalk never looked down at a meter. He had calibrated his hands. basic gives your hands the same calibration on glass.
hard end-stop at 1/2000 · tap the mode letter to toggle S ↔ A
Set the ceiling; the sensor finds the light. Native to iPhone, and honest. From Bulb to 1/2000.
Locked at ƒ1.4 for maximum blur. Dial acts as ±EV compensation in ⅓ stops, capturing a processed depth JPEG.
The photograph is not made at the moment of pressing the shutter. It is made in the fractions of a second before, when the eye and the hand and the light align. basic removes every obstacle between that alignment and the frame.
Shutter-priority is native to iPhone and honest. You set the ceiling; the sensor finds the light. Aperture-priority is computational depth lane, blending exposure intent with live depth-synchronized rendering.
basic shoots JPEGs in Large (~48MP sensor escalation) or Small (~12MP virtual preview) sizes. The live look is baked in. In A-mode, the JPEG embeds native depth map details for focus control after the shot.
While RAW formats offer extensive latitude for editing, they introduce complex background pipeline requirements, separate zoom behaviors, and are incompatible with computational depth information. By optimizing exclusively for JPEG, basic provides a highly responsive viewfinder, instant capture speeds, and active looks baked directly into the file. It is a deliberate choice to prioritize immediate color, library-ready files, and camera stability on the street.
Compose in the look.
basic is a colour camera. The viewfinder shows true colour by default, Neutral. Mono is a choice, not the identity. The look renders live and is baked directly into the saved JPEG in both Large and Small modes. Swipe down on the frame to cycle looks; the Action Button toggles without moving the phone.
Display P3, colour-managed, no curve, true colour, exactly as the sensor saw it. basic is a colour camera first; this is it out of the box.
Muted colour, warm shadows, restrained saturation. A quiet, filmic frame. The look of a photograph that has been somewhere and come back.
High-acuity black and white when you want it. Deep blacks, gentle highlight roll-off. A choice you reach for, never the whole product.
Looks apply to the live viewfinder always. The look you see in the viewfinder is baked directly into the saved JPEG in both Large and Small modes.
No invented numbers.
Built for the iPhone Pro camera system, 14 Pro Max and later. Every focal length is the real 35mm equivalent: 2× is labelled exactly what it is, Macro is a lens you choose (S-mode JPEG only), not a silent switch. Swipe left or right on the frame to cycle lenses. S-mode unlocks the full catalog (including focal lengths up to 200mm on iPhone 17), while A-mode restricts selection to native primary stops to ensure optimal computational depth maps.
Robert Frank walked with a 50mm and the world was enough. The glass matters only when the photographer does not.
iPhone has a fixed aperture. We say so.
In A-mode, the aperture is locked at ƒ1.4 for maximum computational depth collection, while the dial controls exposure target bias from −3.0 to +3.0 EV in ⅓ stops. The physical fixed aperture of the lens is preserved in the EXIF metadata. Capturing in A-mode commits to a computational JPEG lane that embeds the native depth map and portrait effects matte—allowing full focus control after the shot.
No surprises, and nothing hidden behind a settings screen, because there isn't one. The camera that earns your trust does not hide what it cannot do.
Flip it around.
The flip control sits bottom-left of the frame, exactly where your thumb expects it. The same S/A dial, the same looks, the same cream shutter, pointed the other way.
The front camera shoots Small JPEG only, locked at standard resolution. Flip back and your rear lens and last chosen format size (Large or Small) are restored exactly as you left them.
SMALL, locked
Bottom-left flip
All three
The only button that matters.
Dead-center. Always live. Impossible to miss. The cream shutter is the heart of basic: one warm circle on pure black, ringed in brass. Never covered by UI. Never blocked by processing. Press it. The frame fires.
The volume buttons and Camera Control are also the shutter. The whole phone is a shutter.
One screen. The whole app.
No menus. Just the frame.
There is no settings screen. There is no gear, no swipe-up sheet, no onboarding. Every control lives on the capture screen or a direct gesture. The frame is never interrupted.
Go shoot.
basic is a one-time $14.99 purchase on the App Store. No subscription, no film packs, no account — a priority-mode street camera for life, including future updates.
The camera that earns your trust and asks nothing in return.
Coming Soon on the App Store