ManualCameraApp 📸

A manual iOS camera built with SwiftUI, AVFoundation, Metal and Core Haptics. It shoots 48 MP ProRAW and 24 MP HEIF (or both, as two separate photos), runs its UI at 120 Hz on ProMotion, gives every control a crisp haptic, and has a one-tap Medium Format Edition with seven original looks.

The upgrade plan lives in docs/superpowers/specs/2026-10-30-camera-roadmap.md. Each slice has a spec in docs/superpowers/specs/ and a plan / record in docs/superpowers/plans/.

Features

• Pro interface: an Alpha-style status header (mode · AF · format · shots left · battery, histogram and level) above a full-width 4:3 viewfinder, a Quick Fn bar (MODE · F · SS · ISO · EV · WB · FOCUS · Fn) and drum dials with 1/3-stop detents, flings and haptics. Each value is shown once. Long-press a tile to return it to AUTO; tap the format badge to switch HEIF / RAW / RAW+HEIF.
• Hardware shutter, Sony-style: press Camera Control (iPhone 16 and later) or a volume button to focus at the focus frame (green when locked), release to shoot; in AF-S the shot waits for focus. A light press opens Camera Control's own controls (Shutter, ISO, Aperture, Exposure, Focus, Lens; slide to adjust, light double-press to switch, as in Blackmagic Camera) and focuses too.
• P / A / S / M, with Auto ISO in M and metered-manual (M.M.) read-out. Mode changes lock the live values, so the image never jumps. On iPhone 18 Pro (iOS 27) A/S/M drive the variable aperture (ƒ/1.48–ƒ/4) using the iris's recommended stops. Elsewhere S is emulated with a smooth auto-ISO loop.
• Focus: a centre focus frame that stays where you tap (long-press to re-centre) and turns green when focus is achieved; AF-S with lock confirmation, AF-C, and an MF wheel with velocity-dependent gain, a focus-snap haptic at peak sharpness, a 4×/8× loupe from the native-resolution frame and focus peaking (5 colours, 3 levels).
• Exposure aids: RGB/luma histogram with clip markers, animated zebras, a two-axis level and shots left.
• White balance: AWB, presets and 2500–10000 K, plus tint.
• Formats and resolution: RAW (48 MP ProRAW DNG, shown in Photos as RAW/ProRAW), HEIF (24 MP by default; 12 or 48 MP in the Fn sheet) or RAW+HEIF (two separate photos). iOS takes 24/48 MP only in its quality modes, which may fine-tune a manual exposure; Exact manual exposure keeps S/M values exact at 12 MP. Bayer RAW (12 MP) is the fallback on non-Pro phones.
• Focus-safe shutter: if autofocus is still moving when you press, the photo waits for it (at most 0.5 s).
• Medium Format Edition (Fn sheet): a calm monochrome interface with large read-outs and an arc dial; every shot is developed from RAW through MF Natural Colour (an original 65³ LUT), with 1:1 and XPAN framing, film-like blue-noise grain, a quiet leaf-shutter sound and a live preview of the look in the viewfinder.
• Rotation-aware. The UI stays in portrait, glyphs rotate in place, and photos are saved upright in every orientation.
• Smooth lens switching. Inputs are prepared at launch, a blurred last frame covers the swap, and zoom labels are read from the device (0.5×, 1×, 4× or 5×…).
• Reliable. Interruptions, runtime errors, Photos-denied (falls back to Files), failed saves (kept and retried), low storage and thermal pressure are all handled.

Architecture

Sources/
  App/        app entry point
  Capture/    CaptureEngine (session queue), DeviceController (command coalescing), AVCameraDevice,
              Edition/ (EditionDeveloper, LookResources, framing/grain/ΔE maths, generated LookConstants),
              DeviceCatalog, PhotoCaptureProcessor + delegate, PhotoLibrarySaver, CaptureFileStore,
              RotationController, pure maths (ExposureMath, LensMath, RotationMath, ViewfinderGeometry)
  State/      @Observable CameraSettings, LiveTelemetry, CaptureStatus; CameraController (intents)
  Pipeline/   FramePipeline (video-data delegate), MetalOverlayView, EditionPreviewRenderer, Shaders.metal
  Feedback/   HapticsEngine (Core Haptics), ShutterSoundPlayer
  Motion/     MotionSampler (CoreMotion off the main thread)
  UI/         Theme/ (CameraTheme tokens + component styles, Branding), Components/ (DialView, MFWheel,
              HistogramView…), Strip/, Tray/ (Fn bar, dial tray), Sheets/ (Fn sheet), Overlays/;
              leaf views read per-frame data so the root never re-renders per frame
Tests/ManualCameraAppTests/   unit tests (⌘U)
Resources/                    MF Natural Colour LUT + look.json, blue-noise tile, leaf-shutter sound
tools/generate_xcodeproj.py   regenerates the Xcode project from the folders
tools/look/                   make_look.py (LUT + LookConstants from look.json), make_assets.py

Views never touch AVFoundation, and CaptureEngine never touches SwiftUI. They meet only in the state objects and the controller.

Building

• Xcode with the iOS 17+ SDK (the iPhone 18 Pro Max needs an Xcode that supports its iOS version). Minimum deployment target: iOS 17.
• Open ManualCameraApp.xcodeproj, pick your team under Signing & Capabilities if needed, and run on a device. The camera doesn't work in the Simulator, but the unit tests do.
• After adding or removing files, run python3 tools/generate_xcodeproj.py to refresh the project.
• To change the look, edit tools/look/look.json and run python3 tools/look/make_look.py (needs numpy). It rewrites the LUT, Resources/look.json and LookConstants.swift together; a unit test fails if they drift apart.
• The variable-aperture code needs the iOS 27 SDK. If you build with an older Xcode, remove IOS27_APERTURE_API from Active Compilation Conditions.