Hubbo Foto – manual

A black-and-white camera for iPhone. The viewfinder shows the finished picture before you take it.

About the app

Hubbo Foto is a black-and-white camera for iPhone where the viewfinder shows the finished picture before you take it. Everything you set is visible straight away: choose a film, a colour filter or grain and you see the effect on screen, not afterwards. What is saved is what you saw – no colour version is kept behind it.

At the top are the file format with the resolution, the film button, the flash and the menu button with three dots. Below the viewfinder it says A or M, then ISO, aperture and shutter speed, and on the right the exposure button ±. Under that you switch between PHOTO and VIDEO, and at the bottom are the thumbnail, the shutter button and the camera flip.

The viewfinder

Focus and exposure: tap anywhere in the picture. A frame shows the point, and the camera sets focus and exposure there.
Lock: keep your finger down for about half a second. Focus and exposure are locked, and LOCKED appears in the corner until you release it with another long press.
Zoom: pinch with two fingers, or tap 0.5, 1× or 2 below the picture.
A and M: the button on the left below the viewfinder switches between automatic and manual.
Exposure: tap ±. The dial appears, you drag sideways to lighten or darken, and double-tap to return to zero.
Taking the picture: tap the shutter button, or use the phone’s volume button if it is enabled in the menu.
Burst: hold the shutter button down. One picture per second is taken until you let go.
The thumbnail at the bottom left opens the app’s own gallery.

The three-dot button at the top right opens the menu. It is divided into seven tabs, each with its own symbol: IMAGE, RECIPES, CAPTURE, VIEWFINDER, FILM, FEEL and OTHER. Tap a symbol or swipe sideways to change tab, and the menu opens on the tab you used last.

Image

This is where the character of the picture is set.

Look: eleven base tones, from neutral and high contrast to 35 Classic, 28 Street and Arctic.
Hubbo profiles: eight profiles built from the photographer’s own Lightroom presets. A profile replaces both look and film. Press and hold a profile to make it a favourite.
Colour filters: yellow, yellow-green, green, orange, red and blue, like filters in front of the lens on black-and-white film. Red darkens the sky, yellow lifts skin tones. When a filter is chosen, a strength slider appears.
Grain: Off, Fine or Coarse, with a strength slider. Fine runs from 1 to 50 per cent, Coarse from 51 to 100. The grain gets both stronger and larger the higher you go.
Halation: Off, Subtle or Pronounced. A soft glow around strong lights, as when light spreads in the film.
Development: Apple, Own or Pure. Pure develops from RAW without Apple’s sharpening, and then two sliders for noise reduction and sharpening appear.

Recipes

Six memory slots, C1 to C6, where you save your own combinations.

Save: set up the picture under IMAGE, tap an empty slot and type a name.
Use: tap the recipe.
Turn off: tap the same recipe again. The settings stay as they are, but the label disappears from the viewfinder.
Change: press and hold a recipe to overwrite it with the current settings, rename it or delete it.

A recipe saves look or film, profile, colour filter with strength, grain with strength and halation.

Capture

Aspect ratio: full, 3:2, square or wide. The crop is visible in the viewfinder while you compose.
Zone focus: locks the focus at NEAR, STREET or ∞.
Portrait – soft background: the phone’s depth data softens the background. A slider sets the aperture from f/22 to f/2.
Night mode: one press of the shutter takes 3, 5 or 8 pictures and combines them into a cleaner one. A slider brightens the result.
Self-timer: 3 or 10 seconds.
Double exposure: two or three exposures in the same picture, with four ways to blend them. Between exposures a ghost image is shown in the viewfinder.
Video stabilisation: off, standard or cinematic.

Viewfinder

These aids are only on the screen, never in the saved picture.

Grid: thirds.
Level: shows whether the phone is tilted.
Focus peaking: white outlines on what is sharp.
Histogram: the tonal distribution live, in the corner.
Zebra: striped areas where the highlights are about to blow out.
Zone system and shadow warning – zone 0, see their own section.

Film

Film roll: off, 24 or 36 exposures, and New roll to start over.
Film advance: after each picture you advance the film with the lever beside the shutter button.

Feel

Everything here is optional and off to begin with.

Shutter sound: off, digital or mechanical. The mechanical one is two soft clicks, as when the curtain opens and closes.
Clicks in the dials: a light vibration for every step on exposure, shutter, ISO and focus.
Shutter blackout: the viewfinder goes completely black for a moment when the picture is taken.
Light meter: numbers or needle.
Zoom: times or millimetres. With millimetres the buttons show 13, 28, 35 and 50 mm.
Volume button as shutter.
Simple mode: hides the buttons for aspect ratio, film and flash, and the PHOTO and VIDEO row.

Other

Photographer in metadata: your name follows every picture as author and copyright.
Border with exposure data: off, white or black border below the picture.
Info in the gallery: off or on. Controls whether the Info button appears when you view a picture in the app’s gallery.
Language: auto, Swedish or English.
Introduction: shows the first three screens again.

Choosing a film

The film button at the top left opens the list of 23 black-and-white films, grouped by speed. A chosen film replaces the look, while colour filters and grain still work on top. Tap the star to make a film a favourite, and it is collected at the top under FAVOURITES.

The film list with favourites at the top

The zone system

The zone system comes from Ansel Adams and divides the greyscale into eleven zones, from 0 which is pure black to X which is pure white. Zone V is middle grey. Turn the zone system on under VIEWFINDER and a scale is placed at the bottom of the viewfinder.

Tap a surface in the picture. That zone’s box stands out on the scale, and everything in the picture in the same zone is marked with stripes.
Tap a zone on the scale. The exposure changes until the point you tapped lands in that zone. A white bar under the box shows the target.

In practice: put a white wall in zone VII, a light skin tone in zone VI or a dark suit in zone III. If the exposure cannot reach that far, the app says so. In manual mode the shutter speed changes instead of the exposure compensation.

The zone system with the scale in the viewfinder

Shadow warning – zone 0 uses vertical stripes to show where the shadows turn completely black without detail. Then you know whether the black is deliberate or whether you need more light.

Zone focus

Zone focus locks the focus at one of three distances, like on a street camera: NEAR at a couple of metres, STREET at about four metres and ∞ for landscapes. You do not have to wait for the autofocus and can shoot quickly. Turn zone focus on under CAPTURE and the buttons are placed in the viewfinder.

When you change zone, focus peaking is shown for two seconds, so you can see what will be sharp.
Tapping the viewfinder only changes the exposure while zone focus is on.
Zone focus uses the main lens, so 0.5× is not available while it is on.

The recipe in the viewfinder

When a recipe is active it is shown at the top left of the viewfinder, for example C1 · Street gata. The label is filled as long as everything matches what you saved. If you change something afterwards it only has an outline, so you know you have departed from the recipe. Tapping the label opens the menu directly on RECIPES.

Manual mode

Tap A and it becomes M. A panel appears in the viewfinder with three choices: ISO, SHUTTER and FOCUS. Choose what you want to set and drag sideways on the dial below. Each step is a third of a stop.

ISO and SHUTTER set the exposure. The light meter shows how far from the correct exposure you are, as a number or as a needle.
FOCUS sets the focus by hand, from Near to ∞.
The aperture cannot be changed. The iPhone has a fixed aperture in each lens, and the app shows which one it is.

Film advance

With film advance on you advance the film after each picture, just like on an analogue camera. The camera flip button is replaced by a lever: drag it to the right and you feel a clear jolt when the film is ready. Only then can the next picture be taken.

Film roll and contact sheet

Choose 24 or 36 exposures under FILM. The pictures are then hidden in the app’s gallery until the roll is finished, rather like handing in a film for developing. Instead of the thumbnail, the button shows how many exposures are left.

When the last picture has been taken, a contact sheet is developed automatically: all the pictures in black film strips of six on white paper, with sprocket holes, edge text, frame numbers, date and copyright. The sheet is placed both in the app’s gallery and in Photos. New roll starts over whenever you want.

The pictures are saved to Photos all along, even while the roll is running. It is only the app’s own gallery that waits.

Border with exposure data

An optional white or black border below the saved picture, with HUBBO FOTO on the left and the picture’s data on the right:

HUBBO FOTO — 26 mm · ƒ/1.6 · 1/60 s · ISO 400 · TRI-X 400 · 14A

The values come from the picture’s own EXIF, and last comes the look, film or profile that governed the picture. With the film roll on, the frame number is also shown, just as in the film edge on the contact sheet. If your name is filled in, the copyright line is set in smaller type under HUBBO FOTO. The border is added only to the saved picture, not in the viewfinder and not on video.

Saving and sharing

Every picture is saved to Photos and to the app’s own gallery, which you open with the thumbnail. There you can view a picture full screen, share it, or select several and delete them at once. Deleting in the app’s gallery does not touch the originals in Photos.

Under IMAGE you choose the file format: JPEG works everywhere, HEIF gives the same quality at about half the size, and RAW saves both the black-and-white picture and the colour original as DNG for your own development. RAW requires the main lens and 1×.

What the picture carries with it

Every picture carries its camera data: shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length, lens, camera model and the time it was taken. A line describing how the picture was made – look or film, colour filter, grain and aspect ratio – is written into the picture’s description field. That line shows up in Lightroom, Bridge and other programs, so you never have to remember afterwards. No location and no GPS is written.

The Info button

Open a picture in the app’s gallery and tap Info. A panel unfolds with the picture’s own details, read straight from the file at that moment. The settings come first, then time, aperture, ISO, focal length in 35 mm with the real one in brackets, lens, camera, software, date, dimensions, file size and your name if you have filled it in. The panel scrolls. Tapping Info again folds it away.

Pictures taken with older versions of the app show a shorter list, since they do not carry the details. The button can be switched off under OTHER. Films get no Info button.

Privacy

The app collects nothing and sends nothing on. It needs access to the camera, to the microphone for video and to Photos in order to save. All settings stay on the phone.