Hubbo Foto – manual

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

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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.
• The viewfinder in video mode: the frame changes shape when you switch to VIDEO, because the camera then delivers a different aspect ratio. It becomes narrower, with black at the sides. You see everything that is being recorded, and the dark bands show where the chosen format crops.
• 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.
• 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.
• SHAKE RISK: when the shutter speed gets so long that a handheld picture may come out shaky, SHAKE RISK and the speed appear at the top left. The limit follows the zoom – about 1/25 s at 1× and 1/50 s at 2×. Steady the phone, raise ISO or find more light. The warning is not shown in night mode or video.

The menu

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, modelled on my own Lightroom presets and built into the app. The app does not read presets from Lightroom or any other program. 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: 3:4, 3:2, 1:1 and 16:9, as the buttons are labelled in the menu. The crop is visible in the viewfinder while you compose, and applies to both stills and video. Hold the phone sideways and the picture is saved in landscape, with the format turned too – 16:9 then becomes a wide picture. Video follows how you hold the phone when you press record: turn the phone first, then press, and the video comes out in landscape. The direction holds for the whole video.
• 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. The picture is always 12 MP, and RAW and Pure cannot be used with Portrait.
• 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: four kinds that help you compose. Thirds – place what matters where the lines cross. Golden ratio – the same idea, but the lines sit closer to the centre, in the proportion 1 : 1.618. Diagonal – lines from corner to corner that build movement and depth. Spiral – the golden spiral; place the main subject where it ends, and tap Spiral again to turn it.
• Level: shows whether the phone is tilted, upright or sideways. With Green the line turns green when the phone is level, and with Tap when level you feel it in your hand.
• Focus peaking: outlines on what is sharp, in white or red. Red stands out most against the black-and-white picture.
• 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, Competition with any number of pictures, and New roll to start over.
• Competition and Send the roll, see their own section.
• 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.

• Extra shutter sound: off, digital or mechanical. The mechanical one is two soft clicks, as when the curtain opens and closes. The iPhone plays its own shutter sound when the picture is taken – that sound comes from the phone, not from the app, and cannot be switched off from here. This setting adds a sound on top of it.
• 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.
• 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.
• Diary: the active project that new pictures go into, see Stars and diary.
• Metadata: all, camera data or off. Controls how much is written into the picture file.
• 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.
• Manual: opens this manual on hubbo.se in the browser.
• 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 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.

1. 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.
2. 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.

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.

• Calibrating a zone: press and hold a zone button in the viewfinder, aimed at something at the distance you want. The camera focuses by itself and saves the lens position in that zone, matched to your own phone. The zone then keeps your distance instead of the app’s default.
• 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.
• In manual mode the focus wheel follows when you choose a zone. Turn the wheel away from it and the zone button goes dark, because the focus is no longer on the zone. Tapping the button lights it again and takes you back.
• The word zone is used in two places in the app. Here it means the focus. The zone system under VIEWFINDER means the grey scale – two different things sharing one word.

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.
• The lens: manual mode uses the main lens, so 0.5× is not available while M is on. On the virtual dual lens the phone switches lens by itself, and then neither ISO, shutter nor focus stays where you set it.

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.

Competition and sending the roll

Many photo clubs hold competitions where you go out, take a set number of pictures, often two to five, and hand them in afterwards. Choose Competition under FILM, and the roll works like an ordinary film roll, but with as many pictures as the competition requires.

Settings

• Number of pictures: 1 to 24, with − and +. Changing the number starts a new roll.
• Competition name: appears on the contact sheet, in the file names and as the title in the pictures’ metadata.
• Anonymous: removes your name from the pictures, the border, the contact sheet and the file names, for competitions where the jury judges blind.
• Time limit: choose the date and time the competition ends. The counter at the bottom left of the viewfinder shows how much time is left. When time is up the roll closes and the contact sheet is developed, even if not every picture has been taken.

The app handles one competition at a time. Send or save the roll before you start the next.

Send the roll

When the last picture is taken, the viewfinder tells you the roll is finished. Open the menu and go to FILM, where SEND THE ROLL shows the roll’s pictures in a row.

1. Look and choose. Tap a picture to see it full screen. Swipe to move between the roll’s pictures, tap Star on the ones you want to pick out, and Close when you are done. Starred pictures get a star in the row.
2. Send: All sends the whole roll, Stars only just the starred ones. The contact sheet is always included.
3. Mark the contact sheet makes a new sheet where the starred pictures have a white frame and a star, as if circled with a grease pencil. The sheet opens straight away and is placed in the gallery.
4. Choose Picture size: Full for the originals, or Small – 2,000 pixels, about 1 MB per picture – when the roll is going by email.
5. Tap Share… to open the iPhone’s Share menu and choose Mail, WeTransfer, AirDrop or Save to Files. Or tap Save to … to put the roll in your folder.

Everything is packed into one zip file together with the contact sheet. The files are named after the competition, the photographer and the frame number:

Sigtuna-open_Tony-Lif_01.heic

The folder

The first time you tap Save, a folder picker opens. Choose a folder and tap Open – in the folder picker, Open means “choose this folder”. The roll is saved straight away, and from then on the button saves there without asking. The folder can be in iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox – anything that shows up in the Files app – so the roll reaches your computer by itself. Use the Change folder link to choose another. Saving the same roll again replaces the previous file.

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. They appear as two pictures side by side in Photos. RAW requires the main lens and 1×.

RAW does not work together with Portrait – soft background or Double exposure. If either is on, an ordinary picture is saved instead, and the saved message tells you what stopped it and where to turn it off.

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.

Video carries the same line. It is written into the film file’s description field, together with the program name and – if your name is filled in – photographer and copyright. The METADATA setting applies to video exactly as it does to stills.

If you would rather the details did not follow the picture, there is Metadata under OTHER. All writes camera data, the settings line, photographer and copyright. Camera data leaves out the name and the copyright. Off writes nothing at all – the file then carries only the picture and the colour space. The RAW original (DNG) is saved as the camera delivers it and always carries its own details, but never any location.

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.

Stars and diary

The gallery has a row at the top: All, ★ for the starred pictures only, and one choice for each project in the diary. You star a picture with the star at the top right when viewing it, or in the roll’s full-screen view.

The diary

The diary keeps track of why you took the pictures. It has two parts:

• Project: type an active project under DIARY in OTHER, for example “Västerås after the rain”. Every new picture is tagged with it until you change it or tap None. Projects you already have appear as buttons below the field.
• Note: open a picture in the gallery and tap the book at the top right. There you write a line about the picture, and can move it to another project. The note is shown below the picture, and in the gallery the picture gets a small book in the corner.

Projects and competitions have nothing to do with each other: the competition controls the roll, the project is your own order in the gallery. Projects, notes and stars are stored only on the phone and are not written into the picture files.

Voice note

The book panel has a Record voice button. Tap it and say, for example, who is in the picture or where it was taken, and tap Stop when you are done. A recording can be at most one minute.

• The sound is saved with the picture. Play it with the play button, delete it with the bin, or record again to replace it.
• The speech is written out as text in the note. This happens on the phone and nothing is sent anywhere. The app listens for the same language the app is shown in, Swedish or English.
• Send the roll: the voice note goes into the zip file with the same name as the picture, for example Hubbo-rulle_03.heic and Hubbo-rulle_03.m4a.

When the book panel is closed, the note is shown below the picture, with the button Play the voice note.

The first time, the phone asks for permission to use the microphone and speech recognition. If it says the speech cannot be written out in the language, only the sound is saved – then add the language as a keyboard with dictation under Settings → General → Keyboard.

Privacy

The app collects nothing and sends nothing on. It needs access to the camera, to the microphone for video and voice notes, and to Photos in order to save. Voice notes are turned into text on the phone. All settings stay on the phone.