phil9945 Loc: British Columbia, Canada

I really love long-exposure photography and recently (a few years) I have moved into analog b/w quite a bit - one thing is that the instant gratification is gone because it might take 2/3/4 weeks to shoot a roll of 36 - so I took to making notes of my exposure settings, neutral density filter #, notes etc. - only problem was that notes get lost, coffee spilt on them - (I am sure we have all been there!!) - using some of the neutral density calculator apps on my iPhone it occurred to me that the thing missing was a way to record this data for later referral - and even though I have not coded for more than 10 years (and because I recently inherited my daughters old MacBook) I decided to write my own app to do these sort of things!
Another problem was lack of reciprocity calculation type stuff - so it was:
set up camera, calculate for exposure with filters, pull out calculator and apply film manufacturer p factor to calculate exposure factoring in reciprocity for the calculated exposure, make some notes - phew!

anyway - long story short - I wrote this NDR Calc and Reciprocity Calculator

it's free - no ads - try it - link below (it's called NDR Calc and Reciprocity Calculator)

setup camera, use NDR calc to work out final exposure, choose measured exposure (without filters), choose nd filter #, choose digital or which B/W film (for reciprocity calc.), start countdown timer in app, record all the data (while your shot is being exposed) including a quick reference pic of the shot being taken, beep beep (timer is finished) close shutter on camera ... move on to the next shot :)

3 weeks later - film has been developed - refer to journal for shot info :)

sorry - it's only for iPhone ... and the UI was designed around better than iPhone6 - earlier models of iPhone - the UI gets a bit cramped!!

https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/ndr-calc-and-reciprocity-calc/id1540515770

let me know thoughts - ideas for improvement - anything to make it even better :

cheers
Phil

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I'm not a film user, having left that behind 2 decades ago, but I would be interested in writing some iPhone apps. I wrote a couple apps for my phone but they were web based php so they would be usable on any platform that had web access. I'm on the iPhone now but my primary computers are Win10.

So it looks like you have to work with Apple to get your app out there. I have not looked into this yet. Can you give us an idea of what's involved? How much time it took you? (I seem to have lots of time these days of lockdown).

nicksr1125 Loc: Mesa, AZ

Would like to see your app modified for the iPad. I cut my photographic eye teeth on a 4X5 Sinar view camera shooting broken airplane parts in the Navy back in the ‘60’s. We had a chart that gave us approximate adjustments for long exposures.

phil9945 Loc: British Columbia, Canada

Hi
yes this was a learning curve for me to - been a pc man since the 80’s
get yourself a mac - i inherited my daughters 2014 model - took it to apple and they loaded up latest os
installed xcode from the app store
bought a 15$ udemy course
chomped thru it when i had time generally about an hour or 2 a day
while learning i applied the lesson stuff to my idea of the app and used google for the stuff that was not covered in my lessons (yet)
Took me about 3 weeks and (i was totally surprised) got accepted at the app store the same day i submitted the app.
In the past i have written tons of php stuff and that came in handy for me (the logic)
actually if you followed the link to my website i wrote that all in php (not the best but definitely workable 🙄)
i used xcode and swift - but i am looking into swiftui now as well
its all api’s and tools but once you get your head around it - it comes together
feel free to message me anytime-
phil

phil9945 Loc: British Columbia, Canada

thanks
it works on ipad BUT
the ui is not optimal
i will def work on it

cheers
phil

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Thanks for the info. I may just give it a try.
Don't think a Mac is in my future. My wife has a Mac but in my 80s I have too many Windows only apps to switch over. And I get frustrated over some of the limitations of the Mac not present in Windows. I'm used to the limitations of Windows not present in the Mac and have gotten used to working around them.

(But maybe a standalone computer for specific projects).

The only reason I have an iPhone is that my new wife has an iPhone and texts from my old Android phone sometimes took 24 hours to get across platforms.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

One of the problems with writing apps. There's always another platform to accommodate.