Spool is a 4×5 medium-format film camera for iPhone, not a filter browser. Load one roll, compose through the waist-level finder, meter, release, and wind on. Develop the contact sheet only when the twelfth frame is gone.
Open Spool and you are holding a loaded camera: empty, armed, or mid-roll, exactly as you left it. There is no feed, no gallery of infinite shots, no slider labelled effect strength.
Scarcity is the interaction model, not decoration. Twelve exposures share one film's color, grain, latitude and process. Every wheel, latch, crank and meter maps to something real. You slow down. You compose. You commit.
A released frame is a finished print decision. There is no post-capture filter, no delete-and-retake, no undo. Just the next eleven frames, and then the develop.
02 / THE RITUAL
One loop, start to finish.
The whole app is a single mechanical sequence. Compose, set, release, advance, repeated until the roll is gone, then developed.
01
Choose film
One of fourteen stocks, loaded for the whole roll.
02
Load + wind
Drop the roll, pull the paper, crank to frame 1.
03
Compose
Waist-level 4×5 finder, mirrored.
04
Meter
Center-weighted, ±3 EV in thirds.
05
Release
Rigid haptic. The frame is committed.
06
Advance
Crank glows until you wind on.
07
Develop
After twelve, the sheet emerges.
f/8 · 1/125
03 / THE FINDER
Compose looking down, like you mean it.
M
Mirrored, like the real thing
The view flips left-to-right, just as it does on ground glass. A persistent M badge keeps you oriented; correct it in settings if you prefer.
4:5
A classic 4×5 portrait
Every physical lens records a 4×5 medium-format frame. Compose for the format directly in the waist-level finder, not a crop you fix later.
⋉
Quiet overlays
Only the essentials: meter needle, focus distance while turning, frame count. Controls fade after 1.5 seconds of stillness.
◎
Magnified focus
Double-tap for a 2× central loupe and focus by hand. Autofocus never takes the frame from you.
04 / THE CABINET
Fourteen films. Choose one.
One stock loads the whole roll and can't change until you develop. Each is a characterized look: color response, grain, latitude and process, never a one-tap LUT.
PT-400
EI 400
Portrait 400
C-41 COLOR
Restrained saturation, warm-neutral skin, a gentle highlight shoulder.
Traditional cubic grain: moderate contrast, open toe, everyday documentary.
LN-400
EI 400
Linear 400
B&W NEGATIVE
Tabular-grain 400: fine structure, clean shoulder, modern acutance.
DC-200
EI 200
Document 200
B&W NEGATIVE
Slow documentary B&W: long gray scale, restrained grain, printable shadows.
05 / THE CONTACT SHEET
Develop the whole roll at once.
After frame twelve the shutter locks. Develop, and the twelve emerge together on one sheet, same film, same character, edge-marked like a real lab proof.
ROLL 014 · PORTRAIT 400 · EI 400 · 2026·06·28
12 / 12 DEVELOPED
▸01PT-400
▸02PT-400
▸03PT-400
▸04PT-400
▸05PT-400
▸06PT-400
▸07PT-400
▸08PT-400
▸09PT-400
▸10PT-400
▸11PT-400
▸12PT-400
06 / THE CONTROLS
Manual means manual.
No program mode. No auto-exposure, no auto-ISO, no autofocus capture. You set the aperture, you set the shutter, you read the meter, or you offset it on purpose.
Marked values only: f/2.8 through f/22, Bulb to 1/500. The meter reports deviation in thirds of a stop. It never touches a dial for you.
APERTURE
f/5.6
SHUTTER
1/250
2.8
4
5.6
8
11
16
22
−3
+3−⅓ EV
CENTER-WEIGHTED METER · 1/3-STOP MARKS
07 / HONEST FIDELITY
We tell you what's real.
Spool simulates a medium-format camera; it does not fake your hardware. Standard EXIF always preserves your iPhone's true values; the camera's marked figures are written to a separate, clearly named field.
◆ SIMULATED
The 4×5 portrait frame at every lens
Marked aperture & shutter values
Depth, falloff and flare cues
Eight characterized film looks
The roll, meter and crank workflow
○ UNCHANGED HARDWARE
Physical lens aperture
Sensor size and crop
The actual leaf shutter
True EXIF hardware values
Optical rendering of the glass
THE JPEG PHILOSOPHY
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, Spool 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.
Twelve frames are waiting.
Load a roll. Slow down. Shoot like film is finite, because here, it is.
