Shotlight

Shotlight: Professional Manual Camera Control for Smartphones

Shotlight is a professional camera application that transforms your smartphone into a DSLR-like manual shooting tool. This app provides granular control over exposure settings, allowing photographers to capture images exactly as they envision them, moving beyond the limitations of automatic modes. The core utility of Shotlight lies in its ability to manage ISO, focus, white balance, and shutter speed independently. Furthermore, it offers specialized integration with the iblazr series of external LED flashes, enabling advanced lighting control directly from your phone's interface. For users seeking to elevate their mobile photography with precision manual controls, Shotlight delivers a powerful and focused toolkit.

Manual Exposure and Focus Adjustment

Within Shotlight, users take direct command over fundamental photographic settings. The interface presents sliders and dials for adjusting ISO sensitivity to control noise, setting the shutter speed to freeze motion or create blur, and dialing in the perfect white balance for accurate colors. Manual focus is achieved by dragging a focus slider, allowing for precise control over which part of the scene is sharp. This process lets photographers deliberately overexpose or underexpose a shot for creative effect, ensuring the final image matches their artistic intent rather than the phone's automated guess.

Dedicated iblazr Flash Unit Integration

A defining feature of Shotlight is its seamless integration with iblazr external flashes. Users connect their compatible iblazr unit via the audio jack or wirelessly, and the app immediately recognizes it. From the Shotlight interface, photographers can then adjust the flash's brightness intensity and modify its color temperature on the fly. This allows for balancing the flash output with ambient light or creating specific lighting moods without ever needing to touch the physical flash unit, streamlining the workflow for on-the-go shooting.

Multi-Unit iblazr Array Management

For complex lighting setups, Shotlight supports connecting and controlling multiple iblazr units simultaneously. Users can pair up to five individual flashes with the app. Each connected unit is listed within Shotlight’s interface, where its power output and color temperature can be adjusted independently of the others. This enables the creation of sophisticated lighting ratios, such as using one flash as a key light and another as a fill or backlight, all managed from a single screen on your smartphone.

Manual Control in Video Recording Mode

Shotlight extends its manual controls beyond still photography into video recording. While filming, users can perform a rack focus by manually adjusting the focus slider to shift the sharpness from a foreground to a background subject. They can also alter the exposure in real-time to adapt to changing light conditions within a scene. This provides videographers with creative options typically reserved for higher-end cameras, making Shotlight a valuable tool for mobile videography.

Hardware and Software Compatibility

The full functionality of Shotlight is dependent on the smartphone's hardware supporting the Camera2 API. Users must first verify their device's compatibility to access advanced features like manual shutter speed control. For devices without full API support, Shotlight offers a limited set of manual adjustments. The app also requires specific permissions for location services to facilitate a stable connection with wireless iblazr 2 units, ensuring all components work together seamlessly.

Shooting Workflow with Timer and Preview

The Shotlight app includes a timer function to delay the shot, which is essential for self-portraits or group photos where the photographer needs to get into the frame. Users set a delay, compose the shot, and then the app captures the image after the countdown. Furthermore, the interface provides a live preview of how the current manual settings will affect the final image, allowing for instant feedback and adjustments before committing to the shot, thus minimizing guesswork.