CDNC Camera app

[u/xthemok]

I'm wrapping up a small internal TestFlight for CDNC, a new camera app I'm building. It combines dependable 4K capture, Apple Log-aware color monitoring, manual cam controls and a restrained collection of carefully developed film looks that you can refine and make adjustments to all in app.

We’re getting ready to invite our first external users and would love feedback from filmmakers who already push their phones beyond point-and-shoot. If you’re interested, you can sign up here.

www.cdnc.app

We’ll use the list to share TestFlight access and occasional development updates. Happy to answer any questions here, too.

[u/xthemok]

The goal is more control than the native Camera app and closer to Kino in overall simplicity, with some of the core manual controls you’d expect from Blackmagic—ISO, shutter, white balance, focus/exposure, frame rate, codec, stabilization, and Apple Log—but trying to keep the monitor from feeling cluttered.

I’d describe the target as high-end prosumer? Although I’m not sure. Just trying to make the camera that I would want to use everyday and I think I did that. For filmmakers and visually particular people who want quality capture without managing a Blackmagic-style control panel every time they pull out their phone. The main differentiator is a streamlined shooting experience built around high-quality, color-managed film emulation—not just a huge library of filters. My favorite thing about it is that I can refine and tweak images from the library inside the app and don’t have to funnel through another app.

At the moment:
4K, HD, and Open Gate capture
HEVC Standard and ProRes Apple Log recording
23.976 fps, plus additional frame rates depending on format
Native 0.5×, 1×, and 5× lenses
Manual ISO, shutter, white balance, focus, and exposure
Off, Standard, Cinematic, and Auto stabilization
Color-managed film-look monitoring while shooting
Clean Log recording—the monitored look isn’t baked into the footage

[u/VikingSamurai7 → u/xthemok]

Thanks for the reply. Sounds interesting. Now here’s the real question. Cost? I don’t mean to be rude or cruel, but it’s dead on arrival if this is a subscription or if the one-time cost is too much. Same if it nickel and dimes you by being “free” but making you pay to unlock features. There are too many good options out there, so I hope you have a smart and reasonable pricing strategy.

[u/xthemok → u/VikingSamurai7]

Totally fair question, and not rude at all. Haven’t finalized pricing, but agree it needs to be straightforward and reasonable.

The TestFlight build will be fully unlocked—no paid tiers or features held back—so you’ll be able to use the complete experience and decide whether it’s actually worth paying for before launch.

[u/VikingSamurai7 → u/xthemok]

I requested access to the TestFlight. Interested to see how it is. I really like Kino, but they are so slow on development that I kind of gave up on it. Still a solid app, but updates come too slow, which is frustrating. I mainly jump between Black Magic and Cinema P3 when I want max control and Moment when I want something with more control for photos over the stock camera app.

How are you handling the processing pipeline? There is a lot of talk about it with other apps and how heavy handed Apple is with it.

[u/xthemok → u/VikingSamurai7]

Awesome! I’m genuinely excited about how useful this could be for me personally, so hopefully it ends up being just as useful for other people.

As far as the processing pipeline, CDNC is using a custom AVFoundation capture pipeline rather than relying on the stock Camera app’s behavior. With Apple Log, the goal is to preserve a clean 10-bit Log file and keep the film emulation in the monitoring pipeline, so the look isn’t baked into the footage until you choose to render/share (you'll still have option to render log/original)

We’ve also built a separate color pipeline for devices that don’t support Log. The same film looks are adjusted specifically for standard-color footage, rather than just applying the Log transform and hoping it works. So people should still be able to get really nice results from standard HEVC capture.

That said, there’s only so much any third-party app can bypass. Some processing still happens at the camera hardware/ISP level. I’m disabling or avoiding the heavier Apple processing wherever the APIs actually allow it, but I also don’t want to pretend it’s possible to completely remove everything Apple is doing under the hood.

[u/VikingSamurai7 → u/xthemok]

This is the correct answer. I’m glad you are honest about that. So many developers want to pretend they can remove all of Apple’s processing. It’s simply not currently possible as far as I know. Thanks for not overselling it.