Sign in

Héliographe

@heliographe.studio
481 followers 237 following 509 posts

Indie dev making tools for photographers & visual artists Check out AgBr, a black and white film emulator, and 65×24, a panoramic camera, on the App Store heliographe.studio

PostsRepliesMedia
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 18h
“Hey lightbulb, show me an award winning book from a female author I haven’t read” Modern computer vision models can read detailed everyday scenes almost instantly & with high accuracy - this enables a lightbulb computer to understand the world around you, and quickly answer complex requests.
070
Reposted by Héliographe
Photography by Alfie Goodrich @alfie.photography · 30/09/2026
Some super high contrast iPhone shots made back in February of 2025, with the 65x24 app by @heliographe.studio The building on the left has this sort of cantilevered top floor flat which I think looks super cool. But I can't imagine living in it.
Black and white 65x24 aspect ratio iphone photo of two buildings on our street in Tokyo. The white wooden wall around a construction site is in the foreground. Black and white 65x24 aspect ratio iphone photo of two buildings on our street in Tokyo. The white wooden wall around a construction site is in the foreground. It has shadows of nearby trees and telegraph wires on it.
0415
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 29/09/2026
While I was working on Lightbulb Computer over the summer, I learned that some people use projectors to help with cutting & sewing fabric. Very cool!
0201
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 28/09/2026
A lightbulb computer lets you pin notes, timers, and other widgets in the world around you You can stay focused on what you’re doing, no fussing with a screen (especially nice with wet or messy hands), and everyone in the room can see it too, and join in
0150
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 28/09/2026
BoM is a question with no answer right now, this is a research prototype not a production prototype 😁 Multiple units to increase coverage, absolutely! I think we were missing high quality computer vision and small+bright projector tech to make this happen until now… but we’re slowly getting there
010
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 27/09/2026
100% agreed that computers we own and control should be something we strive to push and keep thriving as much as we can!
000
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 27/09/2026
The privacy angle applies to any tech with cameras/microphones; there are clearly use cases where glasses can do things no other tech can. My main issue with them is that they live on your face, and doing anything together requires everyone to wear them - especially problematic with kids
100
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 27/09/2026
We can build a world where people do things with digital information together, in the real world, without tiny screens or awkward smart glasses
0101
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 27/09/2026
With a Lightbulb Computer, you can look up a word in a book you're studying, without taking out your phone or wearing smart glasses.
1171
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 26/09/2026
cheers! Did not see the Thought Lamp before, checking it out! Also been a huge fan of your tabletop experiments!
010
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 26/09/2026
I spent the summer prototyping a device that projects information and imbues computing into the real world, I call it the Lightbulb Computer. Full write up and demos at lightbulbcomputer.com Or on YouTube: youtu.be/0R-9qkjPEqg
lightbulbcomputer.com
The Lightbulb Computer — Reimagining Spatial & Ambient Computing with Projectors
A new direction for computing: projecting information into the real world to augment it, with a device that combines a projector and computer vision in the shape of a large lightbulb.
2286
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 26/09/2026
Planning a trip on a table-sized map with someone; pinning recipes, timers, and widgets to the kitchen wall while cooking with messy hands; asking my bookshelf to highlight a book I can’t find; and more - all without a phone or smart glasses.
1100
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 24/09/2026
Bayer Cam 2.1 update coming very soon - some fun things for iPhone 18 Pro owners, and some fun things for everyone else too
020
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 23/09/2026
RIP you majestic creature
0530
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 22/09/2026
I’ve been asking non techie people recently what they think of foldable phones, and if they’d consider getting one - and a common response I get is “Bigger screen sounds nice but I’m too afraid it’d break”
020
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 21/09/2026
This results in an image with significantly different characteristics, as reviewers have been observing For a true single frame workflow that lets you set ISO, shoot Bayer RAW - with Bayer Cam :)
010
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 21/09/2026
Shutter speed is same; but you can't accurately replicate the exact characteristics of a slow shutter speed exposure in processing like you can w/ grain This makes shutter speed control a bit more special & Apple has confirmed that if you set shutter speed manually, the capture uses a single frame
110
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 21/09/2026
So the notion of a single ISO value doesn't make sense in a computational pipeline like it does for film/single digital exposure If you want grain in your photo, this is why Apple added Grain/Texture control
110
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 21/09/2026
I keep hearing iPhone camera reviewers ask why Apple did not include ISO in the Pro controls My best guess: the iPhone processing pipeline works by fusing multiple frames, with different exposure parameters, to form a final image with much better sharpness/contrast/noise reduction/etc.
220
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 21/09/2026
Releasing something big in the next week or so :)
020
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 20/09/2026
Updated my iPhone Pro camera reference chart Another year with a 1/1.28" Sony 90X sensor, we know what to hope for for next year...
020
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 19/09/2026
Apple has high-level APIs that make building UI automagical But when experimenting with new hardware I like to rebuild everything from scratch to understand the fundamental building blocks An old habit from when I was a UI prototyper in Apple's Hardware org, with only basic firmware to work with 😄
1332
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 19/09/2026
Well, the whole family's here
040
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 19/09/2026
On every iOS device until the Duo, the camera sensor orientation matched the screen orientation, which made the elegant design of 65x24.app possible On iPhone Duo this isn't true anymore, and it's going to be a bit of a pain to solve. Luckily, I have lots of ideas...
030
Reposted by Héliographe
Photography by Alfie Goodrich @alfie.photography · 18/09/2026
Kawagoe skies. April, 2025 Two photos made on a day I was put in Kawagoe shooting with a biotech client. Gorgeous skies that day. Grabbed these on a walk between two parts of the campus. Made with the 65x24 app by @heliographe.studio
65x24 aspect ratio photograph of a blue sky above the top of a warehouse. The roof and walls of the warehouse are a sun-bleached orangey pink colour. A few clouds on the deep blue sky and wires running from a telegraph pole on the right side of the scene.A 65x24 aspect ratio photo of an apartment block. Behind it, in a pale blue sky, is a huge clump of distant clouds. Telegraph wires flow through the top of the scene, from two poles one at each side. The pole on the right has vegetation climbing up it. The clouds are reminiscent of those you see in Japanese animated films.
2343
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 17/09/2026
wow, the blacks & contrast on those are gorgeous!
120
Reposted by Héliographe
Photography by Alfie Goodrich @alfie.photography · 17/09/2026
The Kawaramachi Public Housing, Kawasaki, Japan. By architect 大谷 幸夫, Ōtani Sachio. A few shots from a walk there a few years ago, made on my iPhone 12Pro with the 65x24 app by @heliographe.studio #photography #architecture
Detail of the outside of one of the main sections of the Kawaramachi Public Housing complex in Kawasaki. Looking up the east gable end of the building seeing the stairwells and ends of the landings. Black and white photo in 65x24 aspect ratio. Deep black shadows. Stark white of the concrete structure against a jet-black sky.Inside detail of one of the atriums of the Kawaramachi public housing buildings in Kawasaki. Concrete arches spell out the atrium space, on top of which the main structure of the housing block sits. Detail of the outside of several parts of the Kawaramachi Public Housing complex in Kawasaki. Black and white photo in 65x24 aspect ratio. Deep black shadows. Stark white of the concrete structure against a jet-black sky.Looking up in to arched, vaulted ceiling of the atrium in one of the main structures at the Kawaramachi public housing complex in Kawasaki, Japan.
47811
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 17/09/2026
Camera app on iPhone Duo fills the front screen- but the camera sensor has a 4:3 (1.33) aspect ratio, whereas the Duo is 1.45 This means there's about 10% of the image's horizontal dimension missing from the preview An odd decision, but I guess they preferred that over having 170px of black edges?
240
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 16/09/2026
It's estimated that Apple sold 25M Mac units, 60M iPad units, 250M iPhone units in 2025. This is why the odds of Apple ever making an interchangeable lens camera are pretty much 0.
000
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 16/09/2026
"I wish Apple made an interchangeable lens camera!" is something I hear all the time. Here are camera unit sales (combined, not just ILC) per manufacturer in 2025 (according to Nikkei report). Cameras are a ~10 million units/year market.
220
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 15/09/2026
Artists always sign their work. Bayer Cam lets you easily set the EXIF Artist Name, attaching it to every photo you take.
050
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 15/09/2026
One thing I'll be very curious to find out in coming years is whether Apple adds the variable aperture to the other cameras on the Pro camera system, or if they feel like it only belongs on the wide lens. It wouldn't make much sense on the ultra-wide camera, but the telephoto could benefit from it.
010
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 14/09/2026
The iPhone Duo page has a little QA section at the end, which gives you an idea of the audience they're going for, and the obstacles to adoption they expect to face. Interesting to see which pages have similar sections - eg the iPhone Air has one, but not the MacBook Neo
100
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 14/09/2026
I will update Bayer Cam with variable aperture support for iPhone 18 Pro (and bonus surprises, too) I want to take the time to make sure the updated design makes sense and is rock solid with the new hardware. It’ll therefore arrive a few weeks after the iPhone release - polished and worth the wait!
020
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 14/09/2026
Kind of a wild turn of events for Nike - especially so with Tim Cook on their board as Lead Independent Director. I hope one day we get to hear about the behind the scenes drama, because surely there must have been plenty of it
020
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 14/09/2026
A better redesign would blend signal strength with actual network performance. I suspect carriers, not Apple designers, are the bottleneck here. But if so, Apple should just tell them to fuck off.
020
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 14/09/2026
Everyone’s drooling over the Duo status bar redesign, but I’ve always found the network bar display to be a fundamentally flawed visualization Having full bars and no data, or 2 bars and a totally useable connection, is a pretty common experience - so what’s the point?
120
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 10/09/2026
Reminder that at least for the next few years, less than 0.01% of your iOS users will have an iPhone Duo Putting effort into supporting it can pay off (especially if you want Apple-senpai to notice you) but if you're an already overworked indie dev you probably shouldn't lose too much sleep over it
040
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 10/09/2026
Pls Apple do Game Boy Color Atomic Purple next year
082
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 09/09/2026
Joz: “Ok we made the hardcore fanboys buy an Apple Pencil, we made them buy an Apple Pencil Pro; now how do we make them buy an Apple Pencil USB-C?” JT: “Hear me out…”
010
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 09/09/2026
iPhone Duo is great, but every European knows that iPhone Bueno will be the tastier option
000
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 09/09/2026
Apple Pencil working with iPhone Duo - but with no way to charge it - is going to be annoying
000
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 08/09/2026
BitCam 2.1 is out! This is a fun one: you can now install a macOS system extension to use BitCam as a camera in Zoom, PhotoBooth, Google Meet, WebEx... any app that lets you pick a camera.
0102
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 06/09/2026
Competition for pro camera apps on iOS is about to get much rougher iOS 27 beta 8 includes (disabled) code & UI for histograms, focus peaking, highlight clipping, manual focus & more Seems like we are getting the long rumored "pro mode" in Camera app next week forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-...
060
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 03/09/2026
As far as I’m aware, none of the secret BitCam easter eggs have been found yet 👀
140
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 03/09/2026
Placing my bet now on the name iPhone Folio, or iPhone Duo. iPhone Ultra doesn't make sense given that it will definitely not be Ultra compared to a Pro (no Face ID, no telephoto, battery life less than the Pro Max, etc) Looking forward to being wrong next week 🙃
540
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 02/09/2026
See you, space cowboy 🫡
010
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 30/08/2026
A single "art" pixel in BitCam is rendered by 36 real pixels on modern iPhones It's easy to forget how insane the tech in our pockets is: at 1:1 scale, you could fit the original Macintosh display 15 times on an iPhone screen (with room to spare)
0121
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 29/08/2026
My advanced camera apps such as Bayer Cam and 65×24 come with many thousands of words of documentation that will teach you how to use every feature of the app, and how your smartphone's camera actually works. All human written, of course. (it's me, I'm the human)
030
Héliographe @heliographe.studio · 29/08/2026
What is the opposite of the Mac design philosophy? In 1996, Jakob Nielsen published a speculative essay, The Anti-Mac User Interface, exploring exactly this Some of it aged well, some not, but it remains one of my favorite examples of divergent design thinking www.nngroup.com/articles/ant...
040