Reeheld camera app - take long exposures without a tripod. A review
Reeheld is a fantastic camera app that allows you to take 30-second long exposures. That wouldn't be spectacular. But what makes Reeheld camera app spectacular is that you can take long exposures with iPhone without using a tripod. For me, Reeheld camera app replaced Live Photos for taking handheld long exposures with iPhone. As always, I've used the app for a few months before writing this review.
Read on to learn about the pros and cons of Reeheld camera app and why I'll keep using it.
Table of Contents
- Sample Photos taken with Reeheld camera app
- Features of Reeheld camera app
- Tips for getting great results with Reeheld camera app
- Conclusion
Sample Photos taken with Reeheld camera app
Before I get into the details, here are a few sample photos I took with Reeheld camera app.
Devil's mouth, Portugal, shot with Reeheld Camera App.
Floating creek, Austria, shot on Reeheld camera app
Spinning Ferris Wheel, Austria, photographed with Reeheld camera app
Now, let's have a look at the features of Reeheld Camera app.
Features of Reeheld camera app
Reeheld camera app does not have many features. It's one of the apps that does exactly one thing and does it extremely well. And that main feature is to enable you to take a long exposure photo with iPhone with a shutter speed between 1 and 30 seconds.
So here's a list of the main and most important settings of Reeheld camera app.
Set the exposure time between 1 and 30 seconds
Once you've opened Reeheld camera app, swipe over the exposure dial at the bottom of the screen to select an exposure time between one and 30 seconds.
Exposure dial in Reeheld camera app
But before you hit the big shutter release button, look at the following settings and enable them according to your preferences.
Enable the shutter release delay (if needed)
To the right of the exposure dial, you'll find a small button labeled "3". If you tap this button, it'll turn green, enabling a shutter release delay of three seconds. So if you enable the shutter release delay and tap the shutter release, you'll see a three-second countdown before the Reeheld camera app starts taking a long exposure photo.
Shutter release delay
Enable the smart indicator and GPS
Left of the exposure dial, you'll find a settings button. By tapping it, you'll be taken to the options screen, where you can enable two useful options by tapping custom options at the top of the screen.
Here you can enable two important options: a smart indicator and GPS.
Enabling GPS is necessary if you'd like Reeheld camera app to store the current location as GPS coordinates in the photo.
The smart indicator option enables two crosshairs in the viewfinder: a white and a green crosshair. The white crosshair will always remain at the center of the frame, while the green crosshair will move as you move (or shake) your iPhone. While capturing a long exposure, try to align the green and white crosshair.
Select a lens for taking a long exposure
If you own an iPhone Pro model, you can use all three lenses with Reeheld camera app:
- The 0.5x ultra-wide lens
- The 1x wide lens
- The 3x telephoto lens
To switch lenses, tab the lens selector in the bottom right corner. If the selector reads "W", you've selected the 1x wide lens. If it says "U", you've selected the 0.5x ultra wide lens and if it reads "T", you've selected the telephoto lens.
I got the best results using the 1x wide and 3x telephoto lenses (in that order). Most likely because these two lenses of my iPhone 14 Pro support sensor shift optical image stabilization.
Nevertheless, I also got good results using the 0.5x ultrawide lens, but it took me a few more attempts to get good results compared to the other two lenses.
Tips for getting great results with Reeheld camera app
As far as I've read, Reeheld app relies on two things to create a long exposure without a tripod:
- The iPhone's image stabilization
- Artificial intelligence
Because of the first aspect, image stabilization, my first tip is to use an iPhone lens that supports optical image stabilization. For the iPhone 14 Pro, the 1x wide and the 3x telephoto lens support optical image stabilization. But whenever possible, choose the 1x wide lens over the 3x telephoto lens. Though the 3x lens will work, because of the zoom factor of the 3x lens, each movement of the iPhone while taking a long exposure will be amplified. In other words: You'll need to keep your iPhone more steady when shooting with the 3x lens compared to the 1x lens.
My second tip is to either sit down or lean against something when using Reeheld camera app, especially when using the 3x telephoto lens. Together with the smart indicator, this will help you to get great results from Reeheld camera app.
The last tip comes directly from the developer. According to the documentation, the artificial intelligence creating the long exposure needs a non-moving object in the frame. So when composing your shot, make sure to include such an object like a wall or a building like I did in this photo.
If all objects in the frame move e.g., because of wind like trees and grass, your results may not be ideal.
Conclusion
I think it's been a while since I added a new camera app to my "camera bag". But Reeheld camera app is an app that does one thing, does it extremely well and overcomes a limitation of another camera app: Live Photos only allows long exposures of 3 seconds, but Reeheld extends the exposure time to 30 seconds and produces excellent results - without using a tripod.
At the time of writing, Reeheld camera app is available as a one-time purchase from the App Store. You can download and try it for free and if you decide to keep it, it can be yours for a one-time in-app purchase.
