Slow Shutter Cam App - take stunning long exposure photos. A review
One of the things I missed when I ditched my DSLR for iPhone photography was the ability to take long-exposure photos. The iPhone camera hardware did (in 2012) and still (as of 2024) does not support shutter speeds longer than one second. During my research, I discovered the Slow Shutter Cam App that enabled me to take exposure photos of up to 30 seconds and longer.
This review will explain why the Slow Shutter Cam App has been my favorite long-exposure camera app since 2012.
Table of Contents
- Why you need a long exposure camera app
- Key Features of Slow Shutter Cam App
- Check Slow Shutter Cam Settings before using it
- Using Slow Shutter Cam App
- Conclusion
Why you need a long exposure camera app
As I've mentioned in the introduction, the iPhone's camera app is limited to an exposure of 1 second, which is too fast for slow shutter photography. Slow Shutter Cam app overcomes this limitation by essentially capturing a video clip and combining the single frames of the video clip into a single long exposure.
With iOS 11, Apple introduced a Live Photos effect allowing you to create a long exposure of up to three seconds using a Live Photo. I wrote a tutorial about creating a long exposure using Live Photos .
However, the Slow Shutter Cam App does not have the three-second shutter speed limitation. You can set the shutter speed up to 30 seconds, and if you need more, just set it to bulb mode. In bulb mode, the shutter remains open until you close it by pressing the shutter release again.
Best of all, you can even edit the motion blur strength after you take the shot. Try that with a DSLR ;)
In the November 2016 update, the developers even added manual ISO control. So now you can turn down ISO, which lengthens the exposure time but allows you to get low noise shots even in tricky light situations. I recommend sticking to ISO 80-100 for good results with low noise.
Here are a few sample photos I took using the Slow Shutter Cam App and different iPhone models:
Brooklyn Bridge with moving clouds shot on iPhone 7 Plus using Slow Shutter Cam App
A long exposure of the London Eye shot on iPhone 6 using Slow Shutter Cam App
Long Exposure of a Fireworks shot on iPhone XS using Slow Shutter Cam App
Key Features of Slow Shutter Cam App
Slow Shutter Cam App is one of the apps that does one thing and does it exceptionally well. It supports the following key features:
- All lenses of the modern iPhones are supported, including the three lenses of the iPhone 15 Pr (or later)
- Supports focus and exposure lock, which is helpful for taking photos of fireworks
- Supports a self-timer of 1,3,5 or ten seconds
- Comes with an Apple Watch companion app that you can use as a remote shutter release
- Allows you to save images in either lossless HEIF or TIFF format for betting results when editing the long exposure photos.
Slow Shutter Cam Shooting Modes
Slow Shutter Cam has three different shooting modes you select by tapping the shutter icon.
Slow Shutter Cam App shooting modes
The three shooting modes are:
• Motion Blur: To capture motion like floating water from a waterfall • Light Trails: To capture movement at night like car lights • Low Light: Long exposures of up to 30 seconds and more for low light situations. I strongly encourage you to use this one with manual ISO control.
With each option above, you can capture motion up to 60 seconds. Set the capture duration slider to bulb if you need longer exposures. More on that later.
For each shooting mode, you can set the ISO manually. The ISO setting is responsible for light sensitivity in photography. A low ISO value means low sensitivity, longer exposure, and lower noise. A high ISO setting will result in a shorter exposure but increase the noise in the final photo.
In iPhone photography, I consider everything above ISO 250 prone to visible noise. So, keep the ISO as low as possible.
Slow Shutter Cam manual ISO settings
Setting ISO to auto by moving the ISO slider to the left will tell Slow Shutter Cam to choose an ISO setting that may lead to noisy photos in low-light situations. So, try to set it manually unless you're shooting in bright sunlight.
Now, decide what you want to shoot: Motion Blur or Light Trails.
Next, set the two sliders Strength and Capture Duration. The capture duration goes up to 60 seconds. If you need to shoot longer exposures with your iPhone, set the capture duration slider to bulb. In this mode, you must manually start and stop the exposure by pressing the shutter release. Only use this mode with a tripod and a remote shutter release like the Slow Shutter Cam App companion Apple Watch App. Your picture will be blurry otherwise.
Once you've shot the image, you can edit certain aspects of the shot. Slow Shutter Cam will display a small toolbar with three buttons: clear, save, and edit. Clear will simply delete the photo you've just shot without saving it. Save does what the name suggests. By pressing edit, you can adjust settings like brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue. But best of all, you can even tweak the intensity of, e.g., the motion blur or the light trails after you took the shot.
Editing the long exposure right in Slow Shutter Cam App
Notice the Freeze button. Once you tap it, you can adjust the shot's freeze (or motion blur). Move the slider to the left to get a motion blur effect towards the beginning of the exposure, and move it to the right to get the motion blur effect towards the end. Isn't that awesome?
Check Slow Shutter Cam Settings before using it
Once you've downloaded the app, do yourself a favor and check the settings first. Older versions of the app had some unfavorable default settings. That was fixed in later releases, but still, there are a few settings I recommend you to check before taking your first shot.
Important settings for Slow Shutter Cam App
Tap the gear icon in the lower right corner to go to the settings screen.
Now check for the following settings:
- First, make sure that the picture resolution is set to maximum, which is 12 megapixels - even if you use one of the new iPhone models like the iPhone 15 pro or later
- Set your preferred picture file format. Slow Shutter Cam can save your photos in lossy JPG, PNG, or uncompressed TIFF or HEIF format. The latter two will result in larger photos but more details. If you plan to edit your photos, choose either the lossless TIFF or HEIF formats
- Enable or disable geotagging of your photos, depending on your privacy preferences. If you disable geotagging, you won't see where you've taken your photograph.
Using Slow Shutter Cam App
Unless you can keep your hand still for several seconds, I strongly recommend using Slow Shutter Cam only with your iPhone mounted to a tripod. On my iPhone Photography overview page, you'll always see the current tripods I use with iPhone, like the Gorillapod for iPhone and the most current travel tripod I use.
Also, I encourage you to use a remote shutter to avoid camera shake and blurry photos when pressing the shutter release. If you have an Apple Watch, install the Slow Shutter Cam App on your Apple Watch, and you can use the Apple Watch as a remote shutter. Quite convenient.
Alternatively, you can get one of the many available Bluetooth remote shutter releases. For example, you can e.g. get the Joby Impulse wireless remote shutter for a few bucks from Amazon.
Conclusion
If you're serious about taking stunning long-exposure photos with an iPhone, then Slow Shutter Cam is a definite recommendation. It allows you to take long exposures of 60 seconds and longer, and you can use the ultra-wide, wide, and telephoto lenses of modern iPhones. Further, it supports manually setting ISO settings for low-noise photos and saving your pictures in a lossless format for further editing.
The only disadvantage is that the Slow Shutter Cam App (like many other similar apps) only supports 12-megapixel photos, even on modern iPhones like the iPhone 14 Pro or later. I hope that the developers will fix that soon.
You can get Slow Shutter Cam App from the App Store. I've been using it since it was released years ago.
