Bulb: Film Exposure Log
Say the frame. Then walk on.
Only for iPhone
Free · Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS.
iPhone
You shoot film and then, six weeks later, a folder of scans arrives with nothing in it. No aperture, no shutter speed, no date, no place. Just pixels.
Bulb is the notebook that fixes that. It is made for slow photography: medium format, large format, and any film shot deliberately enough to be worth a sentence a frame. You say each frame out loud as you shoot it, in ordinary words, and Bulb turns the sentence into readings and a note.
"f 5.6, two seconds, minus one, the bathing box before the mist lifted"
Tap the key and it settles once you stop talking. Hold it down and it listens for as long as your thumb is there. If there is nothing to say, tap SKIP and the frame still counts, so the numbers stay lined up with the lab.
WHILE YOU SHOOT
Pulls shutter, aperture and compensation out of the sentence and keeps the rest as the note.
Marks the words each reading came from, so a mishearing is obvious now rather than in six weeks.
Corrects reciprocity failure for the stock you loaded, while the shutter is still open.
Takes one location fix per frame.
Keeps a reference photograph per frame, cropped to the shape of the film. It stays on the phone and is never written into your scans.
Turns red on black after dark, so it does not cost you your night vision.
Draws 35mm, 120 and sheet film as what they actually are, not as rows in a table.
Carries the last frame's readings forward, plainly marked, so three sheets of one composition are logged with one tap of SAME.
Understands aperture priority. Say "f 8 on auto" and the scan is marked aperture priority rather than lying about a shutter speed you never knew.
ON 35MM, SHOT FAST
Say nothing at all. Skip through the roll, or tap SAME when the light has not changed, and the scans still come back tagged with camera, lens, stock, date and the place you stood.
THEN THE SCANS COME BACK
Wind the roll off and you get a proof sheet, cut into strips the way a lab prints one. Send the roll to the computer your scans are sitting on and open bulb.film/app in a browser.
It sets every scan beside the reference photograph you took of that frame, and puts the roll in order itself. You look down the rows. If one is out, an arrow moves it. Then one key writes aperture, shutter, ISO, compensation, date, camera, lens and position into the EXIF of every file, keeping each original beside it, untouched.
Lightroom reads it on import, the same as it would read a digital file, and puts the roll on a map.
ON PRIVACY
There is no account and no sign-in. Your rolls, frames, notes, locations and photographs stay on your phone. Speech becomes text on the device.
One optional setting, called a better ear, is off until you switch it on. With it on, a few seconds of audio for one frame go to Bulb's own server for a more accurate reading, and nothing is kept. Turn it off and Bulb goes back to hearing everything locally.
Free. No adverts, no subscription, nothing to buy.
Made in Cape Town, for people who still shoot film.
Ratings & Reviews
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A frame now keeps the whole sentence you said. The shutter speed and the aperture used to be taken out of it, which left the rest of the line reading oddly. They stay in, and the readings still sit on the line above.
The same sentence goes into the caption when you tag your scans on the desk, so what reaches Lightroom is what you actually said.
The developer, Nicolo Stortiglione Pudel, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Identifiers
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Nicolo Stortiglione Pudel
- Size
- 11.2 MB
- Category
- Photo & Video
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Nicolo Stortiglione Pudel
