This new Android camera app fixes “fake” phone photos

Smartphone camera apps from different brands used to have distinct identities, but over the years, we’ve all converged on a single design. While this is great for users who rely on muscle memory, it takes some of the fun out of photography. Add to that the over-reliance on AI and computational photography, and you can see why some of us want to return to the good old days of intentional, thoughtful photography. If you share the same yearnings, this new camera app deserves your attention.

VWFNDR + MBL (stylized form of “Viewfinder Mobile”) is a new camera app from VWFNDR that captures unprocessed Bayer RAW DNG alongside JPEG to bypass the computational photography pipelines on your phone. The lack of computational photography is intentional, so what you shoot will be closer to what you (and your phone’s camera hardware) see, complete with photos that include overexposed and underexposed parts — the imperfections are part and parcel of being “real.”

MBL supports a variety of vertical and horizontal shooting aspect ratios. The camera app lets you easily swipe between them (though it takes some time to get used to), and the UI also shifts around the aspect ratio you are shooting in. Users also get clear manual controls for ISO, shutter speed, focus, and exposure compensation. The best part about the interface is that it can be reordered, and the controls can be customized to fit everyone’s shooting style.

Every photo captured with MBL includes a tamper-evident record built on the open Content Credentials standard from C2PA that verifies the source of an image, how it was created, and whether it has been altered. All of this is to say that photos you click from the app carry proof that they were taken by a real (smartphone) camera, not generated or edited by AI. VWFNDR claims it is the fourth company in the world to achieve C2PA Level 2 conformance, and the second, after Google, to support it for DNG.

VWFNDR + MBL is available for devices running Android 10 or later. It’s a free app that you can download from the Google Play Store. Early adopters should note that, for its first release, the camera app supports only the primary rear camera, so you won’t be able to use your secondary rear cameras or the front-facing camera.

VWFNDR’s ambitions go beyond the MBL camera app. The company aims to build a camera that serves as a tool for “intentional photography.” MBL is the first step towards that goal, serving as the software foundation that embeds the same photographic principles that the company plans to bring to hardware.