An Android camera app by Mantra Productions

Mantra
Manual Camera

A broadcast camera in your pocket. Real manual control, real log, a clean feed and NDI out, from the phone you already own, and the whole camera steered from a second phone or a tablet.

In development · tested every day on a Google Pixel 7

Download the latest build →
A phone running Mantra Manual Camera on a small tripod at a kirtan concert, streaming to a tablet
photograph in the making
What it does

A camera's controls, not a phone's

Most camera apps give you either a pretty automatic picture or a wall of sliders. This one gives you both, parameter by parameter, and then sends the picture where a production needs it: to a card, to NDI, to a screen-share, to OBS.

01

Manual where you want it

ISO, shutter, focus and white balance each on a thick mixer fader with its own A / M switch. Pull focus yourself while the camera keeps exposure. Shutter presets in degrees, ISO presets at the sensor's cleanest and highest.

02

Log from the cinema cameras

Sony S-Log3, Panasonic V-Log, ARRI LogC3 and LogC4, Blackmagic Film Gen5, in the phone's own tone mapper: in the file and on the stream,.

03

10-bit HLG HEVC

With no log curve, the phone's own broadcast HLG: a soft highlight shoulder like film, a wide gamut, none of the smartphone processing that flattens light. Half the size of H.264.

04

NDI HX and full NDI

The phone appears as a camera in vMix, OBS, Wirecast, NDI Studio Monitor. Over Wi-Fi, or over a USB cable with no network at all.

05

A truly clean feed

One key, FULL, and there is nothing on the glass but the picture. Mirror the phone to a computer and it is ready to broadcast.

06

Focus you can point at

Tap anywhere to focus there. Pinch the mark from an eye to the whole frame. A focus puller with keyframes on a distance scale racks from one to the next at the speed you choose.

07

Look and exposure tools

Your own .cube LUTs, focus peaking, false colour and zebra, drawn by the GPU on the monitor only, so the recording keeps its full range.

08

White balance like a cinema camera

Kelvin from tungsten to daylight. Tap the triangle on something white: it reads, steps and locks neutral in a few moves.

09

A camera's readouts

Record-run timecode, REC, the free space and the hours left on the drive, to the phone or a USB-C SSD. Every lens one key. The LED as a light on a fader. An UPDATE key brings the newest version.

The app

The picture is sacred, the keys live beside it

A phone's screen is wider than 16:9, so the keys go in the black margins and never sit on the shot. Grey is off, green is on, dark is a key this phone cannot honour.

The camera: faders, rails, the picture untouched
The camera: faders, rails, the picture untouched
FULL: the clean feed, nothing on the glass
FULL: the clean feed, nothing on the glass
False colour and zebra, on the monitor only
False colour and zebra, on the monitor only
A log curve with a LUT on the monitor
A log curve with a LUT on the monitor
□ focus ○ exposure △ white balance
□ focus ○ exposure △ white balance
Settings: the output switchboard
Settings: the output switchboard
Camera Remote: another phone as the remote
Camera Remote: another phone as the remote
Camera Remote: quality per network
Camera Remote: quality per network

Screenshots from the phone are on their way.

Remote control

Two ways to film a concert

Two phones on tripods and a camera around a small stage, a tablet showing every picture

Put a phone on a tripod as a camera and steer it from a second phone or a tablet with Camera Remote, the sister app that comes with every release. The camera's own screen appears on the remote and every touch goes back: record, lens, focus, exposure, white balance, the look. In the room over Wi-Fi, or from anywhere in the world over 4G through a free private network.

01

Phones and Sony cameras together

Phones on tripods as cameras, Sony Alpha bodies beside them, every picture and every control on one tablet.

02

The cameras, steered from a phone

No tablet at all: Camera Remote on one phone runs the camera phones, and Mantra Sony Remote runs the Sony bodies.

Remote focus, lens and exposure

A focus puller on the remote: a distance scale with keyframes, and a rack between them at the speed you set. The phone's lenses are its zoom: wide, main, tele, one key each. Quality per network, set live: frame rate, size and bit rate, Wi-Fi and 4G each remembering their own.

Hands holding a phone with Camera Remote, the phone camera on a tripod behind

With Sony cameras too

Next to the phones, Sony Alpha bodies join the same tablet through Mantra Sony Remote: one key per camera and a multiview of what is live.

In use

A drawer in the band's rack

Santoshi Kirtan Band carries its whole sound and video in one rolling rack. One drawer holds the tablet: open it, and every camera, the recording and the picture are in your hands.

A tablet lying in an open drawer of a black rolling rack, the camera remote on its screen
photograph in the making

See the Santoshi rack →

Anywhere

From the concert hall to the garden

A phone, a small tripod and the remote in your pocket: the same camera films a kirtan at night and the Matrimandir gardens at golden hour.

A phone on a tripod filming in the Matrimandir gardens at golden hour
Get it

Try it on your own phone

Tested on

Google Pixel 7 is the reference phone: a feature is not called done until it works there, and every release survives 20,000-touch stress runs on its emulator. Nothing Phone (2a) is being tested. Phones differ in what their cameras can do: the app says so in words when a phone cannot, and carries on.

The store version

About €22, with a free trial: every feature on your own phone before you pay. Until then the latest build is free to download and install.

The latest build on GitHub →

Coming next

Exposure that knows the log curve, a grey-card sweep that finds white balance by itself, waveform and vectorscope, the phone as a webcam for a Mac, and tracking focus.