Magic Film ViewFinder

Roman Medvid

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this app

*** OVER 42,000 people across the world using Magic ViewFinder apps to frame their NEXT SHOT ***

• For a cinematographer: looking for an angle and view in your next shoot?
• For a director: creating your next storyboard?
• For a photographer: scouting for a shoot location?
• For a camera man: want to see your next shot framing without the camera in your hands?

Magic ViewFinder presents you a precise framing preview for the real camera/lens combination you will be shooting with, right where you stand with your phone/tablet. It simulates the framing of large & medium format camera / lens and helps thousands of professionals in photography at the preproduction.

PLEASE READ: this app does not turn your smartphone into an external monitor, but operates as a stand-alone directors viewfinder.

If you have any issues please email us for a quick support: [e-mail]

The app is a digital director's viewfinder -- it helps you see the exact field of view for your future shot. Select the camera from the menu and rotate the wheel to select the focal length of the lens.

Supported formats / cameras:
- 35mm
- 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7 cm, 4x5"
- Pentax 645D
- Hasselblad H5D-40, H5D-50, H5D-60
- Phase One digital backs P25+, P30+, P45+, P40+, P65+

Magic ViewFinder simulates using tele adapters or anamorphic optics on your camera (see menu). From the menu you can also select the aspect ratio of the frame guide overlaying your image.

Magic ViewFinder also lets you apply some commonly used color presets (also known as LUTs) to the live picture, which brings you even closer to the final shot.

When you have found the right view, you may save it for future reference, with additional data like the focal length, tilt and roll, date and time and camera / lens information.
While taking a photo, you may lock exposure and turn on and off the auto focus to better control the captured picture.

At the start there is a constant middle-speed center-based auto focus engaged to keep your images focused. But you can tap the live screen to focus on particular objects. Long-click to return to continuous AF.

If the field of view of your real camera is wider than your in-device camera, Magic ViewFinder adds 'padding' around the image, since the device cannot 'see' what is beyond its scope. It is the best solution that we developed first, and other viewfinder apps copied this feature from Magic ViewFinder.

Please note that position of your Android device corresponds to the 'nodal point' of your real lens, which is somewhere in the middle of the lens. This point is, so to speak, the weighted center of the optics.

Depth-Of-Field tool: If you want to check depth-of-field, press DOF icon and calculate the near and far limits of DOF while changing the aperture and the focus distance.

Ad policy: The ads help me continue the development of the app. Also by watching a video ad you can turn on Premium Features totally free for 2 hours.

To activate additional settings, to increase the range of supported cameras to Blackmagic, ARRI Alexa, Red, as well to Sony, Canon, Nikon and 4/3 formats, to use all available optical adapters, frame guides and anamorphic indexes and to turn off advertising, please subscribe to paid Premium Features or purchase advanced Magic Universal ViewFinder app.

Please keep in mind that this app will perform best on the devices oriented for HD or Full HD display. On older and smaller devices this program may perform awkwardly.

Specifically, Calibration is recommended for a precise operation of the app. You can start Calibration process from the menu, the instructions are on the web site.

Please read the description and manual at: http://dev.kadru.net

Ratings and reviews

Mostly a good app, but VERY difficult to exit. You must swipe in from an edge to show the "back, home, app-switcher" icons, then hit back twice to exit. The icons appear directly over the focal length selector, which means about 50% of the time you end up changing the focal length rather than exiting. The easy solution would be to show the "back, home, app-switcher" controls at all times.

The app doesn't seem capable of using the wide angle lens of my phone, only the regular lens. As a result, wide ratios (e.g., 6x17) with wide lenses (e.g., 90mm) result in a preview with greyed out sides. In addition, making a change in the settings seems to "break" the preview (black screen instead).

The app seems to work well, but it fails to write any data to exif - in my opinion this makes it pointless as a viewfinder, because I can't get location data for any shots. Meaning the app is basically functioning like digital zoom binoculars. Will update review if this is fixed, but in the meantime not very useful for me. Edit: I have all permissions allowed and, nevertheless, no success.

What's new

- minor bug fixes