We’re delighted to announce the release of FoCal Snapshots 1.2 for both Android and Apple devices, with some big feature additions and improvements.
Following on from the release of FoCal 3.10 with big updates to the Snapshots tool, we’ve brought these updates and more over to the mobile app.
Get the FoCal Snapshots app (free of charge for FoCal Pro license holders within support) from the store for your device, or learn more on the FoCal website.
Better match to Camera Menus
We’ve put a lot of work into ordering and grouping the settings so they better match the menus on your camera:
Some options on the camera have sub-menus, and these are currently listed in-line in the Snapshots app – see the examples above for Secondary slot function and Image size settings.
Export to PDF
This is a big one: want to commit a view of exactly how your camera is set up to paper? Well, want no more! The new PDF export is now available in the mobile app:
Open a Snapshot from your list, then choose Export PDF from the new menu on the Snapshot page (tap the 3 dots on the top right to open the menu).
There are a bunch of settings available to customise, so you can choose to have as little or as much information as you want.
Here’s an example of an exported Snapshot PDF.
Snapshot Conversion
You’ve got a bunch of Snapshots in your library for your Nikon D750, but you’ve just upgraded to a shiny new Z8. Are you going to have to manually recreate all those settings?
Nope!
The new Snapshot Conversion tool converts settings from any Snapshot so that it’s compatible with the camera you’ve got connected. Not every setting will match between cameras, but where possible, the conversion tool will make intelligent guesses as to which setting should be applied to give the same intention.
Connect your camera to your mobile device, choose a Snapshot from your list (for a different camera), open the menu and tap Convert to connected camera:
The conversion process takes a second or two, and then you’ll see a summary of the conversion process (and the filter option lets you show/hide changes):
The newly converted Snapshot is now loaded (but unsaved), so you can head back to the Snapshot page, give it a title, add some notes and save it, or just apply it straight to your camera!
When a Snapshot has been converted, you’ll see a new green icon on the Snapshot page – this lets you go back to the Conversion Summary to check the changes while you’re reviewing the Snapshot Details.
Picture Control Data
We’ve expanded the information captured by Snapshots to include Picture Control data – the setup for all those JPEG processing options such as Standard, Portrait and Vivid.
Picture Control data is a really powerful feature of Nikon cameras, and we’ll be expanding support for this over future releases.
Note that Picture Control data for HLG images – supported on the Z8 and Z9 cameras when the Tone Mode is set to HLG – is not yet supported, but will be available in an update soon.
Restore Defaults
The final option in the new Snapshot menu is Reset to Factory Defaults, which does exactly what is says on the tin.
This will reset ALL the settings in the loaded Snapshot to the camera factory settings, so you can start from scratch.
Don’t worry – nothing gets overwritten when you press the button. You can review and check the changes before you save or update the Snapshot.
Filter and Sort Options
We’ve updated the filtering options for your Snapshots and added sorting to the mix, so now you can order by date, camera, Snapshot name and more.
Snapshot Details
The filter/view theme follows through to the details pages, where you can change how much information you see:
Hiding movie settings and showing read-only settings have been available as buttons on the top bar in previous releases, but we’ve moved them to the View Options panel and added a new choice:
- Hide Factory-default values will hide any settings in the Snapshot that have not been changed from the factory defaults, leaving you to clearly see any modified settings. In this mode, the factory-default value is shown in green underneath the currently selected value:
White Balance indicators
There’s now an indication of the tuning applied for White Balance settings, shown as a coloured square next to the value:
You can always tap the setting to see the details (as has been done for the Direct sunlight Fine Tune above), but now you can clearly see if any White Balance tuning is applied when looking at the list of settings.
Expand All Options
Tap the double-chevron icon on the top bar of the list of settings, and all the options will be expanded so you can clearly see what’s set for each and every setting:
Snapshot Summary Improvements
We’ve made a couple of minor changes to the summary of each Snapshot on the home page, most notably the clearer indication of which camera the Snapshot was captured from:
New Snapshot Icons
The previous icons were a little confusing, so we’ve updated the icons shown when a Snapshot has been modified.
- The round-arrow icon will undo any changes made to the Snapshot
- The plus icon will save a brand new Snapshot to your database, leaving the loaded Snapshot unchanged.
- The save icon will update the currently loaded Snapshot in your database.
Performance Improvements
This one was a bit of an accident. While working on the Snapshots app, we found a 10-year-old bug which has been slowing down communication between FoCal and the cameras… whoops!
The pesky bug has been squished, and now capture and restore of Snapshots is up to 5 times quicker, as well as being a little more stable, especially on older cameras.
Get the Snapshots app
FoCal Snapshots is available as a free app to check your camera connection and investigate the features with demo data.
Premium features are available to everyone with a FoCal Pro desktop license (within support) or via an in-app purchase.
You can get the FoCal Snapshots app from the store for your device, or learn more on the FoCal website.