The MUNELA camera app for iPhone released on November 6. The black and white camera adds a glow around the brightest light in photos and video, and it costs $6.99 as a one-time purchase.
Apple limited the new texture and grain controls in Photographic Styles to the iPhone 18 Pro models and the cameras on the iPhone Duo. MUNELA is on the App Store for any iPhone with iOS 18 or later, so older models can still get film-style grain.
Photo: Keitaro Kobayashi / MUNELA
The MUNELA Camera App Adds the Glow While You Shoot
Developer Keitaro Kobayashi is a photographer in Japan who tuned the look himself, with the aim of making attractive images easy to take on an iPhone. MUNELA develops each frame live from the iPhone’s HDR signal, so the photo or video you save matches what you see in the viewfinder.
The glow looks like halation or bloom on film. MUNELA works the glow out from the amount of light in the scene instead of simulating light inside film. Kobayashi says he built the camera from the ground up, and he has filed a patent application in Japan for the technology.
You can shoot photos and video, with or without sound, on the front or back camera. Video gets the same glow as photos.
Glow, Exposure and Grain Are the Only Controls
GLOW sets how far highlights spread into the darkness. EXPOSURE brightens or darkens the image, and GRAIN adds more or less film grain.
The app has no other controls, and you shoot inside a frame, much like looking through a camera’s viewfinder. The viewfinder-style frame is designed to be enjoyable to look through even when you are not taking a photo.
You can pick from five aspect ratios, which are 1:1, 4:5, 3:4, 2:3 and 9:16. The frame can be switched off or set to a white, black or frosted glass border, and you can save only the area inside the frame or the frame along with it.
MUNELA Records Only in Black and White
The app has no color mode. For color film looks, FilmTexture is a camera app with ten films you can apply live in the viewfinder.
MUNELA is a one-time purchase with every feature included, and the developer says the app collects no data. Up to six family members can use MUNELA through Family Sharing.
MUNELA is a 7.8 MB download and is available in English and Japanese. The name is a coined word that starts from the Old English word for moon and is pronounced moo-NEH-la. The app was first called MARS before a brand in the UK with the same name asked for a change.
Download MUNELA from the App Store
