A Photographer Couldn’t Find the Analog Companion App He Wanted, so He Built It
French photographer Imad Djebarni just developed a new iPhone app designed for film photographers. Pellica’s primary purpose is to track which films photographers use, which is not a wholly new concept for an app. However, Pellica aims to do much more than track film.
Beyond its core film tracking functionality, Pellica also includes a built-in light meter, scan uploading, gear tracking, home development calculators, and a tool to find nearby film development labs.
“I’m a solo developer in Paris who shoots film,” Djebarni tells PetaPixel. “I got tired of using five different apps to do what one should — so I built Pellica. Roll tracker, light meter with reciprocity for 48 stocks, 500+ development labs mapped, development timer. Free to start, no account required.”
Pellica is competing in a fairly crowded space. A few months ago, photographer Zachary Hou launched FilmMeter, an analog workflow app that tracks film with a shooting log, has a light meter, and can even help photographers dial in manual focus. Frames, released last year, is a digital notebook app for analog photographers, though it doesn’t offer in-app metering. Crown + Flint from 2023 also tracks film, syncs scans, and has a light meter.
Pellica aims to stand out through its film lab mapping and home development calculators, helping analog photographers throughout the shooting process, from start to finish. The development timer function is particularly interesting. It has custom recipes with temperature, dilution, and five agitation patterns. It has built-in cheatsheets for C-41, E-6, B&W, and ECN-2 processes.
Once the film is developed, whether that’s with the aid of the in-app calculators or Pellica’s map of film development companies worldwide, the scans can be matched to logged exposures. Scans are automatically matched by frame order but can be dragged and dropped to reorder. Users can also inject EXIF data using their logged exposure data and bulk export their digital files.
Pellica also includes inventory management tools for both camera gear and film. Photographers can track quantities, costs, storage locations, and expiration dates for all their film and even set up alerts for when film is nearing expiration. As for camera and lens catalogs, photographers can track their condition, serial numbers, purchase prices, and the total value of their gear collection in the app.
Pellica also includes calculators for depth of field, hyperfocal distance, and flash guide number. The app has home and lock screen widgets, achievements to unlock, and it works offline.
Pellica is free to download, though the free version caps users at three active rolls of film and offers reduced functionality. The professional version, which is $2.99 per month, $24.99 annually, or $59.99 for a lifetime license, adds unlimited rolls, all development processes, custom recipes, PDF export, EXIF injection, and all app features.
Image credits: Pellica
