VWFNDR MBL Is a New Android Camera App and an Actual Camera Is In the Works

May 19, 2026

Jeremy Gray

Nine smartphones display various photography app interfaces, showing cityscapes, trains, flowers, and taxis. The screens feature camera controls, sliders, and settings, emphasizing mobile photography and customization options.

VWFNDR has announced VWFNDR + MBL, a new Android camera app designed to work like a camera, “not as a computational filter.” The company says it has built its new app to be a tool for intentional, deliberate mobile photographers.

This is not the first time VWFNDR’s name has appeared on PetaPixel, but the last time it was for a very different project, in 2023, when the company was founded in Tokyo by designers Álvaro Nuevo.Tokyo and Mireia Gordi i Vila, it debuted a beautiful panoramic digital camera concept, Keirin. While Keirin never fully materialized, VWFNDR has remained committed to exploring photography hardware and user experience projects.

MBL, VWFNDR’s first actual product, builds on the idea of making photography accessible, beautiful, and authentic. The new Android camera is built around “real photographic capture,” including Bayer RAW imaging and Content Credentials.

“A camera you always carry should work like a camera. Not as a computational filter, not as an AI image generator, but as a tool for intentional photography,” VWNFDR explains. “Building such a camera, in hardware, takes time. MBL is the first step: a software foundation that embeds the same photographic principles VWFNDR™ plans to bring to hardware, made available now for everyone.”

A smartphone screen displays a photo of a black taxi driving through a city at night, with bright, colorful lights blurred in the background to show motion. Camera settings are visible on the right side of the screen.

A smartphone screen displays a blurred photo of a moving urban train with green doors. Camera settings, including speed, ISO, exposure, and focus, are shown on the right side of the screen.

A smartphone screen displays a camera app interface; on the left, a cherry blossom tree stands in front of a modern gray building, while camera settings such as shutter speed and ISO appear on the right.

A smartphone screen shows a camera app capturing two blurred figures walking down urban stairs at dusk, with tall skyscrapers in the background and blue evening sky. Camera settings are visible at the bottom.

Yes, that’s right, the new MBL app is the first step in VWFNDR’s plans to finally launch an actual, real camera, a “compact camera for everyone.”

“Great cameras need great software,” the company says. VWFNDR says that by putting its software ideas into the real world and in the hands of actual photographers, it will learn more about the type of hardware it should design and release.

As for the app itself, it captures unprocessed Bayer RAW DNG data alongside JPEGs, promising to skip the computational photography features present in most native camera apps. The app offers manual controls for ISO, shutter speed, focus, and exposure compensation, and a customizable, reorderable user interface to “fit everyone’s shooting style.”

The app features six built-in aspect ratios, including 1:1, 7:6, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, and 2:1. There is no image stacking, no tone mapping, no computational “tricks.” The image promises to show what the sensor sees in a natural, realistic way.

A small garden with large rocks and sparse grass sits between modern buildings. In the background, a pink building with Japanese writing stands next to a taller building covered in green vines.

A stone bridge crosses over a pond filled with colorful koi fish, surrounded by lush green plants and trees in a serene garden setting.

Looking up at a blue sky with scattered clouds, a plane flies overhead between tall modern buildings, while two street lamps with yellow lights are visible in the foreground.

A rose bush with vibrant pink blooms grows out of a small, geometric opening in a yellow wall, its branches and flowers spreading horizontally across the surface.

Every photo captured inside MBL includes Content Credentials, demonstrating its provenance and any edits the photographer has applied. VWFNDR is just the fourth company to achieve C2PA Level 2 conformance, it says, and only the second, following Google, to support Content Credentials for DNG files.

Although VWFNDR hasn’t shared a comprehensive list of compatible Android devices, it has shared many sample images on its website, including some captured on the Google Pixel 7A, Google Pixel 9A, Xiaomi 12T Pro, Xiaomi 14 Ultra, Nothing 3A, Nothing 2, and even the Leitzphone 3.

“Real photography must remain in people’s hands,” VWFNDR says.

VWFNDR + MBL is available now for free on the Google Play Store. VWFNDR says more news about its compact camera project will arrive later this year.

Image credits: VWFNDR