XP4N iOS iPhone Camera App – a Hasselblad XPAN Emulator
I’ve long been a fan of panoramic cameras, going back to my film days using Hasselblad XPAN and Fuji GX617 models. I was excited to see that Bram Bos had released an iPhone camera app, called XP4N, which emulated the XPAN giving a 65:24 image ratio. The app’s odd name is probably to avoid any trademark disputes with Hasselblad!
The app’s really straight-forward to use. There’s a viewfinder, a shutter button and a few film simulations that process the image to give a similar feel to film stock. Although the app is designed will film emulation in mind, there’s an option to save the image as an unprocessed file as well. This is hidden in the options, though, and took me a bit of time to find (update: In one of the frequent updates, the prefs button has been moved it the main screen).
The images the app produces are great, and took me right back to using the XPAN and GX617. It’s easier to use than the iPhone camera app’s panoramic feature; however, it’s not so versatile either, in that it’s limited to the 65:24 ratio.
The image since is fairly small (approx. 4032 × 1489), given that it’s just a ‘slice’ from the middle of the sensor. On the iPhone 15 and 16 Pro models, the app can harness the increased resolution of the 48 megapixel sensor – however, I only had my iPhone 13 to test it with.
It’d be nice to see the app saving RAW files, allowing subsequent editing in something like Darkroom or Lightroom. Some sort of on-screen indicator that the camera is vertical and horizontal, would also be good, as panoramic camera images are sensitive to the parallex effects that can arise from this. However, I appreciate that this is a 99 pence app! Since the initial release, the app has been updated quite a few times, improving the UI and ease of use.
Below are a few sample images I’ve taken with the app.
