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# New App Puts SLR Features Into Your iPhone
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/new-app-puts-slr-features-into-your-iphone/
- Published: 2012-01-25T18:59:23.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:19:22.000Z
- Description: How do you make your iPhone act more like your SLR? Well, Chicago-based Ben Syverson has an app for that.
- Author: AX Mina
- Tags: Art, Apps, Interactive, Review, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

![Mattebox's design puts all the usual SLR features on your touch screen.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/01/mattebox-screenshot.png)

Mattebox’s design puts all the usual SLR features on your touch screen.

LOS ANGELES — As a photography lover, I’m always carrying around one or two cameras. There’s the camera on my phone and there’s a dedicated camera in my bag, often a light high-quality point and shoot. For big days, I often find myself stuffing my Canon Digital Rebel along with two lenses, a flash and tripod into one bag, because despite its weight, an SLR system still provides the best clarity and manual features for serious photography.

With its new 5-8 megapixel camera, the iPhone is now competitive in clarity for most shots. But with just a few options to control flash and digital zoom, it’s lacking in terms of manual features. [Mattebox,](http://mattebox.com/iphone/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) a new app from Chicago-based Ben Syverson, aims to solve this problem.

The explanation video is a little hokey — “My goal was simple: I wanted to create the photographer’s mobile camera.” — but it does a great job of explaining the app’s features, inspired by the [iconic Konica Hexar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konica%5FHexar?ref=hyperallergic.com). Using the iPhone’s touch screen, it simulates all the functions of a professional SLR, with manual ISO, white balance and exposure. The site’s [gallery](http://mattebox.com/iphone/gallery/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) features some of the stunningly clear, precise shots possible with the app (though the [corresponding Flickr group](http://www.flickr.com/groups/mattebox?ref=hyperallergic.com) shows that quality varies widely by photographer).

At $3.99, the app costs slightly more than Hipstamatic and Instagram, but substantially less than the average SLR. While you can’t try out a free version, you can fiddle with a [simulation on the site](http://mattebox.com/iphone/adjustments/index.html?ref=hyperallergic.com).

Mattebox is no SLR-killer but combined with the retina display it will certainly have me thinking twice about lugging around my larger camera everywhere I go.