A real person reads every message — typically replying within 2–3 business days. It helps enormously if you include your iPhone model, your iOS version, and the film look you were shooting when the problem happened.
Open the look picker on the camera screen and swipe through the eight stocks — Neutral, Emulsion, Pixel, Nocturne, Silver, Faded, Vivid and Cross. The viewfinder re-grades live as you land on each one, so you are choosing by eye, not by name.
Your selection sticks between sessions, so the camera opens on the look you were last shooting.
No — and that is the design. Halation bakes the film recipe into the photo or video at the moment of capture, the same way a roll of film commits when the shutter opens. There is no hidden original underneath and no “remove filter” switch.
If you want an ungraded frame, shoot on Neutral. It is the clean, true-to-life profile and it is there precisely for that. You can also shoot the same subject twice — once on Neutral, once on a look — and decide afterwards which one you keep.
Load a roll and the counter shows how many frames you have left. Each capture winds it down. When the roll runs out you develop it, and the counter resets — a deliberate bit of friction that makes you frame more carefully.
It is entirely optional. In Settings inside the app, turn the roll off (or choose unlimited frames) and you can shoot without a counter at all. Nothing else about the camera changes.
Captures land first in the app’s own film strip gallery. Open a frame you want to keep and choose to save it — it is written to your iPhone’s Photos library, full resolution, with the grade already baked in.
The first time you do this, iOS asks for permission to add to your Photos library. If you declined earlier, enable it in Settings › Halation › Photos and pick Add Photos Only.
iOS is holding the permission back. Open the iPhone Settings app, then either:
Settings › Privacy & Security › Camera and switch Halation on — or go straight to Settings › Halation and enable Camera there.
Return to the app and the viewfinder starts immediately. If a Screen Time restriction is set on the device, check Settings › Screen Time › Content & Privacy Restrictions as well — it can block camera access app-wide.
No. Halation Film Camera is iPhone only. The whole capture pipeline is tuned to iPhone camera hardware, and the controls are built for one-handed shooting.
No. The app works fully offline — in a basement, on a plane, in Airplane Mode. Every part of the grade runs on the device itself and the app makes no network calls at all. See the privacy policy for the detail.
In two places, both on your iPhone. Everything you shoot goes into the app’s own private storage, shown as the film strip gallery inside the app. Anything you choose to save additionally goes into your Photos library.
Nothing is stored on a server anywhere, so keep in mind: if you delete the app, the frames still sitting in its own storage go with it. Save the keepers to Photos before you uninstall.
Usually a permission or a busy camera. Check that Camera access is on for Halation, then close any other app that might be holding the camera (FaceTime, another camera app). Force-quit Halation and reopen it. If the screen is still black, restart the iPhone — this clears a stuck capture session.
Toggle it off and back on in Settings › Halation, then relaunch the app so it re-requests access. To start completely fresh, use Settings › General › Transfer or Reset iPhone › Reset › Reset Location & Privacy — note this resets permissions for every app on the device.
Microphone permission is off. Enable Microphone in Settings › Halation (or Settings › Privacy & Security › Microphone) and record a new clip. Audio cannot be added to a clip that was already recorded silently. Also check the device is not muted for a different reason — a connected headset or Bluetooth device can capture the mic input instead.
Graded video files are large. Check Settings › General › iPhone Storage › Halation to see how much the app holds. Save the frames you want to Photos, then delete the rest from the in-app film strip to reclaim the space. If capture fails or stops mid-recording, low free storage is the first thing to rule out.