User Manual.

§ 00Field guide

The whole viewfinder on one page. If you read nothing else, read this -- the rest of the manual expands on everything here.

↓ Download this as a printable Field Guide (PDF)

The rail (right edge, landscape)

Four data cells, top to bottom. Each shows the current value; tap to change it.

Buttons

The 2×2 grid sits below the cells; settings and gallery are on the left edge.

Button	SF Symbol	Does
Tools		Opens the five-tab tool strip
Sun		Toggles the sun path overlay; yellow when on
Torch	/	Torch on / off
Mode	/	Switches between photo and video; icon shows the mode you will switch to
Shutter	-- (drawn ring)	Captures a photo, or starts and stops recording; shows resolution and fps in video mode
Settings		Opens settings (top-left corner)
Gallery		Opens the gallery; shows the last capture as a thumbnail (bottom-left corner)

A gold badge on any button or tab means it requires a subscription.

HUD corners

Settings → Display toggles the HUD. Corner Labels on Photos (under Metadata) bakes the same text into saved photos.

Gestures on the gate

• Tap -- focus at that point. With the Meter tool open, tap sets the spot meter instead.
• Drag up / down -- exposure bias (disabled while the Meter tool is open).
• Swipe left / right -- dismisses the open tool, then the tool strip, then any picker.
• Pinch -- zoom. With a lens set active and focal hard stops enabled, pinch snaps between the cataloged focals instead of zooming continuously.

Sun overlay

Toggled with the button. On the gate it draws:

• The day's solar arc -- solid where the sun is above the horizon, dashed below.
• Hour markers with labels at each on-the-hour point.
• The sun's current position as a ringed marker; an edge arrow points to it when it is out of frame. Dims at civil twilight and again at night.
• The moon, when enabled, as a smaller marker.

The Sun tool tab adds the controls:

Control	SF Symbol	Does
Sun	/	Sun marker on / off
Moon	/	Moon marker on / off
Calendar		Simulates the sun path for another date and time
Calibrate		Compass calibration; the applied offset shows as with an to clear. Calibration requires live time -- a simulated date shows
Full screen		Expands the sky view to the full screen

Tool strip

Opened with the button. Five tabs:

Tab	SF Symbol	Panel
DOF		T-stop wheel, focus-distance slider, near/far/total DOF, hyperfocal, minimum focus. Custom enters a distance by keypad; Measure () reads distance with LiDAR
Meter		Light meter against ISO, fps, ND, and shutter angle
Sun		Sun overlay controls (above)
Look		Saturation, contrast, lift, warmth, tint; built-in or imported .cube LUTs
Rec		Resolution, fps, Apple Log, monitor LUT

Gallery, locations, shot lists

The gallery has three tabs: Projects , Locations , and All Captures .

• All Captures -- every photo and video in a grid. Selecting items shows an action bar: Share , Shot Lists , Location , Delete .
• Locations -- captures grouped by scouted location. Captures without one land in Unassigned; a banner offers to auto-create locations from GPS clusters, or assign them manually. Locations can be merged, and each can export a Location Report PDF () with photos and sun data.
• Projects -- each project lists its linked locations and shot lists; lists without a project sit in Drafts.
• Shot lists -- a title, optional scene number, project and location links, and ordered shots. Each shot has a type (WIDE, MED, CU, INSERT, ESTAB, OTS, POV, AERIAL, 2-SHOT), a description, and a reference capture. Lists export to PDF.

Settings, in one line each

Display (HUD, units, orientation lock, rail or legacy layout) · Sun Tracker (calibration reminders) · Production (crew card for reports) · Lenses and Lens Kit (lens sets, custom focal kits) · Backup (iCloud snapshot, restore) · Custom LUTs (.cube import) · Metadata (GPS tagging, burned labels) · Subscription (upgrade, restore purchases).

§ 01Getting started

First launch

On first launch, Skopos asks for camera, location, and motion permissions. You can grant them all up front or wait until each tool is opened -- the app will re-request when needed.

Camera access is the only one you can't really skip; the viewfinder is the heart of the app. Location and motion are required for the sun tracker, sky map, and report drive-time calculations. Skopos uses GPS only when the relevant tool is active and only for the data you'd expect -- nothing leaves the device unless you export it yourself.

If you've used Skopos before

Skopos keeps a snapshot of your projects, locations, shot lists, and notes in your private iCloud Drive. When you reinstall or open the app on a new device with the same Apple ID, you'll see a Restore from iCloud sheet at launch.

Tap Restore to pull your existing data, or Start Fresh to begin a new library on this device. Restore only appears when there's a snapshot to offer and your local library is empty -- no risk of clobbering existing work.

The five surfaces

Everything in Skopos lives on one of five surfaces. Knowing this map up front makes the rest of the manual easier to follow:

• The Viewfinder -- your main screen on launch. The live camera with overlays, controls, and tools.
• The Tool Tray -- opened from the wrench in the viewfinder. Houses DOF, Light Meter, Sun Tracker, Look, and Rec Format.
• The Gallery -- a full-screen modal opened from the gallery thumbnail. Three tabs: Projects, Locations, All Captures.
• Project Detail -- opens when you tap a project. Locations, shot lists, and export tools for that production.
• Settings -- opened from the gear in the viewfinder. App-wide preferences, subscription, diagnostics.

§ 02The viewfinder

The viewfinder is what loads when the app opens. It's the live camera feed with a translucent gate that shows you exactly what a given cinema camera, lens, aspect ratio, and squeeze would actually frame.

Layout

Hold the phone in either orientation -- Skopos rotates fully. In landscape, the control rail runs down the right edge with four data cells, top to bottom: camera body and mode, focal length (plus FF-equivalent and gate HFOV), optics (spherical or squeeze factor), and delivery aspect. Tap any cell to open its picker. T-stop and focus distance moved into the DOF tool -- see § 03. Below the cells sits a 2×2 button grid plus the shutter:

• Tools -- the wrench opens the five-tab tool strip.
• Sun -- toggles the sun path overlay on the gate; yellow when on.
• Torch -- flashlight on / off.
• Mode -- switches between photo and video; the icon shows the mode you'll switch to.
• Shutter -- large round button; captures a photo, or starts and stops recording in video mode.

Settings (the gear) sits in the top-left corner and the gallery tile -- showing your last capture as a thumbnail -- in the bottom-left. If you preferred the older bottom-bar arrangement, Settings → Display → Layout lets you switch between Rail and Legacy.

Gestures on the gate

• Tap -- focus at that point. With the Meter tool open, tap sets the spot meter instead.
• Drag up / down -- exposure bias (disabled while the Meter tool is open).
• Swipe left / right -- dismisses the open tool, then the tool strip, then any picker.
• Pinch -- zoom. With a lens set active and focal hard stops enabled, pinch snaps between the set's cataloged focals instead of zooming continuously.

Pinch to zoom, pinch to switch lenses

Pinch the live preview to change focal length continuously. Skopos uses your phone's triple-camera array (when available) to switch between ultrawide, wide, and tele optics seamlessly as you pinch, then crops within the active sensor for in-between values. The focal length wheel updates in real time so you always know what cinema-equivalent length you're framing at.

Camera bodies

Tap the camera cell at the top of the rail to open the camera picker. Bodies are grouped by manufacturer -- ARRI, RED, Sony, Canon, Blackmagic, Panasonic, Fujifilm, Nikon, plus Z CAM, Panavision, Kinefinity, Phantom, Leica, Sigma, DJI, Freefly, AJA, IMAX, and Ikonoskop, and standard film formats (35mm 4-perf / 3-perf / 2-perf, 65mm, 16mm, Super 16, Super 8, and historical formats).

Each body lists its sensor dimensions and recording modes -- for a single body you'll often see Open Gate, 4K 16:9, 4.6K 3:2, Anamorphic Mode, ARRIRAW, etc. Tap a mode to switch; the gate width updates immediately and the focal length re-solves to keep your field of view the same. Free-tier users always have access to the Super 35 preset; other bodies show a lock badge and tapping them surfaces the paywall.

For the full database of bodies and modes -- including active recording dimensions and aspect ratios per mode -- see the Camera Database. Supported lens series and their focal lengths are listed in the Lens Database.

Aspect ratios, custom mattes & framing guides

The aspect picker is split into sections -- Landscape & Standard (16:9, 1.85, 2.39, etc.) and Vertical & Square -- plus a Custom section where you can define your own mattes (custom mattes are never gated). A Framing Guides section adds grid presets, a center mark, a symmetry line, and safe-area toggles. The gate displays as a translucent letterbox on the live preview.

Squeeze (anamorphic)

Tap the Optics cell to switch between Spherical and your preferred squeeze ratio: 1.33×, 1.5×, 1.8×, or 2×. The viewfinder de-squeezes the image in real time so you see the final framed result, not the squashed sensor capture. When a lens set is selected, the squeeze picker locks -- the lens set owns the squeeze, since real anamorphic glass doesn't switch modes.

Focal length, lens kit & lens sets

The focal length wheel is your primary lensing control. You can:

• Drag the wheel to scrub continuously.
• Tap any preset from your custom lens kit (defaults: 18, 24, 35, 50, 75, 100, 135 mm).
• Tap Custom to type an exact value (4 – 2000 mm).
• Pinch the preview to change focal length with optical lens-switching baked in.

Manage your lens kit in Settings → Lens Kit. Presets become tappable shortcuts directly under the wheel.

Beyond the generic kit, Settings → Lenses lets you select a real lens set -- an actual lens series with its own primes, wide-open T-stop floor, close-focus distances, squeeze, and mount modifiers. With a set active, the HUD shows the set name and focal, DOF shows the lens's minimum focus (tinted when you're inside it), and pinch snaps between the set's focals when Focal Hard Stops is on.

T-stop & depth of field

The T-stop control lives in the DOF tool and is a two-part dial: a full-stop wheel (T1.0 through T45) and a fractional offset (0, +⅓, +⅔). Together they cover every working stop.

DOF is computed live from focal length, T-stop, focus distance, sensor size, and circle of confusion. To see the numbers -- near limit, far limit, hyperfocal, total field -- open the tool strip and tap DOF. The math is documented in § 04 of the Technical Methodology.

Focus distance & AR depth measure

Set focus distance two ways:

• Drag the DISTANCE wheel, or tap Custom to type a value.
• Tap Measure to launch the AR depth tool. Aim the crosshair at your subject; Skopos uses LiDAR (or photogrammetry on non-LiDAR phones) to read the distance. Tap USE to write that value back to the focus wheel.

§ 03Tools

The tool strip, opened with the wrench, holds the five working tools that turn the viewfinder into a scouting kit -- DOF, Meter, Sun, Look, and Rec. Tap a tab to open its panel; tap again to close. Only one tool is open at a time.

DOF

Depth-of-field readout plus your exposure-math inputs. The panel holds the T-stop wheel and the focus-distance slider, and shows near limit, far limit, total depth, hyperfocal distance, and (with a lens set active) the lens's minimum focus. All values update live as you change any input. DOF is in the free tier.

Light Meter

A working incident-equivalent light meter built on the iPhone's exposure system. The panel has three columns -- T-Stop, ISO, and Shutter -- plus a cluster for FPS, ND, and the angle/speed shutter mode.

Each column has a small a / padlock badge in its header. Tap it to set that column as the AUTO target -- meaning Skopos will solve that value while you fix the other two. So if you want to see what ISO you'd need at T2.8, 1/50s, you tap the ISO header to mark it AUTO; the wheels for T-stop and shutter become locks, and the ISO column shows the solved value.

Tap Angle or Speed to switch shutter representation. Angle thinks like a film camera (180° at 24fps); Speed thinks in fractions (1/48 at 24fps). Both produce identical exposures.

With the Meter open, tap anywhere on the live preview to set a spot meter point -- Skopos locks exposure to that area and the AUTO indicator flips to a refresh button. Tap it to release.

Light Meter is a paid tool.

Sun Tracker

The most-loved tool in Skopos and the one most worth getting right. Tap the sun to open it.

What you see

At the top of the panel: a Sky Map banner -- tap it to enter the full-screen AR sky map. Below that, RISE and SET times shown in big orange digits with AM/PM. Below those, ALT and AZ (sun altitude and azimuth) and a compass heading marker so you can sight where the sun is from your current position.

A timeline strip shows golden hour, blue hour, daylight, and night as a gradient bar. An indicator marker shows you where in the day the displayed time falls. The labels GOLDEN HOUR / BLUE HOUR / GOLDEN IN [time] / NIGHT cycle to whatever's most relevant right now.

LIVE vs simulated time

By default, the panel reads LIVE -- sun position is computed for right now. Tap the calendar to scrub to any future or past date and time; the readouts and the on-preview sun marker both move accordingly. This is how you preview a 6:42pm shoot two weeks from today. Tap GO LIVE to snap back to the present.

Sky Map

Tapping the Sky Map banner expands the tool to a full-screen AR view. The phone uses the magnetometer and motion sensors to overlay the sun's full arc across the sky, with sunrise and sunset positions plotted on the horizon and golden / blue hour bands shaded along the path. Pan the phone around to see where the sun will be at different times of day. The moon path overlays in a second color when you tap the moon toggle.

If your magnetometer needs calibration, you'll see a "Wave phone in figure-8 to calibrate" prompt. Do that motion until the prompt clears.

Sky Map captures save to your gallery as composite stills with the sun arc baked in. They're tagged as Sky Map captures and show up alongside your photos.

Tap-to-calibrate

When you can physically see the sun in your frame and the on-screen marker is in the wrong place, you don't have to wave the phone -- you can just tell Skopos where the sun actually is. From the Sun Tracker panel, tap the calibrate control. Skopos enters calibration mode: your next tap on the live viewfinder is interpreted as "the actual sun is at this pixel." Skopos snapshots the current pose and field of view, computes a heading offset, and applies it to every sun-arc projection. A small [CAL +X°] chip appears on the gate so you know the offset is active; tap its ✕ to clear it and return to raw ephemeris.

At night or when the sun is below the horizon, calibration switches to the moon -- you'll see a TAP THE MOON TO ALIGN prompt instead. Calibration requires live time; while you're simulating another date, the calibrate control is unavailable.

The offset is session-only and not persisted -- magnetic environments are location-specific, so a stale offset from your last scout would do more harm than good. Re-calibrate on arrival at each location. While an offset is active, it carries through everywhere: captures bake the corrected arc, and gallery playback, video overlays, and PDF exports all use the offset that was live at the moment of capture.

Sun Tracker is a paid tool.

Look

Five sliders for grading: Lift, Contrast, Saturation, Warmth, and Tint. The sliders shape the live monitor, and they also bake into still captures -- the version exported to your Photos library carries the grade, while the in-app gallery keeps the clean image and re-applies the look on view. Recorded video is never affected.

This is the live-capture grade. Photos and video can also be graded after the fact -- including a separate film-look library and depth-of-field simulation -- in the gallery photo editor; see § 05.

Monitor LUT

The Monitor LUT control is available from both the Look and Rec panels. Tap Import to load any .cube LUT file from Files (or manage your library in Settings → Custom LUTs). LUTs apply to the live monitor only -- directors and DPs can preview the graded look, but photos and video are captured in the device's active color space, untouched. The built-in LOG → REC.709 preview transform is the one piece that requires Apple Log support (iPhone 15 Pro and later). On iPhone 17 Pro and later running iOS 26+, Apple Log 2 is supported and the label switches accordingly.

Tap the reset arrow at the top of the panel to return all sliders to neutral. Look is a paid tool.

Rec Format

Configure recording resolution, frame rate, and Apple Log. Available options depend on your phone:

• Resolution -- 1080p or 4K (4K depends on phone capability).
• Frame rate -- 24, 25, 30, 60, 120, 240 fps. The actual list shown reflects what your sensor supports at the chosen resolution.
• Apple Log -- checkbox; only appears on phones that support Apple Log capture (iPhone 15 Pro+). Log applies to video only -- switching to photo mode disables it automatically and re-arms it when you switch back.

Rec Format is in the free tier.

§ 04Capture

Stills

Tap the shutter button -- the round shutter -- to capture a still. Skopos saves the image to your gallery with the full metadata stack: camera body, recording mode, sensor size, focal length (and FF-equivalent), T-stop, focus distance, aspect ratio, squeeze, GPS (if enabled), heading, sun altitude/azimuth, and timestamp.

After capture, the frame flashes and a Saved toast confirms the write. Tap the gallery tile to open your library and find it.

Video

Switch to video mode with the Mode button. The shutter becomes a record button -- first tap starts recording, second tap stops -- and shows the active resolution and frame rate. While recording, a REC pill with elapsed time sits at the top of the frame. Recordings save with the same metadata stack as stills, plus the recording resolution and frame rate.

Sky Map captures

Inside the full-screen Sky Map, there's a save button that captures the current AR view as a composite still. These appear in your gallery tagged "Sky Map" and are useful for showing producers exactly where the sun will be during a particular take.

Burned-in data & sun arc

Saved photos always carry the corner brackets and a bottom info bar listing the framing data -- body, focal length, T-stop, ratio. Optionally, Settings → Metadata → Corner Labels on Photos (off by default) also bakes the HUD corner text into the frame itself. The Viewfinder HUD switch under Display controls only the live view, not what gets saved.

If the Sun Tracker overlay is enabled at the moment of capture, Skopos also marks the photo as a sun-aware capture (the "sun overlay" flag), and does the same separately for the moon. These flags travel with the photo through the gallery and into PDF exports: photos shot with the overlays live default to including the sun or moon arc when they appear in a Location Report, and they become eligible for the dedicated Sun Studies pages in the export. You can override per-photo at export time -- see § 09.

§ 05Gallery

Tap the gallery thumbnail in the viewfinder to open the gallery. It's a fullscreen modal with three tabs along the top:

• Projects -- your productions, organized as cards.
• Locations -- every location you've scouted, across all projects.
• All Captures -- every photo and video, ungrouped.

Projects tab

Each project card shows the project's color dot, name, location count, capture count, and shot list count. Tap a card to drill into the project detail view. The dashed "Create New Project" button at the bottom opens the new-project sheet. Long-press a project for a context menu with Open and Delete Project.

Below the project cards, a Drafts section collects shot lists that don't belong to any project yet. Long-press a draft to open it, assign it to a project, or move it to the trash.

Locations tab

Lists every location in your library. The filter chip at the top narrows by project -- All, a specific project, or No Project (locations that exist but haven't been assigned anywhere yet). Sort chips reorder the list A–Z, by created or edited date, or by proximity to where you're standing. Tap any row to open Location Detail.

If Skopos detects that your unassigned captures cluster geographically, a banner offers two paths: Auto-Create opens a Review Locations sheet that walks you through each cluster with a thumbnail strip before creating locations from them, and Review Manually opens a grid of all unassigned photos so you can select and assign them yourself.

All Captures tab

Every photo and video in a single grid. The ALL / LOCATION pill bar above the grid switches grouping:

• All -- flat grid of every capture.
• Location -- one scrollable filmstrip row per location, with the Unassigned row pinned at the top. Expand any row into a full grid.

The sort chip on the right opens a two-axis sort popover. In the flat grid, Sort by picks the key -- date captured, date added, date edited, or distance from where you're standing -- and Order flips direction (newest/oldest first, or nearest/farthest for distance). In Location grouping, the same chip orders the location rows: A–Z, most recently captured, most photos, or nearest.

An IMPORT button in the gallery header pulls photos in from your iOS photo library, and an Exports row opens a browser of every location report PDF you've generated.

Intent pills

At the bottom of All Captures (when you're not already in select mode) you'll see two pills:

• Assign to Location -- outlined pill. Tap, select photos, then continue to pick a location.
• Create Shot List -- filled gold pill. Tap, select photos in tap order, then continue into the shot list editor. The order you tap captures becomes the shot order in the list.

These shortcut the older "select-mode → choose action" flow into a single tap-to-start path.

Select mode

Tap SELECT in the top-right of any tab to enter select mode. In All Captures, the action bar offers SHARE, SHOT LISTS, LOCATION, and DELETE; in the Locations tab it offers Merge and Delete; in Projects, Delete. A live count of your selection shows in the sort row.

Editing a photo

Tap any capture to open it full-screen. Pinch to zoom (with momentum on the pan), drag to reframe, and tap once to hide the chrome -- it also fades on its own after a few seconds of stillness. The matte menu here mirrors the viewfinder's full roster, so a capture can be re-viewed through any deliverable frame.

Below the photo sits the editing tool space. Pick a tool, then pick a parameter from the choose side (a vertical rail in landscape, a compact grid in portrait), and dial it in on the wide adjust strip. Every slider readout can be tapped to type an exact value on a numeric keypad. All edits are non-destructive: Skopos keeps the clean original, re-applies your edits on view, and carries them into shares and PDF exports.

• Color -- the same grading vocabulary as the viewfinder Look tool (lift, contrast, saturation, warmth, tint, and highlight/mid/shadow trims), applied per-photo after capture. As Shot returns the photo to exactly how it was captured -- including any live grade that was active at the shutter -- and press-and-hold on the image compares your current edit against it.
• Look -- a library of eight built-in film looks: Print, Daylight Neg, Tungsten Neg, Chrome, Bleach Bypass, Digital Cine, B&W, and B&W Hard. Each is a full character -- color response, halation, and grain -- with a Strength slider to dial it from a whisper to fully developed. Looks persist per photo and render into everything downstream: shares, location reports, batch exports.
• Viewing LUT -- import any .cube LUT and apply it to the photo. The library is shared with Settings → Custom LUTs, and the applied LUT is saved with the photo. A photo holds one creative transform at a time: importing or applying a LUT clears the film look, and choosing a film look replaces the LUT.
• DOF -- simulate lens-true depth of field on a capture. Skopos estimates per-pixel scene depth with its bundled on-device depth model, then renders optically modeled blur from your focus distance and T-stop -- set focus by tapping the image or typing a distance, and pull aperture on the same T-stop wheel as the viewfinder. Anamorphic squeeze shapes the bokeh accordingly. The depth map is an estimate from a single image, not a measurement -- it's built for previewing the feel of a lens, not for blocking-accurate distances -- and it runs on any supported iPhone, no LiDAR required.

Video edits work the same way: color, film look, and viewing LUT all apply to video (graded live in the player and rendered into exports), and the DOF tool works from a still frame extracted from the clip. Videos stored in iCloud show a download state on their tile and fetch on demand before playing or editing.

§ 06Projects

A project is your container for a production. It holds locations, shot lists, and exports, and it carries metadata that gets used elsewhere -- drive times in location reports, for instance, are computed from the project's Home Base.

Creating a project

From the Projects tab, tap Create New Project. The new-project sheet asks for:

• Name -- required.
• Color -- used to tag the project across the app.
• Notes -- optional; visible on the project card and inside the project.
• Home Base address -- optional; if set, every location report inside the project includes a drive time from this address to the location.

Creating projects requires a subscription. Existing projects from before a subscription lapse stay readable and editable -- the gate is on creating new ones.

Project detail

Tapping a project opens a detail view with two tabs: Locations and Shot Lists. Above the tabs sits a compact header showing the project's name and color, a home-base chip (tap to edit the address), a production Contacts chip whose people flow onto every location report in the project, and an Export button for batch export. Scenes for the project are managed from the gear in the nav bar. An Exports card inside the view (with a count badge) opens the project's generated PDFs.

Locations tab

Lists every location attached to this project. Two action buttons sit at the top:

• New Location -- creates a fresh location inside this project.
• Add Existing -- pulls in locations you already created elsewhere (or in a different project).

Tap a location row to open Location Detail. Long-press for a context menu with Open and Delete Location. Home Base is set from the chip in the project header.

Scenes

Projects can carry a scene list -- create and manage scenes from the gear in the project's nav bar. Scenes become assignable to shot lists and individual shots, and drive the By Scene grouping below.

Shot Lists tab

Every shot list in the project, viewable three ways via the grouping pill:

• By Location -- the default. Lists pinned to a location appear under that location; multi-location lists go under their first location; roaming lists go under a trailing "Roaming" group. This matches how scripts and call sheets are usually organized.
• By Scene -- same logic against scene assignments.
• All -- flat, sorted by most recently updated. Useful when you're picking up where you left off.

Each card shows the list name, photo strip preview, and shot count. Tap a card to open the shot list detail; the + New Shot List button in the nav bar is your primary creation entry point.

Exports

The Exports card collects all location reports and batch exports you've generated for this project. Tap any row to preview or re-share the PDF; delete from the row or its context menu (the file leaves your device, but copies you've already shared are unaffected).

§ 07Locations

Locations are the soul of a scout. Each one represents a real-world place you've considered, and it accumulates everything you've learned about it: photos, contacts, sun studies, addresses, drive times, notes.

Creating locations

Three paths get you to a new location:

• From the Locations tab in the gallery -- tap the plus button.
• Inside a project -- tap New Location in the Locations tab.
• Implicitly -- assign captures to "Create New Location" from the All Captures tab. Skopos uses the captures' GPS to pre-fill the pin.

Location detail

Opens when you tap any location row. The header carries the location's name and address plus a Hero Photos strip -- up to four photos you pick (long-press a capture for Set as Hero) that lead the location and become page one of its report. Below the header:

• Captures -- every photo and video assigned here, with tabs per sub-location. Tap a thumbnail to open it full-size; from there you can pan, zoom, see metadata, and remove it from the location.
• Shot Lists -- every list assigned to this location. Lists can span multiple locations or remain roaming, so the same list might appear in two locations' detail views.
• Contacts & logistics -- owners, managers, point-of-contact people (imported from iPhone Contacts or added manually), plus production notes.
• Exports -- the Location Report PDFs already generated for this location.

Editing a location

Tap the pencil to edit. The edit sheet covers:

• Name and notes -- free text.
• Address -- typed directly; the address labels the location and its reports without moving the GPS pin.
• Tags -- color-coded chips for filtering.
• Project membership -- assign to or remove from one or more projects. There's also a quick Add to Project action from the location row if you don't need the full editor.

Sub-locations

A sub-location is a location nested inside another -- a specific room inside a house, a particular floor inside an office building, a courtyard area inside a larger compound. They have their own name, captures, shot lists, and notes, but they roll up to the parent for project counts, exports, and travel logistics.

Create one from the parent's Location Detail view. Sub-locations appear indented under the parent in list views, and the parent's totals include everything in its children -- so a house with three rooms shows the house's own captures plus all room captures in its total.

When you generate a Location Report, the parent location's report includes its own content; sub-locations get their own reports, which is usually what you want for production handoffs (the room walk-through is a different document than the building overview). You can also opt to export the parent and all children as a combined PDF in Batch Export -- see § 10.

Merging locations

If you've ended up with duplicate locations (same place, different scout days), select them in the Locations tab and tap Merge in the action bar. Skopos asks you to pick a primary -- the one whose name, address, and pin survive -- and folds notes and contacts from the others into it. Captures from the others move to the primary.

§ 08Shot lists

A shot list is an ordered set of shots, optionally attached to a project and pinned to a location or scene. Lists without a project live in the Drafts section of the Projects tab until you assign them. Each shot can carry a reference photo, a shot type, a description, notes, a priority, and a completion flag.

Creating shot lists

Two creation paths cover most workflows:

• From the All Captures tab -- tap Create Shot List, select photos in the order you want them shot, then tap Continue. You land directly in the editor with the list seeded in that order.
• From inside a project -- tap New Shot List in the Shot Lists tab to start with an empty list and add shots there.

Either way, everything -- name, project, location, scene -- is set from inside the editor; nothing is locked in at creation.

The shot list editor

Opens when you tap a list. Each row is a shot with a thumbnail, an order number, and a completion checkbox. Tap a row to edit:

• Shot type -- WIDE, MED, CU, INSERT, ESTAB, OTS, POV, AERIAL, or 2-SHOT.
• Description and notes -- what the shot is, plus direction, action, blocking.
• Priority -- high, medium, or low.
• Scene assignment -- pick from the project's scenes; the list itself can also carry a free-text scene number.
• Reference photo -- re-pick from your captures.
• Sun arc -- per-shot toggle for whether the sun arc renders on this shot in exports.

To reorder, tap Reorder in the bottom bar and drag rows by their handles. The order in the list becomes the order in the exported PDF, and Export PDF sits right next to Reorder.

Trash and recovery

Deleting a shot list shows an Undo toast, then moves the list to a project-level trash for thirty days. When the trash has anything in it, a trash icon appears at the top of the Shot Lists tab -- view and restore deleted lists there, or empty the trash permanently. After thirty days a soft-deleted list is purged automatically on the next launch.

§ 09Location reports

A Location Report is the deliverable you hand to a producer, DP, gaffer, or first AD. Skopos builds the report from everything you've already entered for a location and lets you fine-tune before exporting to PDF.

Opening the report

From a location detail view, tap the Location Report button. The report opens with auto-populated content; the AUTO badge on each section indicates one that filled itself in from your data.

Sections

Reports include the following sections. Each can be toggled on or off in the export builder before generating the PDF:

• Location & Contacts -- name, address (with inline MapKit autocomplete), GPS, tags, fee, owner/manager/POC contacts.
• Sun & Light -- golden hour, blue hour, sunrise/sunset for the shoot date, plus a daylight timeline strip showing how the day breaks down. AUTO.
• Production Logistics -- parking, power, sound, cell signal, restrooms, crew access, and free-form notes. Manual.
• Emergency & Local -- hospitals, sheriff, fire stations, urgent care, plus transport and nearby services. AUTO from MapKit; every auto-filled slot can be hand-edited (it then reads AUTO · EDITED).
• Weather -- live forecast inside the WeatherKit horizon; historical climate normals otherwise. AUTO.
• Drive Time -- travel from project Home Base to the location. AUTO; off by default in the single-location builder, and disabled when no Home Base is set on the project.
• Film Resources -- state film commission, incentives, permits, regional crew, casting. AUTO from the location's state.
• Prep Checklist -- customizable list of pre-production items. Manual.
• Shot List -- full shot breakdown with thumbnails. AUTO. When the location has more than one shot list, the export builder offers a per-list picker so you can include only what's relevant for this deliverable. An "Include reference photos" sub-toggle controls whether the original viewfinder captures appear alongside each shot.
• Hero Photos -- the page-one lineup, up to four photos. Curated from the Hero Photos strip in Location Detail, adjustable in the builder's collapsible HERO PHOTOS section.
• Photos -- every capture assigned to the location, rendered as a gallery section. Collapsible in the builder -- see below.
• Sun Studies -- dedicated pages for photos captured with the sun overlay live or via Sky Map. Collapsible. The section only appears when at least one eligible photo is present -- sun studies have nothing to render otherwise.

Shoot date

Right under the header, the SHOOT DATE picker drives every time-sensitive section -- sun calculations, weather forecasts, golden hour. Default is one week out; change it to whatever date the location is actually being scouted for, and the AUTO sections recompute.

Project chip

If the location belongs to more than one project, a chip in the location section lets you choose which project this report is being built for. The home-base drive time, project name on the cover, and any project-specific notes will all reflect that choice.

Exporting & sharing

Tap Export PDF Location Report at the bottom of the report. The export builder opens with the section list above, plus the collapsible photo sections at the bottom. Next to it, Share Report sends a plain-text version of the report -- handy for dropping the essentials into Messages or an email without a PDF attachment.

Photos & Sun Studies -- collapsible sections

Photos and Sun Studies each have their own collapsible header with a count of selected vs total. Tap the header to expand and see the full grid. Inside each:

• ALL / NONE pills -- select every photo or clear the selection in one tap. Default is all on.
• Per-photo tap -- include or exclude individual photos.
• Per-photo long-press -- open a customization sheet -- toggle the sun or moon arc overlay for that specific photo, bypass the Look grade, change the per-photo aspect framing, or reset it.
• Edits carry through -- a photo's gallery edits (color grade, film look, viewing LUT, and DOF simulation) render into the PDF exactly as they appear in the gallery, unless bypassed per-photo or via the bulk Look chips.
• BULK chips (Photos section) -- Sun, Moon, and Look toggles plus Reset -- flip a setting across every selected photo at once. Useful for night shoots (sun off, moon on across the board) or for batch-resetting if you've been experimenting.
• Preserve capture sequence (Photos section) -- off by default -- Skopos packs photos by orientation (landscapes first, then portraits) for consistent visual rhythm. Toggle on to keep strict capture-time order, which preserves the walk-through narrative when that matters more than uniformity.

Sun arc in PDF photos

Photos shot with the Sun Tracker overlay live default to including the sun arc when they appear in the report -- gallery rows get a small sun HUD pill, and Sun Studies pages render the full arc across the frame. You can override per-photo via long-press, or in bulk via the Sun on / Sun off chips. The relevant flag (whether the photo was captured with the sun overlay live) is set at capture time and travels with the photo through the gallery and into export.

Photo quality & speed

Report photos render at substantially higher resolution than earlier versions -- gallery pages and Sun Studies alike -- so the PDF reads like a photo deliverable, not a contact sheet. Skopos also caches rendered photos on disk, so regenerating a report after small tweaks is much faster than the first build.

Previous exports

When a location already has exports, a Previous Exports section appears near the bottom of the report view. Tap a row to preview the PDF full-screen; the row's trash button deletes it, and a long-press offers Preview, Share, and Delete.

§ 10Batch export

Batch export is the project-level version of a Location Report. Instead of generating one PDF per location, it generates a PDF for every selected location in the project and either combines them into one bound document or zips them into a folder of separate PDFs.

Opening batch export

From a project detail view, tap the Export button in the project header. The batch export sheet opens with every top-level location in the project listed and selected by default.

Configuring

The shared config at the top of the sheet applies to every location in the batch:

• Shoot date -- used for sun, weather, drive time across all locations.
• Section toggles -- the same core sections as a single-location report, applied uniformly to every location in the batch. Photo curation works differently here: instead of the per-photo Photos and Sun Studies grids, each location row carries a HERO sub-row for picking that location's page-one lineup.
• Output mode -- One Bound PDF (a single document with page breaks between locations) or Zipped Folder (separate PDFs for each location; the default).

Photos in a batch export carry their gallery edits -- grade, film look, viewing LUT, DOF simulation -- exactly as in a single-location report (§ 09).

Choosing shot lists

When the project has more than one shot list, a Choose lists picker appears under the Shot List toggle, grouped by location (with an Unscoped group for lists not pinned anywhere). By default, all of them are included.

Generating

Tap Generate. Skopos runs through each location in sequence -- pulling weather, drive time, nearby facilities, etc. -- and shows a progress bar with the current location name. Failures on individual locations don't kill the batch; you'll see a summary at the end with which locations succeeded and which had partial data.

When generation completes, the iOS share sheet opens with the bound PDF or zipped folder. Save it to Files, AirDrop it, or send it directly via Mail or Messages.

Batch export is gated. Free-tier users see a paywall on tap with messaging that emphasizes the value: every location in your project, one combined PDF or a ZIP of separate reports.

§ 11Settings

Open Settings from the gear in the viewfinder. Settings are app-wide, not per-project.

Display

• Viewfinder HUD -- toggles the live corner labels and data readouts on the gate. This affects the live view only; what gets burned into saved photos is controlled under Metadata.
• Units -- Metric or Imperial. Affects focus distance display, depth-of-field readouts, and report distances.
• Orientation -- Auto, Portrait, or Landscape lock for the viewfinder.
• Layout -- Rail (the right-edge rail; the default) or Legacy (the older bottom-bar arrangement).

Sun Tracker

Calibration Reminders -- when on, Skopos nudges you to check your compass heading, so a drifted magnetometer doesn't quietly skew your sun readings.

Production

Your Production Card -- your own name, role, and contact details. With it filled in, "Add myself" drops you into a project's contacts in one tap, and you appear on the reports you hand off.

Lenses

Pick a real lens set to lens with -- actual lens series with their own primes, T-stop floors, close-focus distances, and squeeze. Focal Hard Stops (on by default) makes pinch snap between the set's cataloged focals instead of zooming continuously.

Lens Kit

Manage the generic focal-length presets that appear as quick-select buttons under the focal length wheel. Default kit is 18, 24, 35, 50, 75, 100, 135 mm. Tap the X on any pill to remove; tap Add to enter a new value (4–2000 mm). Reset to Defaults restores the seven defaults.

Backup

Shows when your last iCloud snapshot was written, with three actions: Back Up Now forces a snapshot immediately, Restore from iCloud pulls the cloud snapshot onto this device (replacing what's here, with a warning first), and Restore from File imports a snapshot file directly. See § 13 for how the backup system works.

Custom LUTs

Import .cube files, tap one to make it the active monitor LUT, and delete with the trash button. In the viewfinder, LUTs shape the live monitor only -- captures are unaffected. This is the same library the gallery editor's Viewing LUT tool draws from, where an applied LUT is saved with the photo (see § 05).

Metadata

• Location Metadata -- include or exclude GPS coordinates from saved photos. On is the right setting for scouting; off is the privacy-first option for personal use.
• Corner Labels on Photos -- off by default -- bakes the HUD corner text into saved photos. The corner brackets and bottom info bar always appear regardless.

Diagnostics

Skopos collects crash and performance reports from previous sessions. The Crash & Performance Reports row shows the count and lets you export them -- useful if you're beta testing or reporting an issue.

Subscription

Shows your current subscription status (Free, Free Trial, Monthly, Annual, or Lifetime). Free users see an Upgrade button that opens the paywall; subscribers see Manage Subscription, which opens the iOS subscription manager for renewal and cancellation. Restore Purchases re-syncs your entitlements from the App Store -- use it if you've reinstalled or switched devices.

And the rest

Spread the Word (share Skopos, leave a review), Help & Resources (this manual, the methodology, support), Legal (privacy, terms, and Acknowledgements -- license text for the open-source components Skopos bundles), and About (the app name and current version, read from the build itself so it always matches what's installed).

§ 12Subscription

Skopos uses a tiered model with three SKUs, all configured through the App Store. You can buy or upgrade from inside the app at any time. Current prices, any introductory offers, and renewal terms are shown in the App Store and inside the app at the time of purchase.

Tiers

• Monthly -- an auto-renewing monthly subscription, with a one-month free trial for first-time subscribers. Full access while active.
• Annual -- an auto-renewing yearly subscription. Best running cost if you use Skopos regularly.
• Lifetime -- a one-time purchase. Never expires; survives reinstalls and device changes via Restore Purchases.

All three tiers unlock the same feature set -- there are no hidden tiers within tiers. The difference is only how you'd rather pay.

What's free

The Skopos free tier is genuinely useful, not a demo:

• Every camera body in the Super 35 preset slot.
• Every aspect ratio.
• Every spherical and anamorphic squeeze setting.
• DOF readout.
• Recording format controls.
• Gallery organization -- locations, shot lists, photo browse.

What's paid

• Every cinema camera body other than the Super 35 preset.
• Stills and video capture -- the shutter is gated.
• Light Meter, Sun Tracker, Look (color grading + LUT import), and the AR depth Measure.
• Creating projects.
• PDF Location Reports.
• Batch export.

Upgrades, downgrades, refunds

Apple handles all of this through StoreKit. Upgrading from Monthly to Annual cancels Monthly at the end of its current period. Downgrading from Annual to Monthly schedules the switch for the next renewal. Lifetime, once purchased, supersedes any active subscription -- you can let your sub lapse without losing access.

If your subscription lapses, your data stays intact. Re-subscribing or buying Lifetime restores access immediately. For refund requests, Apple handles all purchases -- see our Support page for the path.

§ 13iCloud & backup

Skopos keeps your work safe through your private iCloud Drive -- not iCloud sync, but iCloud durability. Here's how it actually works:

What's stored where

• Project data (projects, locations, shot lists, notes, exports) -- local SwiftData store, with a JSON snapshot mirrored to iCloud Drive about five seconds after each meaningful save.
• Photos and videos -- stored in iCloud Drive directly, in a Skopos-private container.
• PDF exports -- stored in iCloud Drive alongside photos.
• Settings and preferences -- local to each device.

Why this design

This separation has two practical consequences worth understanding:

• Your work is durable. If you lose, break, or replace your iPhone, opening Skopos on the new phone with the same Apple ID and tapping Restore from iCloud at launch pulls everything back -- projects, locations, shot lists, captures, exports.
• Your work doesn't sync between devices in real time. If you have Skopos on your phone and your iPad, edits on one don't push to the other automatically. You'd see them on the next launch via the snapshot, but Skopos isn't a multi-device live-sync app -- it's a single-device-with-backup app.

Restoring on a new device

On first launch, Skopos checks for a snapshot in iCloud. If it finds one and your local library is empty, you'll see a Restore from iCloud sheet with a summary: when it was backed up, how many items it holds, and its size.

• Tap Restore -- Skopos pulls the snapshot, rebuilds the local store, and lazily fetches photos from iCloud as you browse.
• Tap Start Fresh -- you begin a new library, and the prompt won't offer again on this install. The snapshot in iCloud is untouched, and you can still restore any time from Settings → Backup.

Restoring replaces whatever is currently on the device (Skopos warns you first), but it never touches the photo files in your iCloud Drive. And the launch prompt isn't the only door: Settings → Backup offers Restore from iCloud and Restore from File whenever you need them.

Force-flushing a snapshot

Snapshots are debounced -- Skopos waits about five seconds of "no changes" before writing -- to avoid hammering iCloud during rapid edits. When the app moves to the background, any pending snapshot flushes immediately. So if you're worried about losing recent changes before swapping devices, just background the app for a moment before powering off.

§ 14Tips & tricks

The gate is gestural

Tap to focus (or to spot-meter with the Meter open). Drag up or down for exposure bias. Swipe sideways to dismiss whatever's open -- tool, strip, picker, in that order. Pinch to zoom, and with a lens set active, pinch snaps between real focals.

Long-press is your friend

Long-press almost any list row for a context menu. Long-press a capture in Location Detail to set it as a hero photo. Long-press a photo in the export builder to customize its per-photo settings (sun and moon arcs, Look bypass, aspect framing).

Tap the sun to calibrate

When the sun is visible in your frame and the on-screen sun marker is in the wrong place, tap the calibrate control in the Sun tool and then tap the actual sun in the preview. Skopos computes a heading offset on the spot and the overlay snaps into alignment -- faster and more accurate than the figure-8 wave when you have the sun in view. At night, the moon works the same way.

Sky Map calibration (figure-8)

When you can't see the sun -- overcast, indoor, sun behind a building -- fall back to the figure-8 wave: hold the phone away from anything metallic and move it in a slow figure-8 motion for ten to fifteen seconds. iOS recalibrates silently and the readings snap back to true.

Shoot date in reports

It's tempting to leave the shoot date at its default (one week out), but every AUTO section in the report -- sun, weather, drive time -- uses that date. If you're scouting in May for a July shoot, set the date to July before exporting, or your sun studies will be off by months.

Bound PDF vs zipped folder

If you're sending a scout package to one person who'll review everything, use One Bound PDF -- they get a single document to scroll through. If different department heads need different locations (gaffer wants Locations 1 and 4, transport wants 2 and 3), use Zipped Folder and AirDrop selectively.

Home Base

Set Home Base in your project before generating any reports. Without it, the Drive Time section is greyed out, and that's one of the more useful things in the report. It can be a production office, a hotel, or wherever crew is staging from.

Sun off, moon on for night shoots

If you're scouting a night exterior and most of your photos were captured with the sun overlay live (from earlier in the day's scout), flip the Sun bulk chip off -- and the Moon chip on -- in the export builder's Photos section. The night-shoot story is the moon arc and the lack of sun, not where the sun would have been.

§ 15Troubleshooting

"Camera unavailable"

Skopos needs camera permission. Open iOS Settings → Skopos and toggle Camera back on. If you've already granted camera and still see the error, force-quit and relaunch -- iOS occasionally drops the connection when other camera-using apps have been recently active.

Sun Tracker shows LOCATING…

Skopos hasn't gotten a GPS fix yet. Move outside or near a window, wait a few seconds, and the values populate. If you're indoors with no signal, you can still scrub time and see the sun arc -- Skopos just can't tell you where the actual sun is right now without your coordinates.

Sky Map orientation feels wrong

Magnetometer calibration. If you can see the sun (or the moon at night), tap the calibrate control in the Sun tool and tap it in your viewfinder -- fastest fix. Otherwise wave the phone in a figure-8 for ten to fifteen seconds. If neither works, restart the phone -- sometimes iOS itself needs to reset its motion subsystem.

Capture button doesn't fire

Either you're on the free tier (paywall opens) or the camera is mid-mode-switch. If you've just changed body, mode, or aspect, give it a half-second to re-spin -- capture is briefly disabled while the format reconfigures.

Restore from iCloud doesn't appear

Three checks: iCloud is on for your Apple ID; iCloud Drive is enabled; Skopos is allowed under iCloud Drive's app list. If all three are good and you still don't see the prompt, your iCloud snapshot may not have written yet on the previous device. Open Skopos there, background it for ten seconds (which forces a snapshot flush), and try the new device again.

Subscription bought but features still locked

Tap Restore Purchases in Settings → Subscription. StoreKit re-scans your Apple ID's entitlements and unlocks immediately. If that doesn't work, force-quit and relaunch -- the entitlement listener picks up the purchase on next launch.

Reports take a long time to generate

Reports pull live data from MapKit (facilities, drive time) and the weather service. On poor cellular or in a remote area, generation can take twenty seconds or more per location. Batch export of ten locations on a slow connection can run a few minutes -- Skopos won't time out, but it's worth being on Wi-Fi if you have a choice.

Sun arc shows on a night photo

The sun overlay flag was set at capture time, so the photo is being treated as a sun-aware capture. Override at export: long-press the photo in the export builder and toggle the sun overlay off, or flip the Sun bulk chip in the Photos section to clear it across all selected photos at once.

Getting help

Skopos is built by Colton Williamson, an independent developer. The fastest way to get a question answered or a bug fixed is to send a note from Settings → Diagnostics → Crash & Performance Reports (which packages your recent reports), or email hello@skopos.studio directly. We read everything.