Nanofy Cam Guide
How Nanofy Cam works
Nanofy Cam decides how big a photo will be at the moment you take it. This page explains why it works that way, what each compression level trades, and what its settings are for.
Compression, and why it happens at capture
Most compression apps work backwards. You shoot at full size, fill up your storage, then go back weeks later and shrink whatever you can bear to lose. Nanofy Cam drops that middle step. It compresses the photo while the file is being written, so the oversized version never lands on your phone.
One thing to know before you pick a tier: the photo in your library is the compressed one. Nanofy Cam keeps its full-quality original on this iPhone for 3 days, outside iCloud and your backups. To undo the compression, open the photo in Nanofy Cam, tap ···, then Restore Full Quality. You can keep originals for 1, 3, 7, 14 or 30 days, or turn it off, and Cam deletes each one when its days run out. Cam keeps no original for a photo taken at None (it is already full quality), for RAW, Live Photos or panoramas, or for video, which it compresses while you record. When you know you want a shot at full size for good, take it at None.
Here is roughly what each tier saves.
- None. Original size. Nothing is discarded.
- Standard. About 10% smaller, tuned so the result looks the same to your eye. Dim, grainy photos may not shrink at all here. When a smaller file isn't possible, we keep your original. Spotting a difference at this tier means we got it wrong, and we would like to hear about it.
- High Compression. About 30% smaller. Comfortable for anything headed to a message or a feed, and hard to tell from the original.
- Ultra Compression. About 50% smaller. Zoomed all the way in, you may catch some softening in fine detail. At normal size it holds up.
- Max Compression. About 75% smaller, and the smallest tier that still keeps HDR.
- Oblivion Compression. About 95% smaller. It works differently from the rest, so it has its own section below.
We measured these on the iPhone's main camera. Ultra Wide and Telephoto photos start out smaller, so they save less. Each tier uses the same quality setting on every lens.
Those figures are typical, and the word "about" is doing real work in them. They describe what a tier tends to save across a range of photos, not the result of any single one. A picture of a plain wall compresses far further than a picture of a forest, so your own results will sit either side of these numbers. The home page carries one specific measurement where High saved 49%, which is more than it usually gives.
That measurement is worth seeing at scale, because file size is what a photo costs you when you send it. The same photo went from 4.47 MB to 2.26 MB.
Oblivion Compression
Oblivion makes the smallest file Nanofy Cam is capable of, and it is the only tier that changes something other than file size. The first time you choose it the app stops and tells you so. This is the longer version of that notice.
It saves in standard dynamic range
Bright skies and lit windows lose their extra HDR range.
Every other tier keeps the HDR gain map. That is the extra layer letting the bright parts of a photo, a sky or a lit window, render with more range on a screen that can show it. Oblivion drops that layer, and most of its extra saving over Max Compression comes from doing so.
You keep the resolution you chose
Oblivion never shrinks the photo's dimensions.
Oblivion never quietly reduces your photo's dimensions to hit a smaller number. Whatever resolution you set, the file comes out at that resolution.
What you will actually see
Flatter highlights, most visible in a bright sky.
Highlights look flatter. A bright sky loses some of its depth, and a backlit portrait loses some of the detail around the edges of the light. Shoot in even indoor light and you may not spot anything at all.
Reach for Oblivion when the file size is the whole point: a long trip with nowhere to offload, a phone with a few hundred megabytes left, a photo somebody needs now over a weak connection. For anything you might print or edit later, Max Compression gets you most of the saving and keeps the HDR.
Capture settings
The Capture screen decides what kind of file each press of the shutter makes. It holds the photo format, the presets and compression levels each shot starts from, how long Cam keeps full-quality originals, video resolution, frame rate and bitrate, and what location and camera details go into each file.
Two choices here shape your files the most. The format: HEIC is smaller at the same quality, JPEG opens anywhere, and RAW (with Pro) saves one large DNG for editing later. And the location: Geo Tag writes where you took a photo into the file, and Remove Location & Metadata strips it. For video, Cam shows the cost in megabytes per minute before you record.
Each setting explains itself under its row in the app.
Controls
The Controls screen covers what sits under your thumb on the camera screen: which tools live in the Top Bar, whether a tap also locks exposure, the light during a self-timer, the shutter sound where your country allows it, and your last shot on Apple Watch. None of it changes the photo you get.
Each control explains itself under its row in the app. Grid, Level and Mirror Front Camera live on their own Display screen.
Where your photos go
Nanofy can't see your photos. There are no Nanofy servers to send them to, no account to tie them to, and no analytics in the app. Turn on Airplane Mode and try it; every setting still works.
Your compressed photos save into your Photos library, the same place the built-in Camera app writes to. With iCloud Photos switched on, Apple syncs them under your account and Apple's terms, exactly as it does for every other photo on your phone. The privacy policy has the full detail.