Free Camera Report App for Film Sets: Meet SmartLog (2026)

SmartLog is a free camera report app for film and TV crews. It runs on any phone, tablet or computer, logs your takes, timecode and reference stills, and exports clean PDF and CSV camera reports at wrap. There is no account to create, no subscription, and no internet needed once it is open. It is made by 3D Film Parts, and it is free forever.

The short version for a working 2nd AC: open SmartLog, log your day, export a report. The longer version is that it now does a lot of things a paper pad cannot, and several that most logging apps do not. It can read timecode straight off your camera's display through the phone camera. It carries 167 camera bodies, 87 of them with recording data rates read out of the manufacturers' own documents. It turns the phone into a clapperboard. It writes marker files that drop your takes onto a DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro timeline at the right timecode. And it keeps the whole camera team on one shared log through a cloud account you already own.

In this article

• What is a camera report?
• What is SmartLog?
• What can you log and export?
• Eight features you will not find in most camera report apps
• How do I get timecode into SmartLog?
• Can the whole camera team share one log?
• What happens if I lose my phone?
• Is SmartLog really free?
• Does it work offline, and where does my data go?
• Does SmartLog work in Spanish?
• Built from crew requests
• Join the beta programme
• How do I get SmartLog?
• Frequently asked questions

What is a camera report?

A camera report is the log sheet that records how every shot was captured. On a professional set it is usually kept by the 2nd Assistant Camera, and it lists the shooting date, scene and take numbers, camera and roll, clip number, lens, exposure settings, sound sync, circled (good) takes and notes. It is the official record that ties each clip to its scene, so the DIT, editorial and post teams can match footage, keep looks consistent, and avoid lost or mislabelled takes.

Traditionally this lived on a paper pad or a spreadsheet. SmartLog does the same job on the phone already in your pocket, then hands you a clean file at wrap.

What is SmartLog?

SmartLog is a free digital camera report and take-logging tool for film and TV. You set up your production once (production name, company, director, DP, 1st and 2nd AC, camera bodies, FPS, aspect ratio), then log takes as you shoot. When you are done, SmartLog builds a paper-style camera report you can print, email or export as a PDF, split automatically into one report per date, camera and roll.

The five steps of a shoot day sit on the first screen, tick themselves off as you go, and point at whatever comes next, so nobody has to be shown how to use it.

It was built by 3D Film Parts, an Australian studio that makes on-set gear for filmmakers. The app was featured by PetaPixel in a piece on the company's tools for filmmakers.

What can you log and export?

SmartLog covers the full camera-report workflow, not just a notes field. Every field below is optional, and you decide which ones appear.

• The take: scene, slate, shot, take, clip number (or several clips per take), roll, camera, timecode in and out, duration, sound (sync or MOS), pick-ups, tail slates, circled good takes and struck false takes.
• Optics and exposure: lens, focal length, T-stop, filters, internal ND, ISO, colour temperature, tint, shutter, LUT, and camera-to-subject distance with the subject named. The stop slider reads in tenths exactly like the viewfinder, the ND chips add up what the stack is costing you in stops, and the colour temperature bar is painted with the colour of the light itself.
• The camera and the glass: 167 bodies across 13 manufacturers, from every major cinema camera to the high speed, action, 360 and drone bodies that turn up on the same call sheet. Plus 30 lens sets, any glass you name yourself, and a lens register holding serials, close focus, front diameter and T range for each physical lens.
• Pictures: reference stills on any take, and lighting diagrams on a take or on a whole card.
• Position and rig: camera height, tilt, dutch angle, GPS pin with an Open in Maps button, mags, rigs and recording mode.
• Your own fields: up to six custom take fields per production, which can pin their last value into every new take.
• Reports: a paper-style camera report per date, camera and roll, auto-fitted to the page whatever you switch on, ready to print, email or save as a PDF straight from the phone.
• Exports: PDF, CSV and JSON, a Silverstack CSV, a Drylab CSV, marker files for Resolve, Premiere and Final Cut, and a single wrap pack zip with the lot in it.

How does it compare with a paper report or a subscription app?

	SmartLog	Paper report	Typical subscription app
Cost	Free forever	Cost of the pad	Monthly fee
Account required	No	No	Usually
Works offline	Yes, completely	Yes	Often needs sign-in
Whole team on one log	Yes, through your own Drive	No	Usually on their server
Timecode from the camera	Point the phone at the display, or jam by audio	Written by hand	Rare
Editorial marker files	Resolve, Premiere, Final Cut	No	Varies
PDF and CSV export	Yes	No, manual	Varies
Platforms	iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, Windows	Not applicable	Varies

Eight features you will not find in most camera report apps

A camera report app is usually a form and an export. These are the parts of SmartLog that went further, and every one of them came from a working crew member asking for something their current tool could not do.

1. Jam timecode by pointing your phone at the camera

Open jam by camera, aim the box at the camera's timecode display, and SmartLog reads the digits off the screen with the phone camera, works out the offset between the camera's clock and the phone's, and locks. No cable, no timecode box, no typing. It reads the seconds column rather than the frames digit, because at 25fps the frames digit changes every 40 milliseconds and the phone's exposure smears two digits into every capture, which is exactly why the naive approach fails on a real camera.

If the display will not read, you have two fallbacks in the same place. You can jam by LTC audio from a timecode box or the camera's timecode out, through the phone's headphone input, which decodes any frame rate and either polarity. Or you can set the timecode by hand and nudge it by one frame, one second, one minute or one hour while watching both clocks side by side.

2. The phone becomes a clapperboard

Slate mode turns the whole screen into a digital clapperboard: production, roll, scene, take, timecode, director and DP, laid out to be read across a room and photographed by the camera. There is a CLAP button that stamps the take's timecode at the tap and a CUT button that closes it, and one clap covers every camera rolling at the time. For a small unit with no slate on the truck, that is the slate.

3. Marker files that put your takes on the editor's timeline

This is the one post departments notice. SmartLog writes marker files for DaVinci Resolve (EDL), Premiere Pro (XML) and Final Cut Pro (FCPXML). Every take lands on the timeline at its own camera timecode, carrying the slate, the lens and your note. Circled takes come in green, false takes red. Because the timecode is the camera's own, it lines up with the rushes.

Alongside those it writes a Silverstack CSV that matches on timecode, camera and clip number, a Drylab CSV, and a plain CSV and JSON that open anywhere. The whole lot comes down in one wrap pack zip so the handover at wrap is a single file, not eight.

4. A camera database with the manufacturers' own data rates

SmartLog carries 87 camera bodies with 575 recording modes, and the data rates are read out of the manufacturers' own published documents rather than estimated. Pick your body and recording mode and it will tell you how long a card lasts, how many cards the day needs, and whether the card you are using is fast enough to sustain the mode. It does the same for power: 85 battery packs and camera-native packs, with runtime worked out from the body's published draw and your accessories added on.

Where a figure is derived rather than published, it says so. Where a manufacturer publishes nothing, it asks you to type the rate the camera itself reports instead of inventing one. That honesty is deliberate, because a card count you cannot trust is worse than no card count.

5. Smart Assist, for when the day gets away from you

Every AC knows the moment: three setups have gone by while you were doing something else, and the log is behind. Smart Assist is a set of tools for exactly that.

• Catch-up mode walks you back through what the camera actually recorded and fills the gaps.
• Provisional takes let you log a take you are not sure about and mark it as needing a check, rather than guessing or skipping it.
• Recover a missed take rebuilds a take from the clip numbers and timecode either side of it.
• Auto-match multi-camera pairs up the takes the other cameras logged for the same moment.
• Ghost Frame puts an earlier reference still against your live camera view, as an overlay, side by side, or flickering between the two, and saves the matched frame straight onto the take. Matching a setup by eye beats matching it from a written description.
• Sound link ties a take to its sound file, and knows that a MOS take has none to name. Post ready marks a take as cleared to hand over.

6. False rolls, AFS and the things a real day throws at you

A false roll (a bumped record button) is written on the report with its roll and clip number so the card reconciles, but it is never counted as a take. The take after a false start is marked AFS, which tells the assistant editor that the camera never cut and there is a second clap inside that clip. You can filter the day down to false rolls in one tap, and choose whether a false take burns its number or reuses it.

These sound like small things. They are the difference between a loader finding 42 clips against 39 takes and going hunting, and a loader reading one line and moving on.

7. Star ratings, so the good stuff is findable at wrap

Circled and struck cover printed and false. Star ratings cover everything in between: rate a take one to five, then filter and sort the day best first. It is on by default, the stars sit on the row, and the rating rides into the report and the exports. When a director asks which takes were the strong ones at the end of a fourteen hour day, you are not scrolling through notes.

8. Several productions on one phone, and a way back from any mistake

Most freelancers are on more than one job. SmartLog keeps several productions on one device, each with its own takes, cameras, glass and report setup, and switching between them never merges or loses anything. A backup carries every project; a team sync carries only the one you are on, so a colleague on job A never receives your other clients' work.

Underneath that is a rolling version history. SmartLog snapshots your log as you work and keeps the recent versions plus one a day for a week, on the device, offline, on any phone. If a day goes wrong you roll back, and because restoring takes a snapshot first, the rollback is itself undoable.

How do I get timecode into SmartLog?

Four ways, and you can change your mind at any point in the day:

1. Point the phone at the camera. Jam by camera reads the timecode off the camera's own display and locks to it.
2. Jam by audio. Feed LTC from a timecode box or the camera's timecode out into the phone's audio input and SmartLog decodes it, at any frame rate.
3. Type it and nudge it. Set the timecode by hand, then adjust by a frame, a second, a minute or an hour against the live clock.
4. Time of day. With nothing jammed, SmartLog runs on the device clock, which is what most small units are doing anyway.

Whichever you pick, a live timecode clock sits in Setup, a TC IN and TC OUT stamp onto each take at the tap of a button, and the take's duration works itself out, including across midnight. The clock is clamped to a real SMPTE rate, so a 120fps shooting day still shows a timecode a human can read.

Can the whole camera team share one log?

Yes, and there are three ways to do it depending on what signal you have.

Team sync, through your own Google Drive. Everyone connects the same Google Drive account, usually one made for the job, switches Team sync on, and SmartLog keeps a single shared log file in that account. Each device pulls in the takes the others logged and adds its own. It is your account and your file. There is no server of ours in between, and it is off until somebody turns it on.

A QR code to join the crew. The connected device shows one code. A teammate scans it, signs into the job's account, and is bound to the same file. If their phone already holds takes, they get their own new project named after the production, so two jobs can never fold together by accident.

Or with no cloud at all. Two QR codes hand a whole log from one device to another. One device shows a code, the other scans it, a reply code goes back, and the log crosses directly between the two phones over the WiFi in the room or a hotspot off one of them. On the same network it never touches the internet, and there is no account involved at any point.

Three things are worth knowing before you rely on any of it:

• Nobody can overwrite your work. Sync merges take by take and field by field. A teammate's new takes appear on your device and gaps get filled in, but anything you typed yourself is never overwritten by an incoming copy.
• It is offline first, always. Every take saves to your own device instantly, with no signal at all. The cloud only ever catches up. A day with no reception is a normal day.
• Read only is a mode. A device can pull the log in and never write to it, which is how you give a director or a producer the day without giving them the ability to change it.

What happens if I lose my phone?

This is the question people ask second, right after the price, and it deserves a straight answer. SmartLog stores your log on your own device, so the honest risk is the device.

• Named backup copies. Back up now writes a dated file of every project on the phone, to wherever you keep things, in one tap. On Chrome, Edge and Android you can also pick an auto-backup file once and every change rewrites it silently from then on.
• Rolling version history keeps recent snapshots plus one a day for a week, on the device, with no permission prompt and no network. It works on iPhone, where the auto-backup file API does not exist.
• Team sync means a second phone already holds the day.
• The wrap pack is a single zip with the report, the CSVs and the editorial files, so the day exists off the phone the moment you send it.

There is a backup wizard in Setup that walks through setting this up on day one, and the app nudges you if the log has moved on well past your last backup. Do it once at the start of a job and stop thinking about it.

Is SmartLog really free?

Yes, and it is designed to stay that way. 3D Film Parts makes its money from film hardware, not software, so SmartLog has no subscription, no ads, no paid tier and nothing to unlock. The view behind it is simple: crews should not have to pay a monthly fee to write a camera report.

It goes further than free to use. The app is proprietary software, but it is free to use with no account, no subscription and no ads. It runs entirely in your browser and your data stays on your device.

Does it work offline, and where does my data go?

Once SmartLog is open it works with no signal at all, which is exactly what you need in a studio, a car park, a tunnel or a remote location. It is offline first by design: every take is written to your own device the instant you save it, and nothing has to reach a network for your day to be safe.

Your log lives on your device, not on a server of ours. There is no account to create and no sign-in with us, so there is no profile of you anywhere. To be precise about the two exceptions, because vague privacy claims are worth nothing:

• We count opens, and that is all. The app tells our site it was opened, once per day per device, so the public counter on the SmartLog page reflects real use. It is a tally with no identifier, no location and no contents. Nothing about your production, your takes or your files is included.
• Team sync is opt-in, and it goes to your cloud, not ours. If you switch it on, your log (including reference stills and lighting diagrams) is written to the Google Drive account you connected. That is your account and your file. We have no server in the middle and no copy of it. Leave team sync off and nothing ever leaves the device.

The full SmartLog privacy policy spells all of this out, including the one third party the page itself loads.

Does SmartLog work in Spanish?

Yes. Pick your language in Setup and the whole app follows, including the printed camera report, so the document you hand over is in the language of the people who have to read it. Every screen, chip, filter and toast is translated, not just the menus. English and Spanish ship today, and the app is built so that adding a language is a translation file rather than a rewrite.

Built from crew requests

Nearly every feature in this article started as an email or an Instagram message from a working camera assistant, and most shipped within days. 50 builds have gone out, and 18 crew members are credited by name on the SmartLog page for the features they asked for: false rolls and AFS from a 2nd AC in Malaysia, the Silverstack import route from a DIT in Brazil, the Spanish translation from Spain, the distance field from a focus puller in Denmark, camera events and the continuity card from a 1st AC in Mexico.

If something in your camera report routine is still manual, tell us. That is genuinely how this gets built.

Join the beta programme

There is a public beta of SmartLog, and it is open to anyone who wants to try new features early and say what they think. It is the same app with the next round of work switched on, it carries its own build number so you can tell a tester's phone at a glance, and it is where every feature lands before it reaches the public build.

The round in beta right now is about telling three things apart that most tools run together: a value the app has, a value it knows the source of, and a value a person has actually checked. In practice that means:

• Recording configuration on the take, not just in the calculator. Pick a mode and the take records the raster, codec, frame rate, data rate and which manufacturer document that rate came from. Change camera at three in the afternoon and the morning still says what the morning was shot on.
• Warnings that know what your equipment can do. Log 120fps on a mode published to 75 and it says so, beside the field, while you can still see it. A warning only ever fires where there is real published data behind it.
• Where every value came from. Long press a field label and it tells you: typed here, carried by Smartfill, read from the camera setup, taken from the manufacturer database, measured by the phone, or arrived from a teammate.
• Verified takes and a card data ledger. Mark a take as checked against the camera, and see estimated data against what actually came off the card. A gap is the cheapest way there is to find a clip nobody logged.

Testers get features weeks early, and their feedback decides what ships. If you shoot regularly and you are willing to tell us when something is wrong, sign up on the SmartLog beta page. The public build stays exactly as stable as it is now.

How do I get SmartLog?

SmartLog runs in your browser, so there is nothing to install if you do not want to. Open the SmartLog page and choose how you want it:

• On your phone (iPhone, iPad, Android): tap Launch, then use Add to Home Screen. You get an app icon that opens instantly and works offline.
• On Mac or Windows: open it in Chrome or Edge and click Install. It becomes a proper app window with its own icon.
• Keep a copy: on Android, Mac or Windows, tap Download to save the whole app as a single file you own and can open offline, anytime. On iPhone and iPad, use Add to Home Screen instead, because iOS has nowhere useful to put a downloaded file.

Whichever way you install it, set up a backup on day one, and load the demo day if you want a look around before a real job. Prepping the package first? The pairing prep-day app, SmartPrep, reads a rental order from a paste, a PDF, a spreadsheet or a photograph of the printed page, and hands the finished job straight to SmartLog so the shoot day opens already configured.

SmartLog comes from the team building the 3D Film Parts Digital Slate, a 3D-printed digital clapperboard currently in testing. A future update will let the app pair with the slate so the hard half of every take, the scene, take, real clap timecode and a slate-frame photo, writes itself. Until then, and always, logging in SmartLog is free.

Frequently asked questions

Is SmartLog free to use?

Yes. SmartLog is free forever, with no account, no subscription and no ads. 3D Film Parts funds it through hardware sales rather than software fees, and the app is free to use with no account, no subscription and no ads.

Do I need an internet connection?

No. Once the app is open it works fully offline. Your takes are saved on your device the moment you log them, and they only leave it when you export a file yourself or switch team sync on.

Which cameras does SmartLog support?

The camera picker carries 167 bodies across 13 manufacturers, including ARRI, RED, Sony, Canon, Blackmagic, Panasonic, DJI, GoPro, Insta360 and Phantom. 87 of those carry 575 recording modes with data rates read out of the manufacturers' own documents, which is what drives the card and battery calculations. Any camera not in the list can be typed in by hand, and you can enter its data rate yourself.

How do I get timecode into SmartLog?

Four ways: point the phone camera at the camera's timecode display and let it read and lock, feed LTC audio in from a timecode box or the camera's timecode out, set it by hand and nudge it a frame at a time, or run on time of day. TC IN and TC OUT then stamp onto each take at the tap of a button.

Can SmartLog export to Silverstack, DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro?

Yes. It writes a Silverstack CSV that matches on timecode, camera and clip number, a Drylab CSV, and marker files for DaVinci Resolve (EDL), Premiere Pro (XML) and Final Cut Pro (FCPXML) that place every take on the timeline at its own camera timecode with the slate, lens and note attached. Circled takes come in green and false takes red.

Can the whole camera team share one log?

Yes. Everyone connects the same Google Drive account, usually one made for the job, switches Team sync on, and SmartLog keeps a single shared log file in that account. A QR code lets the next phone join in one scan. It is your account and your file, we have no server in between, and it is off until somebody turns it on.

Can someone on the team overwrite my work?

No. Sync merges take by take and field by field: a teammate's new takes appear on your device, gaps get filled in, and anything you typed yourself is never overwritten by an incoming copy. A device can also be set to read only, so a director or producer can see the day without being able to change it.

Can I hand my log to someone with no internet at all?

Yes, and this is what the two QR codes are for. One device shows a code, the other scans it, a reply code goes back, and the log crosses directly between the two devices over the WiFi in the room or a hotspot from one of the phones. No account is involved at any point.

What is a false roll, and why does it matter?

A false roll is a bumped record button: the camera made a clip, but there was no take. SmartLog writes it on the report with its roll and clip number so the card reconciles, without counting it as a take. The take after a false start is marked AFS, which tells the assistant editor the camera never cut and there is a second clap inside that clip.

What happens to my log if I lose my phone?

Use the backup wizard on day one. Back up now writes a dated file of every project in one tap, auto-backup rewrites a file you picked on every change (Chrome, Edge and Android), and a rolling version history keeps snapshots on the device including on iPhone. If the team is synced, a second phone already holds the day.

Does it work on iPhone and Android?

Yes. SmartLog runs in the browser on iPhone, iPad and Android, and installs as an app on Mac and Windows too. It is one self-contained file, so there is no app store, no update to chase and no account.

Who fills out the camera report on set?

Usually the 2nd Assistant Camera keeps the camera report, recording scene, take, roll, clip, timecode, lens and exposure for every shot so post-production can match and identify every clip. On smaller units it is often the 1st AC, the DIT or the operator.

How do I join the SmartLog beta?

Sign up on the SmartLog beta page. You get new features weeks before they reach the public build, and your feedback decides what ships. The beta carries its own build number so you always know which version you are on.

Prepping the package before the shoot? See our camera prep checklist, and our guide to the best AC front box for camera assistants for keeping your kit within reach.