Rensha LOOP

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Rensha LOOP

Eight square frames go in. One looping film comes out.

The loop

What it does

Rensha Loop is a burst camera for iPhone, on iOS 17 or newer. It takes 4 to 16 square photos in a row — 8, if you leave the dial alone — and stitches them into one H.264 video that plays on a loop.

The interval, from a tenth of a second to a full second, only spaces the shutter. It does not decide how fast the film plays. Playback is its own dial, 2 to 12 frames per second, starting at 5, and that speed is written into the file. Change the speed, the film, or the grain, and Rensha Loop rebuilds the video from the stills you already took. You do not shoot again.

Film

The grades are named for Portland bridges. Grain is a slider on every one of them, including None, and the pattern changes on every frame. Grain that sits still is just dirt.

Compose

Three ways to put the stills down. Sequence is free. Steady and Build share five saves, then the unlock takes over.

  1. Always free

    Sequence

    Each frame in turn. Square, in order, no alignment tricks.

  2. Shares the five

    Steady

    The frames line up so the background stays put while the burst moves through it.

  3. Shares the five

    Build

    The photos stack up, one on top of the last, until the whole run is in the picture.

Save, grid, share

Save writes the film to Photos. Grid writes one still of the frames: a single row when there are five or fewer, and two rows from six on up, with a blank cell at the end if the count is odd. Share hands the film to the system share sheet. Back throws the burst away.

The unlock

Sequence never asks for money. Steady and Build share five free saves between them. After that, one unlock makes those saves unlimited. If this Apple ID already paid, restore finds it. Some App Stores do not sell the unlock. Sequence still works there.

About

A cracked gear, and a second try

連写rensha

連写 is read rensha. 連 means consecutive. 写 means to photograph. Together they are the word for continuous shooting: the shutter keeps going. Burst mode, if your camera spoke Japanese instead of a menu.

The Rensha Cardia did that on 35mm. Eight sequential pictures, squeezed into the space of two frames of film. I had one. It was new to me and already old, and it worked long enough for a trip. Then a gear inside cracked. That archive, such as it is, lives at renrensha.jonk.org. The name Renrensha was a play on the camera and Run Run Shaw, which I am still pleased about.

Rensha Loop is that idea with the gear left out. A short run of stills, watched as a loop, without the scanner and without the ffmpeg step I used to do by hand. The phone takes the burst. The app makes the film.

Samples

Still in the darkroom

Nothing to project yet. These frames are waiting for a still, a loop, and a contact sheet. They get filled when there is something worth keeping.