Original guide and reference
Written for the app that started it.
This is the original TimeLapsed guide, kept intact for photographers and space fans who still use the first-generation app.
TimeLapsed 1.0
From the original TimeLapsed
AI Usage
AI Usage, from the original TimeLapsed website.
Version 2026-08-08.1 · Effective August 8, 2026
TimeLapsed has one AI feature that sees your camera: Analyze Scene. This document explains exactly what it does, because "we use AI" is not a useful thing to be told about a camera app.
What Analyze Scene does
You point the camera at a scene and tap Analyze Scene. The app captures one frame and sends it to our servers along with numbers describing your current setup: shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation, white balance, which lens you are on, what your device is capable of, and measurements of the scene's brightness and clipping.
Our server passes that to a vision model, which returns suggested camera settings, a short explanation of why, a confidence score, and some tips. We clamp every suggestion to what your specific device can actually do before showing it to you, so it cannot suggest a shutter speed your camera does not have.
You then decide whether to apply it. Nothing changes on your camera unless you say so.
What is sent, precisely
- One still frame from the camera preview.
- Your current camera settings and the device's capability limits.
- Scene measurements: brightness, highlight clipping ratio, trail occupancy.
- Your app identifier and a request id.
What is NOT sent
- Your photo library. Not any of it.
- Your accumulated timelapse image or finished video.
- Your location. The app never asks for it, so it cannot send it.
- Your name or email address. The request carries an internal numeric user id.
- Any other frame. One frame, when you tap the button. There is no background capture and no continuous stream.
Whether the frame is kept
By default the frame is not retained. It is held in memory long enough to be analyzed and then discarded. We store the *result* of the analysis — the suggested settings and the reasoning — not the image.
Frame storage exists as an option we can switch on for diagnostics, and when it is off, which is the default, no frame is written to disk anywhere in our system. Each analysis record carries a flag saying whether its frame was stored, so this is auditable rather than a promise.
If we ever change the default, that is a change to this document, which means the app will ask you to accept it before it takes effect.
Your frames are not used to train models
We do not train models on your data. We do not fine-tune on it. Our AI provider processes each request under a zero-retention arrangement and does not use API inputs to train their models.
We are aware this is the single most common worry about AI in a camera app. The answer is no.
The AI can be wrong
Analyze Scene reads one frame and makes an educated guess. It is a suggestion from a model, not a measurement and not an authority.
It will sometimes be confidently wrong — recommending an exposure that blows out your highlights, or misreading an unusual scene. You are the photographer. Treat it the way you would treat advice from someone who glanced at your viewfinder for a second: occasionally exactly right, worth ignoring when your own judgment disagrees.
Do not rely on it for a shot you cannot retake.
Metering, and why it exists
Each analysis costs us money, so the feature is metered:
- Free — 5 scene analyses, total, for the lifetime of the account. Not monthly.
- Pro (any subscription, or the lifetime unlock) — 15 analyses per month. The allowance refreshes monthly and does not roll over.
- Credit packs — purchased credits never expire. We spend your monthly allowance first and your purchased credits only after it runs out, so you are never charged for something your subscription already covered.
When you run out, the app tells you what you have used and what your options are. It does not silently stop working.
Turning it off
Analyze Scene only ever runs when you tap it. There is nothing to disable — not using it is the same as it being off, and no frame is ever sent in the background.
If you would prefer never to have the option present, tell us at support@shutterspeedapps.com and we can discuss it; it is not currently a setting.
Changes
We will publish a new version of this document if any of the above changes, and the app will ask you to accept it. The specific commitments in this document — one frame only, on your explicit action, not retained by default, not used for training — are the ones we consider material, and we will not weaken them quietly.