Director Mode App Released for iPhone and iPad – Four-Camera Monitoring, REC ALL, and USB-C Control for Canon and Sony

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by Nino LeitnerToday

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Director Mode is a new iPhone and iPad app that monitors and controls selected Canon and Sony cameras, and it can show up to four of them side by side, even when you mix the two brands. The app comes from a small team in Florence, Italy, connects over Wi-Fi, LAN or a direct USB-C cable, and adds a waveform, focus peaking, custom LUTs and a REC ALL button in its Pro version. Director Mode Basic is free, and Pro is a one-time in-app purchase.

We see a lot of camera control apps, but almost all of them stay inside one brand. Canon has its apps for Canon bodies, Sony has its apps for Sony bodies, and if you run a Canon EOS C50 next to a Sony a7 V on a small documentary or interview shoot, you normally end up with two phones, or with one phone and a lot of app switching. Director Mode tries to solve exactly that. According to the developer, filmmaker Claudio Ripalti and his crew built it out of practical needs on documentary and narrative sets, and more than 250 filmmakers took part in the beta program before version 1.0 went live on the Apple App Store last week.

One app for Canon and Sony

The app is not affiliated with or endorsed by Canon or Sony, so it works through the remote interfaces that the camera manufacturers already offer. Canon Cinema EOS cameras connect through Canon’s XC protocol over Wi-Fi or LAN, Canon EOS R cameras through the Canon Camera Control API (CCAPI) over Wi-Fi or USB-C, and Sony Alpha and FX cameras over Wi-Fi or USB-C. The developer’s compatibility page counts 26 camera models. Some of them need extra hardware: the Canon EOS C70, C300 Mark III and C500 Mark II require an external Wi-Fi adapter, and LAN on the Canon EOS C50 needs a USB-C to Ethernet adapter plus Canon’s DR-E6P DC coupler.

The supported Canon cameras are the EOS C50, C70, C80, C300 Mark III, C400 and C500 Mark II on the Cinema EOS side, plus the EOS R1, R5 Mark II, R6 Mark III, R6 Mark II, R6V, R8, R8 Mark II, R50 V and the PowerShot V1. On the Sony side, the list covers the FX2, FX3 / FX3A, FX30 and FX5, as well as the a1, a1 II, a9 III, a7S III, a7R VI, a7 V and a7C II. One note here: the camera list in the App Store description is shorter than the one in the developer’s own feature chart (dated November 5), so I would check the compatibility page for your exact body before you buy anything.

What you can control depends on the camera, and the developer is open about it. On the Canon EOS R6 Mark III, the app gives you exposure, white balance, REC start/stop, tap to focus and tap to track, plus 6x magnification. On the Sony a7 V, you also get AF mode, half-press and one-shot AF, recording frame rate, S&Q settings and an app-based shutter angle mode, which keeps your chosen shutter angle when you change the frame rate. The Cinema EOS cameras add AF hold and the most complete telemetry, including battery, remaining recording time, color gamma and memory card status.

Director mode: four cameras on one screen

The feature that gives the app its name is the multicamera view. With Pro, you can monitor up to four simultaneous feeds in two-, three- or four-camera layouts, see the recording status of each angle, open the individual camera controls, and start or stop recording on all connected cameras with REC ALL. Tap to focus and tap to track also work inside the multicamera grid. On an iPad, that becomes a small video village for a solo operator or a two-person crew.

Besides the multicamera view, the app has a camera browser, a vertical control console that keeps the live view and touch focus on screen while you change settings, and a full-screen landscape monitor. For multicamera work over Wi-Fi, the developer recommends a dedicated 5 GHz access point, and it states that a Wi-Fi 6 access point with a real throughput of 300 to 400 Mbps can handle four cameras. A mixed setup is also possible: one Sony camera on USB-C plus up to three more cameras on Wi-Fi.

Monitoring tools and latency

The Pro monitoring tools are a waveform monitor, focus peaking, custom .cube LUTs, Canon Log monitoring LUTs, markers and frame guides, picture overlay and anamorphic desqueeze. That is a decent toolkit for judging exposure on a phone, and it is more than many manufacturer apps offer. Of course, an iPhone is not a calibrated reference monitor, but for checking framing, focus and exposure on a B or C camera across the room, it can be enough.

The developer has also published its own latency measurements. With USB-C, it measured about 30 ms from a Canon EOS R6 Mark III and about 40 ms from a Sony a7 V. Over Wi-Fi, the figures rise to about 110 ms for the R6 Mark III, 120 ms for the EOS C50 and 130 ms for the a7 V. These numbers come from the developer’s specific camera, device and connection setups, and I haven’t been able to verify them yet, but they suggest that the wired connection is the one to use when you pull focus from the app.

Basic or Pro: what you get for free

Director Mode Basic is free and supports one compatible camera at a time over Wi-Fi, LAN on Cinema EOS models, and USB-C on Sony cameras. Pro adds the multicamera console with up to four feeds, all the monitoring tools listed above, and USB-C for the Canon EOS R cameras. Focus peaking also requires Pro. USB-C connections need an iPhone or iPad with a USB-C port, the app requires iOS 17.6 or later, and the interface is in English only. There is no Android version.

Where does this fit? Canon announced its own Camera Control Centre software just a few days ago. It merges four of Canon’s existing tools, can compare up to four camera feeds, and will be a free download from January 2027, but it runs on a computer and is aimed mainly at Canon’s PTZ and remote camera systems. Sony, on the other hand, recently introduced the DP7 and DP5 camera control monitors for its Cinema Line bodies. FUJIFILM’s ETERNA ProRemote app, which we looked at during IBC 2026, also puts four cameras on one iPad, but only GFX ETERNA 55 bodies. My feeling is that a third-party app is the only realistic way to get Canon and Sony on one screen for now (I would love to see the camera manufacturers talk to each other a bit more, but I am not holding my breath).

Price and availability

Director Mode is available now on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. Basic is free. Pro costs $29.99 in the US and €29.99 in the euro App Store as a one-time purchase with lifetime access to all features. The developer calls this a special launch price, so I would expect it to go up at some point. More information, connection guides and the full compatibility list are on the Director Mode website.

Do you mix Canon and Sony cameras on your shoots, and how do you monitor them today? Would an iPhone or iPad replace a dedicated monitor for your B camera? Let me know what you think in the comments below!