What We Did First — and What Is Still Different

Last checked 2026-10-05 · Asia/Shanghai

This page exists so that “first” never floats around without a date. Every claim below has a public source, a date, and a standing invitation to be corrected. Where we are not first, we say so. AlphaLuma is a third-party app; nothing here is a Sony statement.

What we did first

1. FIRST · 2026-08-04 · China 1.0.9 / 2026-08-06 · international 1.1.0

   Write a Creative Look recipe into a Sony camera from a phone, over USB

   The China edition shipped USB recipe import in 1.0.9 on 2026-08-04, the international edition in 1.1.0 “USB Recipe Import” on 2026-08-06 (both App Store version history). Connect a cable, pick a recipe, and after you confirm, it lands in the camera: the look and its eight adjustments into a Custom Look slot, or the whole recipe with white balance onto the current settings. Our blog described it on 2026-08-04; the “first app that can import a recipe straight from your phone into a Sony camera” wording is from the 2026-08-07 post. As far as public changelogs show, no other phone app wrote Creative Look recipes into a Sony body before this. This is our own claim.

What that is not

• Not hand-copying eight parameters from a card into the camera menu. That path is free and needs no app; sonyfilmsimulations.com publishes the cards.
• Not Sony Creators' App “Creative Look by creators” (ver. 3.5, announced 2026-08-27). That is Sony delivering Sony's own creator Looks through Creators' Cloud. AlphaLuma writes recipes people made.
• Not a parameter-notebook app. Apps that list Creative Look values for you to type in (AlphaLook and similar) are a different category; we don't claim to be first at that.
• Not the first phone monitor for a Sony camera. Others shipped monitor modes before ours (PixCake added a camera-monitor mode over a USB cable in February 2026, iPhone 1.6.0). What ours adds is switching Creative Look from the phone and writing it back to the body — see below.
• Not Creative Style tools for older bodies — the open-source in-camera Recipe Lab app for the α6000 generation (a different thing from AlphaLuma Recipe Lab), JPEG.CAM and the like. Those address the pre-Creative-Look generation; we don't count them and don't compete with them.
• Not the first third-party app to write Creative Look recipes wirelessly. Lutaro, an independent iOS app, documented it earlier: on its site from 2026-08-27, and in its App Store 1.1 notes of 2026-09-05 (Creative Looks as apply targets; Bluetooth setup, then a switch to the camera's hotspot). Our wireless write shipped in China 1.1.5 on 2026-09-29 and in international 1.1.3 on 2026-10-03. Dates are UTC.
• Not the first software to write Creative Look recipes over USB at all. pysonycam, an open-source Python library, has included, since April 2026, a script for writing a recipe's base look and all eight adjustments from a computer over USB. Our first is narrower: from a phone.

Still different today

LAST CHECKED · 2026-10-05

“First” is a date and never changes. “Still the only one” expires, so it carries a check date. As of the date above, we have not found another app that does all of the following for Sony Creative Look:

• Writes a full community or user recipe over USB — base Look and eight adjustments into a Custom Look slot, or together with white balance onto the current settings — with the look and its adjustments shown before it is written.
• Does the same write wirelessly, over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi Direct or LAN, on bodies it has verified.
• Runs a phone monitor on which switching Creative Look is written back to the camera, not only previewed on the phone.
• Offers AlphaLuma Recipe Lab: tuning a recipe against the camera's live view and applying it to the body in one tap.

What we re-check each time

• iTunes Lookup release date and current version for both App Store listings (international and China).
• App Store version-history entries: China 1.0.9 / 1.1.2 / 1.1.5, international 1.1.0 / 1.1.1 / 1.1.3.
• Our own posts of 2026-08-04, 2026-08-07 and 2026-08-18 are still live and unchanged in their publish dates; the 1.1.3 post's date was corrected on 2026-10-06 (see Corrections).
• Sony's Creators' App 3.5 announcement is still dated 2026-08-27.
• Public changelogs of other Sony-camera iOS apps for a Creative Look recipe write over USB or wireless. Checked 2026-10-05 (UTC dates): Cascable Studio (version history through 7.4, 2026-10-03 — RAW previews and video codec / frame-rate settings; its “Recipes” are automation scripts; no Creative Look write); Monitor+ (1.6.0, 2026-10-01 — timecode display and gallery fixes; no Creative Look write); Camera Connect & Control (7.0.4, 2026-09-22 — Canon file names, a monitor-off option, iOS 27; no recipe write); Shutter+ (no release since 5.11 “Bug fixes”, 2026-09-11; Sony page: LUT preview on the phone only, no write to the body); PixCake (2.5.0, 2026-09-27 — retouching, collage and watermark tools; Sony tethering guide: transfer and remote capture, no Creative Look control); AlphaLook (one version, 1.0, 2026-09-11 — a recipe library with a step-by-step guide for typing values in, no camera connection); Alpha Looks (no release since 1.3, 2026-06-09 — Picture Profile recipes, no camera connection); Sony's Creators' App (3.5.0, 2026-08-27), Monitor & Control (3.0.1, 2026-07-30) and Imaging Edge Mobile (7.8.4, 2026-09-15) — no release since our last check. Found: Lutaro, an independent iOS app, documents writing Creative Looks over Wi-Fi (its site, from 2026-08-27) and over USB (App Store 1.1, 2026-09-05) — see Corrections. Outside the App Store, open-source projects include writers for them: pysonycam, a script for writing over USB from a computer (since April 2026), and cameralink, over Wi-Fi through a Raspberry Pi bridge (since 2026-08-24).
• Lutaro's App Store version history (1.0 2026-08-27, 1.1 2026-09-05, 1.2 2026-09-07) and its site's camera list: what it writes, and over which connection.
• GitHub: open-source Sony Creative Look writers (pysonycam, cameralink and any new ones) — what they write, over which connection, from which device.

Timeline

Three kinds of dates, kept apart on purpose: the day we wrote about something (blog), the day it could be installed (App Store version history), and the day Sony announced something (Sony). The install date is the one that counts for “first”. App Store dates are UTC, as Apple's version history records them; where the Beijing date differs, it is given in brackets. The “Last checked” date above is Beijing time.

Sources

• App Store — AlphaLuma
• Blog 2026-08-04 · USB write
• Blog 2026-08-07 · “first app”
• Blog 2026-08-18 · Camera monitor
• Blog · 1.1.3 wireless connection
• Sony · Creators' App 3.5 announcement (2026-08-27)
• Sony Help Guide · Creative Look
• Lutaro · App Store (version history)
• Lutaro site · Compatibility
• GitHub · pysonycam (examples/creative_look_recipes.py)
• GitHub · cameralink
• USB connection guide
• Wireless connection guide

Corrections welcome

If another phone app shipped a Creative Look recipe write into a Sony camera over a cable before 2026-08-04, with a public changelog, write to sonyalphainfo@126.com with the link. We will correct this page and say so here. Correction, 2026-10-06: this page used to claim the first wireless recipe write among third-party apps. Lutaro, an independent iOS app, documented wireless Creative Look writes earlier (its site from 2026-08-27; App Store 1.1 notes, 2026-09-05; dates UTC), so we have withdrawn that claim. The USB first stands as scoped above — from a phone: Lutaro's first release was 2026-08-27, and until then its site listed Creative Looks as “coming”. Also corrected on 2026-10-06: the publish date of our 1.1.3 post, from 2026-09-29 (the China release date) to 2026-10-04, the day it actually went live. sonyalphainfo@126.com

FAQ

Is AlphaLuma the first app to write Creative Look recipes into a Sony camera from a phone?

By our own account, yes: the China edition 1.0.9 (2026-08-04) and the international 1.1.0 (2026-08-06) wrote recipes from an iPhone over USB, and our 2026-08-07 post made the claim (“straight from your iPhone”). It is a self-claim with a date and a public invitation to correct it; we have not found an earlier phone app with a public changelog. Desktop tools are outside this claim.

Is AlphaLuma the first app to write Creative Look recipes to a Sony camera wirelessly?

No. Lutaro, an independent iOS app, documented writing Creative Looks to Sony cameras over Wi-Fi earlier (its site from 2026-08-27; App Store 1.1 notes, 2026-09-05). Ours shipped in China 1.1.5 (2026-09-29) and international 1.1.3 (2026-10-03, UTC). Sony's own Creators' App also delivers Sony's creator Looks wirelessly (ver. 3.5, announced 2026-08-27). Our first is narrower: writing recipes from a phone over USB, 2026-08-04.

Is AlphaLuma the first camera monitor app for Sony?

No, and we do not claim it. Other apps shipped Sony monitor modes before ours. What AlphaLuma's monitor adds is Creative Look switching that is written back to the camera.

Is AlphaLuma an official Sony app?

No. AlphaLuma is a third-party app for Sony Alpha photographers, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Sony Group Corporation.