The Dana App: Full TTL Control of the Godox A2 Xenon Flash With Real Film Looks

A real flash deserves a real camera app

The Godox A2 puts a true xenon flash with TTL metering on the back of an iPhone, magnetically attached and controlled over Bluetooth. It brings the classic flash photography look, the look of film, fashion editorials, and compact cameras, to the phone in your pocket.

The Dana is the app that gives that flash the control it deserves. It was designed and developed by Diego Sánchez Cadavid, a photographer with 25 years of professional work, and built around one idea: film looks come from light plus color science, never from filters.

What The Dana controls

Flash. Full TTL automatic exposure and full manual power on the Godox A2, with flash and camera exposure working together. TTL also works with the iPhone's built-in light, metered by LiDAR on Pro models, and a Bluetooth radio trigger fires studio flashes straight from the phone. The A2 can also trigger studio flashes optically through their slave sensors.

Exposure and white balance. Shutter, ISO, and white balance in Kelvin with precise tint control, across the 13 mm, 24 mm, and 100 mm lenses, so skin tones are right at capture. Shutter speeds run into the thousandths of a second for shooting flash in full sun.

Color science. Curves, contrast, black level, white level, saturation, and separate tone wheels for shadows and highlights, each with its own hue and strength. This is the same vocabulary used in professional color grading, available on the phone in your pocket.

Grain. Film grain modeled on real emulsion behavior that responds to exposure, not a flat noise layer.

Film looks. Curated collections of films, including DANA House and DANA Signature, each built from color science. Every film is a starting point you can take apart and rebuild, because every parameter underneath remains editable.

Open gate capture. The Dana reads the full Bayer image from the iPhone sensor, open gate, with no crop and nothing in between. Capture is available in RAW and Apple Log 2 in 10-bit HEIF, so every film starts from everything the sensor recorded.

Built like a camera, not a filter app

Every film in The Dana is a complete recipe: color, contrast, grain, and a fixed white balance in one choice, like loading a roll. Keep your films loaded in the camera's slots, D1, D2, D3 and on, and switch between them while you shoot.

Films are rendered in a scene-linear pipeline and output in Rec. 709 or Display P3. Scene assist detects faces and people on the device to meter the flash and separate the background, and nothing leaves your phone: no analytics, no ads, no account needed to shoot.

Who it is for

The Dana is for photographers who already understand light and want their phone frames to live alongside their real work. It is for creators who are tired of filters that fall apart under flash. And it is for anyone who bought a Godox A2 because they wanted the look of real flash photography and wants full control of the result.

Roadmap

The Dana launched with full Godox A2 integration. Integrations with camera triggers and additional flash hardware are in active development, with the goal of making The Dana the control center for small-flash photography on iPhone.

Get The Dana

The Dana is free on the App Store for iPhone 17 or later with iOS 27. DANA Pro, which adds film editing and saved recipes, is US$24.99 per year with a 7-day free trial. Browse prints here at Dana Gallery, read more on The Dana's page at ASA Creative, read why film looks start with the light, and read the story of why a Miami celebrity photographer built his own flash app on dcadavid.com.

Frequently asked questions

Does The Dana work with the Godox A2 in TTL? Yes. The Dana has full TTL and manual integration with the Godox A2 xenon flash.

Is The Dana a filter app? No. Its film looks are built from color science and every parameter is editable: tint, curves, contrast, blacks, whites, shadow and highlight tone wheels, saturation, and grain.

What is open gate on an iPhone? Open gate means capturing the full area of the sensor instead of a cropped frame. The Dana reads the full Bayer image from the iPhone sensor for more image and more flexibility in post.

Can I use The Dana without the Godox A2? Yes. The color engine and film looks work with any light source. The A2 adds the real xenon flash look.

The Dana is an independent app published by ASA Films. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Godox or any other flash or radio trigger manufacturer.