Comparison

Gx FoCalc vs TetherCam

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Gx FoCalc

Easily calculate the 35mm equivalent focal length and apparent aperture for various camera sensor sizes and lens configurations. Input your focal length, aperture, and any focal reducers or teleconverters to see the full-frame equivalent.

Highlights
  • 35mm crop factor calculation
  • Equivalent focal length
  • Apparent aperture calculation
  • Supports focal reducers
  • Supports teleconverters
Features
Read full description

FoCalc by [Gx]Ace Is the internet's best 35mm Crop Factor Calculator. Ever wonder what the 35mm equivalent of a 23mm f2 on APS-C would be? Ever wonder what that 120mm f8 8x10 lens would be if it were put in 35mm terms? Well now you can know it all with FoCalc! FoCalc allows you to input a focal length and aperture as well as a focal reducer or teleconverter and automatically calculates the equivalent focal length and apparent aperture on 35mm Full Frame.

About

TetherCam

Features
Read full description

Your iPhone, instead of a webcam. TWO APPS, ONE CABLE TetherCam is two free apps. TetherCam for Mac is downloaded from tethercam.app; TetherCam for iPhone is this one. Install both, connect the phone to the Mac with the USB cable you already own, and the iPhone shows up as the camera "TetherCam" on the Mac, in the same camera picker as the built-in one. It works in every Mac app that lists system cameras: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, FaceTime, QuickTime Player, Safari, Chrome and the rest. Zoom and Microsoft Teams were verified on 10 September 2026. Nothing travels over Wi-Fi, nothing passes through a server, nothing is uploaded anywhere. There is no account, no pairing code and no discovery step. The cable is the whole path, which is why the picture stays stable in a crowded room where wireless cameras start to stutter. WHAT YOU NEED An iPhone with iOS 17 or newer, a Mac with macOS 14 or newer, and the USB cable that came with the phone. The free TetherCam Mac app asks once for approval of its camera extension in System Settings; after that the camera is simply there. THE HONEST LIMITS The Mac app carries the picture only. A Mac camera extension has no audio stream, so the sound stays with the Mac's own microphone. Audio over the cable exists, but only on the OBS path below. This iPhone app stays open in the foreground while it sends. The phone serves one receiver at a time. The Mac app and the OBS plugin are not used together; whichever connects second is told that the line is busy. ON THE PHONE Live preview from the moment you open the app, before anything is connected. A camera and lens picker for the wide, ultra wide and telephoto lenses or the front camera, switching the stream immediately. Automatic rotation that follows the horizon rather than the interface. Turn the phone and the picture stays level, because the orientation is resolved on the capture side. There is a manual angle override when you want to decide yourself. Hardware HEVC encoding, which keeps the phone cool and the latency low. A diagnostics panel that shows what is actually happening: listener state, connection, frames per second, bitrate and the measured levelling residual. FOR STREAMING AND RECORDING: OBS STUDIO The TetherCam plugin for OBS Studio is the pro path, also free and also at tethercam.app. It adds a source called TetherCam directly in OBS, finds the phone through the same cable, and it is the only path that brings the microphone of the phone across as well. PRIVACY No account, no analytics, no advertising, no purchases. The camera picture goes to your own Mac and nowhere else. Nothing is collected. TetherCam for iPhone is free and open source under the MIT licence at github.com/Kanevry/tethercam.

Screenshots

Gx FoCalc1 screens
TetherCam4 screens

Verdict

The call

Gx FoCalc and TetherCam are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly daily. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Gx FoCalc versus TetherCam: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGx FoCalcTetherCam
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (6 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings6 — better—
Update frequencyDailyDaily
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.517.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size0 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCasey CavanaughBernhard Goetzendorfer

In-app purchases

None

Gx FoCalc

No in-app purchases

None

TetherCam

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Gx FoCalc free?
Gx FoCalc is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is TetherCam free?
TetherCam is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Gx FoCalc or TetherCam have ads?
Neither Gx FoCalc nor TetherCam shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Gx FoCalc or TetherCam?
Gx FoCalc ships an update daily, and TetherCam daily. Most recently, Gx FoCalc was updated on October 7, 2026 and TetherCam on October 16, 2026.

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