What Is a Shot On Camera Stamp and How to Add One

You have seen them under photos on Instagram and Reddit: a small line reading Shot on iPhone 16 Pro · 24mm · f/1.8 · 1/120s · ISO 64. It is not a filter and it is not made up. It is your photo’s own metadata, printed on the photo.

What the numbers actually mean

Much of the appeal of these stamps is that they read as a photographer’s note rather than a caption. Worth knowing what you are publishing:

Why phone photographers use them

• Credit without a watermark. A stamp reads as information rather than a claim, so it sits comfortably on a photo where a watermark would feel defensive.
• It settles the “what did you shoot this on?” question. A common comment under a good phone photo, answered in the frame.
• It is a receipt for your own progress. Months later the settings tell you exactly how you got a shot, which is how people actually learn photography.
• It looks deliberate. A consistent stamp across a feed reads as a considered body of work rather than a camera roll dump.

How to add one, step by step

1. Use the original file. This is the step that decides whether it works. Pick the photo from your camera roll rather than a copy that has been through a messaging app or come back down from a social platform. The IPTC, the standards body behind photo metadata, tested the major social sites in Spring 2019 and found that files saved from Twitter had their metadata stripped off.
2. Tap the Shot On tile and select the photo. The tile is gated: the upgrade prompt appears before the picker does, so this is the point at which stamping costs something. Past it, two fields appear: BRAND TEXT, filled with the camera model, and CAMERA SPECS, filled with the focal length, aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
3. Check the fields. Both are ordinary text boxes, so anything blank or odd can be typed in by hand — though the reasons a field turns up empty are worth knowing before you retype anything. If you shot on a body your phone does not recognize by name, correct it here. Anything the file does not carry, such as the date, goes in the same way.
4. Pick a style. STAMP STYLE offers Pill, Card and Bar; POSITION puts it left, center or right along the bottom edge, though the Bar always spans the full width, so POSITION only bites on Pill and Card. Keep that choice for everything else you stamp.
5. Pick the color theme. COLOR THEME is LIGHT or DARK, and each draws its own translucent plate behind the text: LIGHT is white type on 60% black, DARK is near-black type on 70% white. Either one stays readable on any photo, so this is a choice about which sits better with the picture, not about rescuing the text.
6. Export. The stamped photo saves as a new file, so the original in your camera roll is left as it was.

Getting it right

• Pick one style and stay with it. Mixed stamp styles across a feed undo the whole effect. This is the same discipline as a logo watermark: consistency is the point.
• Do not stamp screenshots. There is no camera data, and a fabricated one is obvious to anyone who reads the numbers.
• Let the stamp stay a footnote. You do not set the type size — it is drawn as a fixed fraction of the image, which is what keeps it subordinate to the picture. What you do choose is the style: Pill is the quietest of the three, Bar the loudest, because it runs the full width.
• Stamp last. Crop, straighten and color-grade first, then stamp — otherwise a later crop cuts through it.
• Mind what the metadata reveals. The stamp itself prints only the device name and the camera settings — it never reads or prints a location, and it does not read the capture date either, so putting a date on a photo means typing one into the stamp. The exported file is a different matter: it carries your original's full EXIF forward, GPS included. If you would rather not ship location data with the file, strip it before sharing.

Stamp or watermark?

They solve different problems and there is no reason to choose. A stamp gives context and credit; a text or logo watermark deters reuse. On a portfolio piece you might want both: a discreet corner mark for ownership and a stamp under the frame for the craft. Whether a given photo needs that corner mark at all is a separate call — see when a watermark is worth adding in the first place.

The short version

A Shot On stamp is your photo’s own EXIF data, printed legibly on the photo. Work from original files, pick one style and keep it. It takes a couple of taps and makes a phone photo read as considered work.

Try it on your last good shot with the Shot On stamp feature.

Frequently asked questions

What is a Shot On camera stamp?

A caption placed on or beneath a photo showing the device it was taken with and, usually, the camera settings — focal length, aperture, shutter speed and ISO. It is also called an EXIF frame or a camera stamp. The data comes from the EXIF metadata your camera writes into the file automatically.

Where does the camera information come from?

From the photo's own EXIF metadata. Phones and digital cameras write the device model, focal length, aperture, shutter speed, ISO and a timestamp into the file when the shutter fires. A Shot On stamp reads six of those — make, model, focal length, aperture, shutter speed and ISO — and prints them; it is not guessing or inventing anything. It does not read the timestamp, so a date on a stamp is one you typed. Exactly which fields appear varies by camera and format, which is why one is occasionally blank.

Why is my EXIF data missing or wrong?

Screenshots have no camera EXIF because no camera was involved. A copy that has come back down from a social platform or through a messaging app can arrive blank too: the IPTC tested the major social sites in Spring 2019 and found that files saved from Twitter had their metadata stripped off. Heavy editing in some apps can drop fields as well. Use the original file straight off the camera roll, and if a field is empty you can type it in by hand.

Does a Shot On stamp protect my photo like a watermark?

Not really, and that is not its job. A stamp is a caption that adds context and credit; a watermark is there to deter reuse. If you want both, add a Shot On stamp for presentation and a separate text or logo watermark for protection.

Can I add a Shot On stamp to a photo from any camera?

Yes. It reads whatever EXIF the file carries, so photos from a DSLR, a mirrorless body, a compact or any phone all work. The device name it prints is whatever the camera wrote into the file.

Is this the same as the official Shot on iPhone campaign?

No. Apple's campaign is advertising. The stamp style it made popular is now a general convention among phone photographers, and adding one to your own photo is simply captioning your own work with your own camera data.