The best camera is the one you have with you.
We often forget just how good phone cameras are. They’re easy to use. Most of us carry our phones with us most of the time so they are by default the camera we have with us. And with the many camera applications and lens add-ons that are now available, the most difficult part may be figuring out which app(s) and add-ons to choose.
“Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”
― Marc Riboud
Today I’m going to talk about phone camera app alternatives that you may want to use instead of the built-in camera.
Best iPhone Camera Apps
The number of iPhone camera and photo apps just keeps growing. It’s easy to fill up your camera with applications, most of which you seldom use. I just made a count of the number of photo and camera apps on my phone— the count is 39!
But I only use a handful of them most of the time. Some of my favorite apps are alternate camera applications which I use most of the time instead of Apple’s built-in camera app.
Why Use Alternate Camera Apps?
I use alternate camera apps because I want more control over exposure and focus in the photos that I make. And I want the ability to lessen camera shake on hand-held or tripod shots.
The Best
My two favorite camera apps are ProCamera 8 ($2.99) and Camera+ ($2.99). These two apps are in all of the best apps reviews that I’ve read and for me, they are the best of the best. It’s difficult to say which I like best because their features are very similar. For ease of use and capability, ProCamera 8 wins my pick with a slightly better interface and features; for photo editing options, Camera+ is my pick.
What to Look for in an iPhone Camera App
- Separate focus and exposure control
- Full-screen trigger capability and ability to use volume buttons to trigger
- Exposure compensation
- Stability or anti-shake capability
- Self-timer
- Photo editing capabilities
- Does it store in the iPhone camera roll or in it’s own separate location?
- Capability to store photos in JPG or TIFF format.
ProCamera 8 Features
ProCamera 8
Focus and exposure control icons are easy to find and move around on the screen in ProCamera 8. Exposure compensation is located at the bottom of the screen and it’s easy to use and to see the effect of changes you make live on the phone screen before you snap the photo.
AntiShake capability stabilizes photos so that I get sharper pictures when the iPhone is not on a tripod (most of the time). The ability to set ISO sensitivity and switch between setting exposure compensation and ISO sensitivity with a single touch is sweet. ProCamera8 also has some new manual focus capability (still classified as beta-test) that I haven’t yet played with, but it looks like some interesting capability if you want still more control over your photos.
The self-timer lets me remove any potential shake in a shot by placing the iPhone in a holder on my tripod and using the self-timer. That way I’ve pressed the activation button and let go of the camera, allowing it to be still at the time it makes the shot. This works well for landscapes and still life but not at all for moving people, animals, or objects.
The settings options of ProCamera 8 let me save the photos to my camera roll so I don’t have to go anywhere special to see my shots. And I can save my files in TIFF format for the highest quality. Saving in the TIFF format instead of JPG takes more space, but it gives me greater capability to adjust the photo later in Lightroom or Photoshop.
Camera+ Features
Camera+
Like ProCamera 8, Camera+ offers easy focus and exposure control icons, and it also has easy on-screen control of exposure compensation, exposure time, and white balance. The interface is intuitive and easy to use.
The stabilizer option in Camera+ uses sound to tell you when you are holding the phone steady enough to take a picture. The noise can be distracting (and attention getting when you’re trying not to draw attention) and sometimes it seems impossible to hold the phone steady enough for it to fire. You can turn the sound off on your phone and then the stabilizer is silent and uses color instead to indicate when it will make the shot.
It also has a self-timer that counts down aloud if you have the sound turned on in your phone. Again, it was too distracting for me to use if anyone else was around, so I turned the sound off.
You can save your photos in Camera+ Lightbox, in your camera roll or in both places. And you can choose to save photos as Optimized (JPG – max 1200 x 1200 pixels), Normal (JPG – full resolution of camera with low compression and medium size), High (JPG – full resolution of camera with lowest compression), Pro (TIFF – lossless compression and largest size file, best quality but uses a lot of space).
I like the Camera+ photo editing capability a lot. It lets you apply different presets (it calls them scenes) to adjust the look of your photo, and crop the photo. A feature called “The Lab” lets you adjust clarity, saturation, temperature, exposure, brightness and contrast, and highlights and shadows. It also lets you rotate & flip, straighten, tint, set duotone, add soft focus, add film grain, sharpen, blur, and add vignette to your photo. On top of that it has a set of filters you can apply and frames you can add to the photo.
Camera+ Edit Interface
Perfect World
In my perfect world I take photos with ProCamera 8 and I import them into Camera+ to edit them. The combination of apps gives me the best of both worlds. If you only want to buy one app and you want superior editing capability my vote would be to buy Camera+. If you are willing to buy both you can have it all – the best screen interface and superior photo editing capability.
“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity.”
― Henri Cartier-Bresson
Other Camera Apps You May Like
Camera Awesome from SmugMug (free) – image stabilization, self-timer, super-easy user interface
Instagram – take a photo, apply a filter, share with friends
Pro HDR ($1.99) – for High Dynamic Range photos
Hipstamatic ($1.99 ) – for retro look shots
Slow Shutter Cam ($.99) – for blurring water or movement
May you walk in beauty.
A few of my iPhone photos:
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