Review: ProCamera 2.7 – How They Made It Even Better
ProCamera
Version 2.7
Bottom Line: Highly recommended!
ProCamera
A while back, I promised a full review of a previous update of ProCamera. I’m glad I waited until now.
In my idea box of articles I want to write is one for a “FrankenCam” app. For a long time, all of the features that I wanted in a camera app were spread out across several camera apps. I wanted to write an article — more like a wish list to developers — of the features that I wanted in one camera app.
I no longer need to write that article. The new 2.7 update of ProCamera by daemgen.net now includes every feature that I want that’s allowed by Apple in an iPhone camera app… and a whole lot more.
This new 2.7 version builds on the great added features of previous recent updates, as well as adding some surprising and very well implemented new features. ProCamera supports your iPhone’s full resolution. On the 3GS, it also supports tap-to-focus, high quality video, and a digital compass. Previous updates greatly improved the “reload” time of ProCamera. While not as fast as Gorillacam or Snapture, ProCamera allows you to take multiple photographs at a rate on par with many other, less-featured cameras.
You can email images straight from ProCamera with user selectable images sizes, including a full-resolution option which emailing directly from your iPhone’s photo library doesn’t allow. To me, this is a valuable feature as it allows you to match the size of the image to the type of share you are sending. For instance, if you are just sharing a quick snapshot to a friend’s iPhone, you don’t need to send them all 2 or 3 megapixels of your image.
ProCamera's new Photo Studio feature
The new Photo Studio feature is built-in “flash enhancement” on steroids. Instead of a one, two or three button one-size-fits-all approach, ProCamera’s Photo Studio has three image adjustment sliders for control over Brightness, Contrast and Gamma. This approach gives you extremely precise control over the image. Without leaving ProCamera, I was able to get results that are as good as many of the exposure enhancement apps available or with Photogene’s or PhotoForge’s tools. There is no “magic button” auto adjust feature. It would be a nice but not necessary addition in a future update. You can also convert your image to black & white or sepia in the app. Both filters produce pleasing conversions with good contrast and saturation.
One very nice feature of ProCamera’s Photo Studio is that you can grab images from your iPhone’s entire photo library. Another cool feature in Photo Studio is the Image Information button which displays the pixel dimensions of your photograph — a welcome addition to see what other apps are doing to your image size.
ProCamera’s 5X Digital Zoom has been improved yet again. The zoom is a digital zoom, which adds pixels to keep the original file size of the image. While not as good as a lens-based optical zoom, it’s much better than simple in-camera cropping, which is how many other camera replacement apps work. In addition to the optional onscreen zoom buttons and pinch-to-zoom feature, you can also use the entire viewscreen as a giant zoom slider. Zoom-in reacts faster than zoom-out, giving a nice level of precision. The new onscreen controls of the zoom feature are well done. ProCamera seems to know when you’re zooming and when you want to take a photo. For me, the full-screen Big Button shutter never accidentally triggered while I was adjusting the zoom.
ProCamera introduces two new viewfinder alignment grids to aid with composition — a Golden Ratio (or Golden Means) grid and the popular Rule-of-Thirds grid. The Virtual Horizon is user-switchable and can now be calibrated within the app.
The new Tips & Tricks section is very thorough with good advice for iPhone photographers. For novices, it includes helpful guidelines of basic photography. This section also includes recommended settings for correcting images in the app’s Photo Studio. There’s even some interesting hardware tidbits here that I’ll bet many iPhoneographers didn’t know about.
ProCamera is about precision and giving you unprecedented control of your images in an iPhone app. I’m amazed at how seamlessly all of the new features are integrated. Again, if you’re looking for a camera replacement app and like the features ProCamera lists, the app is rock-solid, well-implemented and the new features make it well worth $2.99. The new 2.7 update adds several great, well-done features to this already excellent camera app. Highly recommended!
=M=
~~~~
What??? You still don’t have ProCamera? It’s still only $2.99 USD in the App Store.
App Store link: ProCamera
About The Author
MartyNearDFW
Marty is a self-employed graphic designer in the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex. He loves beer, coffee, baseball, Macs, photography, scotch and traveling in seats 5E and 5F with his girlfriend.
Other posts byMartyNearDFW
I found that when using most camera apps, it seemed like I lost EXIF info. Is that a problem with all of these apps?
It’s not a HUGE problem, typically, more of an annoyance than anything I guess — just irks me. I find that I still take shots using just plain ol’ Camera.app to preserve the most info, then edit in others (except for Hipstamatic because I can’t import pictures and it’s just so FUN to play with).
Also, seriously, I am SO glad I found this blog. I’ve really been enjoying it, and have expanded my library of photo apps quite a bit now. Thank you.
Hi, Brian!
Thank you for your comments!
The missing EXIF info is currently an issue with all third-party camera apps. Only Apple’s built-in Camera app will save all of an image’s EXIF data. It uses APIs in the iPhone OS that Apple hasn’t made publicly available to developers yet.
Some developers have worked around this issue by using a built-in photo album within their apps. You can then share or email the images *from within the app* and it will retain whatever EXIF data the app embeds in the image. Once the image is shared, saved to or synced with the iPhone’s photo library, that info is removed.
I’ll side with the developers on this one. There’s not much more they can do until Apple allows them to access those routines in the iPhone OS.
I hope this helps!
=M=
Marty is absolutely right about the reason for the loss of EXIF information.
Camera apps can choose between easy syncing by exporting to the camera roll (while loosing EXIF information) or to save in the documents directory of the app itself, which allows EXIF information to be saved but makes syncing with a computer complicated.
Most camera apps prioritize easy syncing.
We (ProCamera Team) are currently working on a new solution which will combine easy syncing and saving of EXIF information. Let us know if you have any other wishes for upcoming updates besides ‘magic button’ and EXIF infos (which will come for sure).
And thank you very much for such a great article!!
Jens,
You’re very welcome. The last several updates to ProCamera have been amazing.
Thank you for the comment and thank you for the additonal explanation (from a developer’s viewpoint) regarding EXIF data. Somehow, I’m not surprised that the ProCamera Team is working on solving this issue.
=M=
It doesn’t have EVERY feature allowed in the app store…
check out stealthcam – I think this is going to be huge in this peopleofwalmart.com day and age…and even though it’s not out yet I feel like it’s being largely ignored in the blog scene
I know I want to take some pics of some walmart creatures without being seen!
biggullyapps.com/stealthcam
@Chris,
Hahahahahaha! I’m not admitting to reading peopleofwalmart.com, but I will say that your comment made me laugh out loud for a long time!
=M=
@Jens
Could you either make a faster saving like “Color Leap” (i dont know how they do it, but seems to be fastest saving thirdparty photoapp) or a burst mode like gorillacam (no limit for shooting while saving in the background?
The reason is not that i need a motordrive but after 2 shots with your app i cannot take another one before one of the two is saved to camera roll. Most of the time its only a feeling be limited but sometimes i have to 2 or 3 pics more and could miss the best pic.
I like the new grid (still decent!) and the new zoom. just sliding. A small sign as decent as the grid would be great in the case you zoomed in (may be the factor). only to not forget to zoom out later.
ProCamera is my camera replacement since v2.6 and still seames to get even better. Dont stop your nice work.
@M
good review. good blog. I come back regularly
@Jens
.
me once again. If you could improve your black and white exactly like Vint B&W i could delete another app
is it worth to buy compared to ‘gorillacam’?
if it’s faster saving, then i’d love to buy.
Hi, Dan,
ProCamera is faster *saving* only in that it doesn’t allow you to cache as many images as Gorillacam does. ProCamera will only let you shoot about 2 or 3 images at a time.
Gorillacam is probably the fastest multishot camera app I’ve tested so far, but the downside is you may have to wait a few minutes while it saves all of the images. I know several iPhoneographers who are very happy with Gorillacam as their camera replacement.
=M=