While I’m generally leary of under the radar apps that are discounted to free, Lens+ is a refreshingly nice surprise. It’s an easy to use retro camera app with a bunch of filters that look great. I’d say it’s not a bad app at it’s normal price of $1.99. Right now, it’s been discounted for a very limited time to FREE. Grab it now. The App Store link is after the jump. >>>
Lens+ (formerly “Live Filter Camera”) is a camera-only photo app with live reviews of its many effects. The effects are limited to mostly analog camera and film recreations. I like that the app mostly stays on focus (no pun intended) and that it isn’t bloated with other, non-analog filters.
There are almost 30 lens/film effects. You can slide through each of them or view them six at a time in a preview pane. Effects can be applied to both stills and video. There are several analog-style frame and crop effects to choose from. The live preview is accurate and fast. In fact, overall, Lens+ feels pretty snappy on an iPhone 4S.
The app’s filters include Cross Process, Redscale, Lomographic, Silver Gelatin, Diana, Kieb 16a, Ronda, SMENA 35, HOLGA, Luvitel 166+, Cyanotype, 1920, XPro, Super 8mm, ‘70s, Pinhole, and several others.
Images are first saved to the app’s built-in lightbox, allowing you to keep camera roll clutter down and to easily select a previously used lens/frame combo.
I like the look of the effects. The color is good. Color saturation changes are appropriate and not overdone. The color shifts look close enough. To me, they are among the more accurate recreations of the various cameras and styles of any photo app I’ve seen so far. About the only things they’re missing are grain and film scratches.
Colors are good, but the app isn’t completely accurate. The Diana and Holga recreations are missing the signature lens aberrations of those cameras. While you can select an appropriate vignette from the frames, both of these famous cameras have really lousy plastic lenses which create unique blurs and distortions which are not present here.
There are plenty of other aberrations in each of the filters, including streaks and light leaks. Each aberrations seems to be cut from the same filter as there is no randomness to them. Not a dealbreaker. These aberrations are subtle enough to where they’re not noticeable unless you’re looking at several images in a row shot with the same lens. Also, it’s a shooter only. There’s no way to import images from your camera roll.
Len’s+ supports the full 8MP resolution on an iPhone 4. However, it looks like the EXIF data it saves is incomplete and inaccurate. It told me that my photos were taken somewhere in Algeria. I live in the suburbs, but not that far out.
There’s not much more to this app. There’s not a lot of clutter getting in the way of the filters or effects. Other than the basic preset combinations, there’s no way to change the look or intensity of any of the filters. However, that’s just like the analog cameras that most of these filters recreate.
Despite its flaws, in the end, Lens+ creates good-looking photos. If you like the effects, it’s a good buy at $1.99. For free, this is a great download. Plus, it gets you into the upgrade path and hopefully the app’s bugs will get fixed in a future update.
Lens+ is FREE for a very limited time. It’s normally $1.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G, iPad (3rd generation) and iPad Wi-Fi + 4G.Requires iOS 4.1 or later.
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