Life in LoFi: iPhoneography

Apple iPhone 4 camera vs. ClearCam. Click to enlarge.

.

ClearCam
Version 1.5.5
Price: $1.99

Bottom Line: ClearCam definitely delivers on its claims of sharper, clearer larger images.

ClearCam by Occipital is a camera app that promises clearer, sharper and sometimes larger images from any iPhone. It claims to eliminate the blur without “missing the moment”. It does so without waiting for an anti-shake setting to kick in. It claims to take clearer, sharper pictures with twice the resolution in enhanced mode.

ClearCam makes a lot of big claims. Does it deliver on them? The answer is a resounding yes. ClearCam produces simply amazing photos rich in clarity and detail. There is nothing else like it in the App Store.

Read the rest of this entry →

Percolator
Version 1.0
Price: $0.99

Bottom Line: Easy to use, Percolator is a fun, modernist app that produces unique colorful effects.

–

Many excellent iPhone photo apps simulate the look of retro and vintage analog photography. Percolator is a new photo app from Tinrocket that takes a different direction and makes your iPhone photos look like a mosaic comprised of circles. It’s a very Modernist app like colorShadow, PhotoTropedelic, and Chromocam Dots — producing an image that could only be easily created by a computer (or very meticulously hand-drawn). I doubt modernist apps like Percolator will change the direction of iPhoneography, but it’s a very pleasant diversion.

Read the rest of this entry →

.

[Updated 8/29/10]

InstantCam is a new instant camera-style app that’s actually licensed by the Polaroid® holding company. I thought this would be a cool app — a fake Polaroid® app that’s licensed by Polaroid®. But there are many reasons to stay away from this app at the moment.

Read the rest of this entry →

.

Since its release a couple of months ago, Iris Photo Suite by Ventessa has quickly become one of the more popular photo editing apps among iPhoneographers. The new 1.3 update released today adds a long awaited feature to iPhone image editing apps – layers support and blending at full resolution. The new layers support will blow iPhoneographers away and offers a very powerful new tool for effects and blends on the iPhone.

Read the rest of this entry →

.

Pudding Camera
Version 1.1
Price: FREE

Bottom Line: It’s got great functionality, usable resolution and it’s free with no ads. It’s not perfect, but it’s very good for what it is.

An app that I’ve been seeing more of in Flickr groups is a free toy camera app called Pudding Camera. It’s from the small developer KTH. While you can search for it in the App Store using “pudding camera”, the name of the app is in Korean, as is much of the App Store description and much of the app itself.

Pudding Camera is a hidden gem in the App Store. It’s not perfect — it has some limitations, but it does a lot for a free app and it does it well, for free, and without ads. Our distilled and edited App Store description, as well as my distilled app review is after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry →

.

The venerable Photoshop-like, iPhone image editing workhorse Photogene for iPhone has just been updated to version 2.6. It now supports all of the cool iOS 4 features, EXIF data, and even FTP uploads. But this new update also has a very annoying feature which will frustrate anyone who prefers to keep their location data private.

Read the rest of this entry →

.

Instant Camera
Version 1.3.1
Price: $1.99

Bottom Line: One of the more authentic-looking faux-Polaroid apps. Resolution isn’t the greatest, though.

There are a lot of fake Polaroid apps available. I notice subtle differences between them. Some are better than others. Some of them create square images similar to the old Kodak instant prints. Some have the textured, knurled frame. The vignette around the frame differs. Color saturation varies greatly. Instant Camera by bbcddc has been around for a while, but of the fake Polaroids or “fauxlaroids”, it comes awfully close to looking like the real thing.

Read the rest of this entry →

SpotlightCamera
Version 1.0
Price: $0.99

Bottom Line: There is little good to say about this app. Seriously, avoid it.

Despite the odd hours of some of my posts here on Life In LoFi, I really do like to keep my Saturday nights open for things other than writing reviews. SpotlightCamera by Contradictory (the website is a link farm) is so frustratingly bad, that I felt compelled to review it while I was still frustrated and angry enough to throw my iPhone across the room. Really, don’t buy this app unless you need motivation for anger management therapy.

Read the rest of this entry →