Life in LoFi: iPhoneography | iPhone Photo News, Showcases, App Reviews

New retro photo app Vintage Camera Pro by Presselite is starting to make it’s slow journey up the sales charts. It’s yet another entry in the square format, analog photo app category. It has an impressive App Store description, but it’s definitely not a “Pro” app. The initial release of the app falls short in a lot of ways. You’re better off with Squara, Cameramatic, Hipstamatic, Leme Leme Pro… well, you get the idea.

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Large Aperture Pro
Version 1.3
Price: $1.99

Bottom Line: I don’t like it. The app has clunky and frustrating functionality, hard edges that make the blurs look harsh and fake, and low resolution output. I also don’t like the way the developer feels the need to bully critical reviewers.

Released several weeks ago, Large Aperture Pro by Zhong is back in the spotlight after a weekend price reduction. It’s a photo app that adds DSLR-like depth-of-field (DOF) effects to your photos. It’s the same type of app as BlurFX or the new Big Lens apps, which also simulate DSLR DOF and blur effects in your images.

Even after several updates, Large Aperture Pro still has a lot of issues and limitations. It lacks the features and finesse of either of those two apps.

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Photogene2 is the updated version of the classic iPhone photo editor. Photogene2 has been completely retooled and is the ultimate tool for handling your iPhone photos. It’s a full featured photo editor: crop, straighten, color adjustments (including histogram and curves), sharpen and denoise, retouch tools (dodge/burn, heal, localized effects and more). This new version puts it on par with Filterstorm and PhotoForge2. Photogene2 has an impressive, well-rounded set of features.

This powerful image editor for iPhone is on sale now for a limited time for only $0.99. That’s a savings of $1.00 off the regular price.

Current App Store ratings are averaging an impressive 4-1/2 stars for Photogene2 and after using it for a few weeks, I think those ratings are accurate and deserved.

Where the original Photogene was showing its age, this new version is fast, full featured, and has a great, newly revised interface. If you are currently using an all-in-one camera app (such as Camera+ or King Camera) or are otherwise not using one of the high-end iOS image editors, this is a great addition to your iPhoneography camera bag. Grab it now while the price is low.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later. It’ll run on an iPad, but this version is not a Universal app and doesn’t fully take advantage of the larger screen real estate of the iPad.

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ProCamera is an excellent iPhone camera-replacement app and has a very powerful set of features, not only for shooting, but with its recently added Studio and FX modules, you can tweak in-app and apply from a great selection of filters.

Normally, ProCamera sells for $2.99. Right now, it’s on sale for only $0.99 — a savings of $2.00. ProCamera is rarely discounted and this sale is for a limited time only, so grab it now.

None of the improvements and additions get in the way of the excellent camera module of ProCamera. For shooting, the app adds tools to help improve the quality of the shot in camera, including separate focus and exposure lock, white balance lock, and anti-shake stabilization. It has all of the things to look for in a good camera replacement app.

The studio and effects modules put the app on par with other all-in-one camera apps. You can read my review of the ProCamera version 3.0 update here. It’s an excellent photo app for getting the best shot in camera and it’s my go-to camera replacement app.

ProCamera works on any iPhone or iPod Touch 4th Gen running iOS 4.0 or newer. The latest version of the iOS is needed to take advantage of some of the app’s advanced features.

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Camera360 is a Retro photo app available for the Android platform (you can check it out on the Android Market here). It’s also available for iPhone as Camera360 Ultimate, making it one of the few photo apps that’s available for both platforms.

The new version 2.0 update was released recently for iPhone and it’s a huge step backwards on iOS. If this update is anything close to parity with the Android version, I feel sorry for our Droidographer counterparts.

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This updated Camera Bag post is regularly updated and is the same post as in the navbar above. It’ll eventually roll off here. It’s posted here in the blog to share the evolution of my iPhone. For kicks, you can read my original November 2009 Camera Bag post here. It’s interesting to see how things have changed (and how they haven’t) in two years.

I have a camera. Sometimes I use it to make phone calls.

Although I don’t share my photography here on the blog much any more, I still shoot. My old iPhone 2G and a handful of photo apps used to be the standard for creating some great-looking digital lo-fi. Now, the camera that’s with me nearly all the time is my iPhone 4S.

One of the features that makes the iPhone camera unique is the availability of thousands of photography-related apps. For less than the cost of a DVD, you can basically get a whole new camera experience. I don’t use one app exclusively to shoot with. I have several and try to match up the image with the app.

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I just finished upgrading to iOS 5 on a 32 GB iPhone 4. Once the update was downloaded in iTunes, it took just over 3.5 hours to install the update, restore apps, photos and music. During that time, there were lots of instances where it appeared that iTunes froze. In fact, it was thinking and working. Updating apps and content occurred in the background for me. If I’d disconnected my iPhone when I thought the update was completed, I initially thought that I might have lost a lot of data — pretty dangerous on Apple’s part.

However, reader Matt Fragale shared his update experience in a talkback on Life In LoFi’s Facebook page:

“Actually, Marty… I pulled mine off when I thought it was done, but then realized I didn’t have all my apps and stuff. I plugged it back in and it popped up an error to tell me it hadn’t finished and then asked if I wanted to continue. I clicked yes and it went on its merry way with nothing lost at all.”

My iPhone is now updated. All in-app photo albums restored. I didn’t lose any Hipstamatic lenses in the update. Now, to take iOS 5 for a shakedown….

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We don’t often cover iPhone videography much on this blog, but FiLMiC Pro by Cinegenix is that great an app.

FiLMiC Pro is billed as “THE Filmmaker’s App.” It adds features specifically for videographers which improve the video production experience on the iPhone. FiLMiC Pro is a full-featured video camera designed with the videographer in mind. There’s everything you could want in here to shoot some pretty serious raw video. It’s got separate focus and exposure targets, white balance lock, a user-switchable rule of thirds grid. It’s a pretty spiffy video app. You can read my review here. I liked it a lot and it’s still averaging over four stars in the App Store user reviews.

FiLMiC Pro is on sale now for only $0.99 – that’s $2.00 off the regular price. This is a limited time sale for this outstanding full-featured, video camera app. It’s not on sale for this price often. This is a great chance to grab it if you’ve missed previous sales.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.1 or later.

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Grungetastic for iPhone and Grungetastic HD for iPad both create grungey, distorted, and distressed images. Both apps support full 5 MP iPhone 4 images. Like all other Jixipix apps, the effects are richly textured. Basically, Grungetastic does a good job of beating up your images.

Both versions recently got a big 2.0 update. Now, both the iPhone and iPad versions are free in the App Store. Click past the jump to read more about these apps and a warning from the developer if you’re upgrading from version 1. >>>

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CamCam
Version: 1.1
Price: $2.99

Bottom Line: Good, but not very good. Great looking filters for both stills and video. Supports full-res. Needs more frames. It’s not a fast app.

Camera+Camcorder = CamCam. I get it. Catchy name. And I like the icon.

CamCam is a new effects camera from CnC with 30 film, camera and color effects and 7 frames. See below for a list of all 30 effects. All effects preview in speedy realtime, which is pretty cool. The rest of the app doesn’t feel as snappy, but it’s still an interesting app.

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