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.

CamCam has 30 different film and color effects. You can either swipe through them onscreen or choose them from a pop up menu — complete with a live preview. The live preview gives you a splitscreen-style look at several effects at once.

The effects are named after an impressive collection of retro analog cameras, including many that aren’t often found in photo apps, such as the SMENA Symbol, Luvitel 166+, as well as the standard Holga and Diana cameras. There are several vintage looks as well, as well as several other color tweaks. It’s a good collection of effects. Overall, effects are what you’d expect from a retro camera, but a few effects to me are less accurate than others in digitally recreating their analog counterparts. For instance, photographs I’ve seen from a real-world SMENA aren’t nearly as sepia-heavy…. Some of the filters aren’t accurate “recreations” per se, but more like “tributes.”

Colors are good, though. They’re rich and nicely saturated. Some of the filters even have really cool randomly applied dust, grain and scratches.

Frames are well rendered. Sadly, there are only seven of them. I hope future updates add a greater variety of frames to match the effects.

All effects and all frames are available on all three cameras — rear, front and video. Video, when using one of the filters, even has a retro 8mm style flickering frame which looks good, especially for video, but adds a little needed randomness to the stills as well.

CamCam is slow slow. It takes a few seconds longer to load than most photo apps. Refresh time is pretty long, too. On my iPhone 4, refresh time was about 5 seconds between snaps — despite the fact that CamCam buffers images to complete processing in the background. Also, the app was sometimes cranky, sometimes locking up while processing a large video.

The separate focus and exposure targets are a little crankier than other apps. I didn’t really figure it out so much as I got lucky when I was able to get a lock. Target locks don’t stick when you change filters.

Also, it’s a camera only. You can’t load images from your camera roll to take advantage of its great filters. CamCam saves to its own library, much in the same way Camera+ does. I like that particular workflow as it lets me thin out images and helps to reduce camera roll clutter.

CamCam supports full 5MP iPhone 4 resolution and saves a bunch of EXIF data. The onscreen controls adjust to any orientations, making CamCam compatible with any iPhone tripod available, including the left-handed Gymbl tripod.

It’s fun but flawed. The filters look good and I like the live preview. It’s not a fast shooter. I don’t think it was intended to be. Like many of the classic Lo-Fi and toy cameras it mimics. For some, it might not be worth the three dollars. For others, it’s a fun diversion.

We’ll keep an eye on this one and let you know if it goes on sale.

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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CAMCAM STANDARD EQUIPMENT
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•Scene
Normal
Baby Face effect
Darken effect
Color Dodge effect
Faded effect
Text effect
•Color
Cross Process effect
Redscale effect
Lomographic effect
Goth effect
Duo Sepia effect
Silver Gelatin effect
•Analog
Diana effect
Kieb 16a effect
Ronda effect
SMENA 35 effect
HOLGA effect
Luvitel 166+ effect
•Fashion
Aqua Sapphire effect
Nashville effect
Early Bird effect
Newage effect
Skyline effect
Cyanotype effect
•Retro
1920 effect
XPro effect
Super 8mm effect
‘70s effect
Golden Age effect
Pinhole effect

•Frame
Full Frame
Square frame
White frame
Date frame
Vignetting frame
Flickering frame

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Leme Camera
Version 2.3
Price: FREE

Leme Camera is back with yet another revision, but unlike the update that prompted Marty to give them a justified smackdown last spring (while I lambasted it elsewhere) this update is a decided improvement that brought Leme Camera back onto my dock.

What’s New (& Awesome)

• Background processing! Leme Camera now has a 9 photo buffer that lets you keep snapping rather than waiting for each photo to process. Given how cumbersome the user experience for reviewing and saving a photo was this is a HUGE improvement.

• Always high resolution. Every photo is saved in full resolution, so the twitchy UI toggle that always reset itself to small photos is gone. Instead full res images are saved within the app, while “sharing” size images are saved to the camera roll automatically.
• Leaner, meaner download size. Leme Camera has trimmed some fat and is down to under 20 megs (hello 3G downloads!). This is accomplished by only including the default camera (plus all lenses and frames) in the initial download. You can optionally download some or all other cameras for free.
• Ugly frames are gone. The postage stamp and other hideous frames that were introduced in the last incarnation of Leme Camera have been removed. Total frame options have been reduced, but the remaining frames are all quite attractive. This release even introduces a “no frame” option.
• Re-vamped UI. The generaly layout is the same, but the screens within the app’s own camera roll and sharing options have a new look and feel. The “Leme Wall” social sharing network also includes some great search options, useful if you’re looking for inspiration or just to get a feel for a specific lens without snapping a ton of trial photos yourself.

What’s Still Great

• The filters. I will admit a bias here, as I am a huge fan of Lomo-type effects in general. The lenses in Leme Camera offer a great range of tones and colours, and include a couple lovely black & white choices. If you’re a new user I recommend shooting in random mode for a while, or spending a bit of time surfing the Leme Wall to get the flavour of the various lenses.
• Tap to focus & expose. Single tap to select a focus point, and double-tap to select a separate exposure point. After having all the Hipstamatic shots I took on the St. Lawrence River this past weekend dramatically underexpose everything but the sky I have a whole new level of appreciation for manual exposure control.

What’s (Still) Annoying

• Exporting photos to the camera roll. Yay, every photo is saved in full resolution. But… only the “sharing size” is saved to the camera roll by default. You’ll have to manually export photos one-by-one if you want max res on your camera roll.
• Instability and crashes. While exporting my photos Leme Camera crashed a couple times on me. Better during export than capture, but it’s still a hassle that slows down an already awkward process. The real downside is that if Leme Camera crashes during an export in some cases the photo data was corrupted and subsequent exports were incomplete.
• General slowness. Navigating the UI and changing options feels sluggish. Part of that is no doubt due to my old iPhone 3GS, but even allowing for hardware the app moves slowly compared to several other “toy camera” type apps with similar graphical UIs and options (such as Hipstamatic and ClassicTOY).

Should you give Leme Camera a shot? (Horrible pun definitely intended.) Absolutely.It’s free and includes multiple cameras such as “standard” square format, action samplers, fisheye, light leak and colour splash. This newest version removes most of the frustration of using the app as a camera rather than simply post-processing your photos in it, and the filters are very nicely rendered.

If for some reason you liked the previous version and are on the fence about the update, you can snag its clone Leme Camera-Caribbean and have access to the older version (complete with wider selection of frames).

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

Leme Camera's standard UI

Leme Camera's internal camera roll

Leme Camera's photo detail screen

The Leme Wall

PictureShow emulates various analog and toy camera styles and unlike random LOMO apps, it gives you a lot of control over the types of effects applied to your photos. It features 28 photo styles and a large number of additional effects — light leaks, borders, noise. It does it all at your iPhone’s full-resolution, too.

PictureShow is on sale for a limited time only, so grab it now if you don’t already own this excellent photo app.

PictureShow requires iOS 4.0 or newer.

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Bottom Line: The LomoLomo apps do a good job of creating effects, but each effect will cost you. There’s absolutely no control over the effects. There are no new effects here and no compelling reason to drop the cash for this.

UPDATE 02.22.11: I hate to leave a bad review out here. Check out my revisited review of LomoLomo version 1.2.1 here. =M=

There are a ton of Lomography apps in the App Store. Nearly all of the biggies are as good as or better at recreating the LOMO experience digitally. Nearly all do it far less expensively.

Lomography, by definition, celebrates “Happy accidents”. LomoLomo and LomoLomo Pro create a lot of accidents, but take from you the level of control that true Lomography really gives you.

LomoLomo and LomoLomo Pro are two apps from MoMo Travel Consulting that claim to duplicate the LOMO experience by creating randomly filtered, analog looking images. Let me just cut to why I don’t like these apps.

There is no control over the effects — lenses and films. What the app gives you is what you get. LomoLomo doesn’t save your original image, only your processed one. If you don’t like what the app gives you, you’re out of luck. Sound a little like Hipstamatic? It is, but the big difference is that Hipstamatic gives you control over the effects by letting you set the “lens” and “film”. Like their analog counterparts, if you know the characteristics of the lens and film you are using, you can use this knowledge to better control your output. The LOMO surprise is in the flaws of the film or the lens.

Plastic Bullet gives you much more variation in your images. Toy Camera is another app that creates random LOMO effects while shooting. PictureShow allows you to create “happy accidents”, LOMO and a lot more random analog film and frame effects in-app by using its red random button.

LomoLomo, on the other hand, surprises you with whatever lenses you’ve purchased and whatever film it decides. One image may look like it came from a toy camera. The next may be monochrome. The next three may be sepia. With LomoLomo, you relinquish what little control genuine Lomography gives you. Other than giving the developers money to unlock more lenses to use, there is no control. Which leads me to my next point.

UPDATE: After writing this review, the 1.1 version of LomoLomo Pro was released. The Pro version now allows select a lens for one use only before reverting back to random. What???!!! If you’re going to go through the trouble of updating this code, why not just go all the way and properly implement this feature that user overwhelmingly asked for? How hard would it be to simply add “Random” as another setting in the app’s prefs? To me, the one-time only features shows less of a concern for users requests and more of an overall disdain for what users — the photographers who use the thing in the field — really want with the app. =M=

The pricing scheme is a scam. LomoLomo is free — except that to get the full variety of films and lenses, it’ll cost you a total of $10 right now. But wait… there’s more! If you buy LomoLomo Pro for a dollar, it contains all the “cameras” – you can complete the lens set for only an additional $5, for a total of $6. The add-ons are not as featured as Hipstamatic — for a dollar each, you only get one new effect. Camera+’ new “I ♥ Analog” in-app add on filters contains nine for a dollar. You can buy the complete, excellent ClassicCAM series from misskiwi for about $6 and have a full complement of classic toy cameras, effects and an excellent array of films.

LomoLomo’s effects are well-rendered, but not as unique or outstanding LOMO effects like Hipstamatic or Plastic Bullet. The apps save in square format at full resolution, but can be quickly switched to a lower resolution for speed. The skinned UI is easy to use and changes with the camera that is being used. The apps are a little on the slow side, but fairly stable.

Of the two, I think the best version is the free LomoLomo. It comes with two “cameras” — a very good Diana filter that I actually kinda like and a quad-frame SuperSampler camera. The free version comes with a few stock “lenses” that the user has no control over and cannot change. The effects are applied randomly and can be pretty jarring when used with the four-frame Action Sampler camera.

Sharking the success of Instagram, there’s also a LomoLomo community that the app can upload your images to… the LOMO Wall. There are actually some interesting photos on the wall, but it’s another closed photo sharing community to keep track of and the price of admission to this one can be high for an iPhone app.

In-app purchases seem to be the future of iPhone apps. I actually don’t have a problem with them most of the time. They are a good, inexpensive a la carte means for users to add additional features they want to their photo apps while helping developers recoup their investment for updates and new features. But the LomoLomo apps just seem to be more of a blatant cash grab. There are too many filters to buy and not enough value for the user.

UPDATE: One more reason: Glyn Evans reports on The iPhoneography Blog of one more excellent reason for avoiding these apps. He and Patrick Timney report that the developer of these apps are the same people, different company name behind the Molinker apps scandal a year ago. Read Glyn’s entire post here.

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App Store links:

LomoLomo

LomoLomo Pro

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Lomora 2 screenshots

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Lomora 2
Version 2.0
Price: $2.99

Bottom Line: Lomora 2 is an improvement over previous versions of the app, but a little slow and buggy and a little pricey at $2.99

Lomora 2 is the latest version of the LOMO app from Marvin Lee. It replicates analog cross-processing to apply colorful and vivid LOMO effects to photographs. This new version 2 is an improvement over previous versions, but it’s still a little pricey when compared to other, more-versatile LOMO-style apps. While this new version is moving the app in the right direction, there’s still lots of room for improvement.

Lomora has a controversial past. Early on, the developer had some very shady pricing tactics for the app’s film purchases and usage. This has since been changed to a more user-friendly approach and in Lomora 2, all film styles are available and now feature unlimited usage.

Images are now square, like true LOMO prints. Lomora 2 doesn’t have an option for a white frame like many of the other LOMO apps available. It now supports full-resolution of the iPhone or iPod Touch 4th Gen, up to 1936x1936px on an iPhone 4. It now requires iOS 4.1 to run — owners of really old devices are out of luck.

Lomora 2′s filters are rich and vivid. It uses the film type analogy for filters and by changing films, the app creates many different unique LOMO effects. This version comes with a total of 18 film types, including seven new films for this version. There are several filter and flash options, each adding different color and light characteristics to an image. A user-switchable random mode is a good way to discover the apps filters. Vignette is adjustable using the slider in the viewfinder. While no noise, light leaks or other artifacts are added to the photo, Lomora 2′s effects are well rendered.

Lomora 2 lightbox

Images are autosaved to the iPhone’s camera roll and the app’s lightbox. The lightbox lists the complete filter set used for each photo, which is very helpful in remembering (or discovering) new film, filter and flash combinations.
Lightbox allows you to delete individual images.

While the effects look good, despite claiming better memory management, the app is still a little buggy and crashed on my iPhone 4 often enough to be annoying.

While the interface claims to be improved over previous versions, it’s still a little confusing. There are few “Okay” confirmation buttons and a few interface glitches where settings panels get cut off. The flash and colored filters settings are buried in the app’s hidden settings panel and are inconvenient to change. You access the app’s hidden settings panel by selecting “Lomora” in the viewfinder. It’s not meant to be hidden, but because of the interface, it’s not readily apparent.

You can tap the screen to pinpoint the flash hotspot, but this feature rarely worked well in my tests.

There is no option for saving the original image. While Hipstamatic can get away with it because of user-experience-based UI, this is a pretty big omission for this app and I’m surprised it’s not available. The app still has long save times as it processes and saves images. There is no indicator when an image finishes saving. I lost about 1/3 of my test images by closing out of the preview window before the image had finished saving.

Multiple exposure feature isn’t intuitive and doesn’t always work, but produces nice results when it does. To use the Multiple Exposure function, take the first picture. Save it to the lightbox first. Press Multi Exp and close out of the image. The next image shot will overly over the previous image. Clunky. It works only if you’ve saved the previous image, which is sometimes tricky as there is no notification when an image has completely saved.

Overall, Lomora 2 lives up to its claims and creates nice, rich, vivid Lomography effects. It’s not as easy to use or as reliable as other LOMO apps, such as Plastic Bullet, ToyCamera or SwankoLab, where you can create similar but not identical effects. It also costs a little more than most LOMO apps. The interface has a few problems and I feel Lomora can still use more improvements there.

This latest version of the app, Lomora 2, is definitely better than previous versions, but still needs more work in order to fully justify the $2.99 price tag. In my opinion, it’s not worth $3 if you have other LOMO apps. Now that I have it, I’ll probably use it occasionally (and hope it saves my photo). The effects are good, but not completely unique. The app occasionally goes on sale. This version is a more justifiable purchase when it’s at $1.99 or $0.99.

Lomora 2 creates nice effects. The app itself is just pretty cranky.

=M=

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Related Links:

Plastic Bullet – Red Giant Software

SwankoLab – Synthetic Corp

Plastic Bullet 1.1 screenshots

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Plastic Bullet
Version 1.1
Price: $1.99

Bottom Line: Gorgeous, one-of-a-kind Lomo effects, and now supports full-resolution on all iPhones

Plastic Bullet from Red Giant Software is a plastic camera-style app. It’s fairly simple to use — either use the app’s built-in camera or load an image from your iPhone’s camera roll. Four images at a time are then previewed. Save the one you like or refresh the screen for more previews.

The app is a true electronic lomography app — one that encourages you to explore the “happy accidents” in your photography.

There’s not much to do — basically set your preferences in the Settings app and go. Load pictures, hit refresh and save the images you like. Plastic Bullet is easy to use and stable.

Plastic Bullet randomly applies a variety of color and saturation effects, blurs, vignettes, as well as well rendered, grungy analog-looking borders. Plastic Bullet doesn’t recreate the look of any one type of plastic camera, but randomly generates the look of many combinations of cameras, lenses and films.

The effects are often moody and gorgeous — thankfully, the randomness hasn’t changed since the previous version. I found myself hitting save within one or two screens, but continuing on to see what other effects it would generate. Often, I found myself saving more than one iteration of an image.

As promised by the developer, Plastic Bullet now supports full resolution on all iPhones. My biggest disappointment with the previous release of Plastic Bullet was the lack of 2MP full-resolution support for even the oldest iPhones. Version 1.1 now supports a number of output resolutions, including 5MP output on the iPhone 4. These photos are pretty enough that you’ll want to make and display prints.

Version 1.1 doesn’t introduce any new effects — it really doesn’t need to as the app already generates a huge number of random variations. In addition to the higher resolution, the app touts speed improvements up to 25% faster than the previous version. It now supports iOS4 multitasking so you can leave the app and return to an image you were processing — a very helpful feature to help avoid reloading an image from a very full camera roll (I personally wouldn’t know what that was like…). That combined with the faster CPU of the newer iPhones and Plastic Bullet noticeably screams when rendering previews. Plastic Bullet now has built-in Facebook and Flickr support for fast and and easy sharing with these two sites. There are a number of other under-the-hood bug fixes and improvements.

The output of Plastic Bullet is gorgeous and the results truly unique. The images look like they were taken with any number of plastic lo-fi cameras  probably even better looking than the real analog camera in many cases. Its ease of use allows plenty of flexibility to explore the many beautiful variations and stumble upon one or more that you like. With this update, Plastic Bullet is ready for prime time.

=M=

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Tulips, processed with Plastic Bullet

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Plastic Bullet
Version 1.0
Price: $1.99 USD

Bottom Line: Gorgeous, one-of-a-kind Lomo effects, but version 1.0 only has 800×600 output.

Touted as “a photo app with infinite possibilities”, Plastic Bullet from Red Giant Software is a new plastic camera-style app. It’s fairly simple to use — either use the app’s built-in camera or load an image from your iPhone’s camera roll. Four images at a time are then previewed. Save the one you like or refresh the screen for more previews.

The app is a true electronic lomography app — one that encourages you to explore the “happy accidents” in your photography.

The effects are often gorgeous. I found myself hitting save within one or two screens, but continuing on to see what other effects it would generate. Often, I found myself saving more than one iteration of an image.

Plastic Bullet randomly applies a variety of color and saturation effects, blurs, vignettes, as well as a really nice analog-looking border. Plastic Bullet doesn’t recreate the look of any one type of plastic camera, but randomly generates the look of many combinations of cameras, lenses and films.

Plastic Bullet preview screens

Plastic Bullet creates some really nice color variations. The saturation can be rich. With the random vignettes and blurs, the results can be washed out and dreamy, similar to a Diana camera, but with more contrast, depth and punch. The monochromes are nice, if not a little blue at times. The best part about the filters, though, is if you don’t see one you like in the preview, hit refresh and in seconds you’re presented with more variations.

The app is simple, stable and gives you the option to also save your original image.  The app randomly generates effects — you have no control over filters. The app’s description advertises that you’ll never see the same effect twice, although after hitting refresh several times, it was possible to get variations that were pretty similar to ones I passed on.

Some iPhoneographers may have an issue with the lack of control over effects generation. Others may enjoy being surprised by the random results, which I think is the intended purpose of this app.

My biggest issue with version 1.0 of Plastic Bullet is the low-resolution output, which is currently only 800×600 pixels in order “to support older devices (iPhone 3G).” Kudos to Red Giant for stating this clearly in the app’s description. An update is promised soon which will bring higher resolution on newer devices, presumably the 3GS and next-gen iPhone. However with apps like Hipstamatic, SwankoLab and lo-mob which support all iPhones, use up a lot of CPU clock cycles, and still output at full-resolution on all devices, I wonder why full-resolution isn’t supported in this version and why owners of older iPhones will supposedly be left out for higher res support. I hope this is resolved soon in a future update — there are still a lot of 2G and 3G iPhones in use.

Right now, I’m giving Plastic Bullet three and half stars — knocking off a little bit for the low resolution. Currently, output is perfect for sharing Facebook, Flickr and Twitter, but you won’t get any large size prints from these gorgeous images. Is it worth two dollars? For sharing images on the web and in email, most definitely. If you plan on making gallery prints with the output, maybe not so much — I’d either hold off for now to see how the resolution issue is resolved in future updates or have lowered expectations for the app.

The output is gorgeous and the results truly unique. The images look like they were taken with any number of plastic lo-fi cameras — probably even better looking than the real analog camera in many cases. Its ease of use allows plenty of flexibility to explore the many beautiful variations and stumble upon one or more that you like.

App Store link: Plastic Bullet

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SwankoLab test image 5

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SwankoLab from Synthetic Infatuation, the makers of the extremely popular Hipstamatic app, was released today and is available now in the U.S. App Store for $1.99

“The Darkroom of Yesterday, Today”

I just downloaded the app and haven’t really had a chance to fully test it yet. You mix various “chemicals” in the virtual darkroom to create a variety of vintage photo effects. The interface is very analog. The animations are incredible. There’s some great, subtle ambient sound effects. Unlike Hipstamatic, it’s not a camera. You use images from your iPhone or iPod Touch’s entire photo library to “process” them. Images are saved in SwankoLab and can be emailed from within the app but need to be manually synced to your camera roll. You can also save “formulas” in the app’s built-in Formula’s Notebook. SwankoLab supports full resolution in the iPhones 2G, 3G, and the larger resolutions of the 3GS as well.

It’s a really fun app. Like Hipstamatic, the effects are gorgeous. I’ll have a full review later this week. My first impressions are that SwankoLab looks to be another must-have photo app.

=M=

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Related links: SwankoLab web site |  Hipstamatic – Synthetic Corp

Willie Dawgs interior, by Mike Ayers

Greenpoint Ave, by Mike Ayers

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To paraphrase the classic T-shirts that are still available in shops on 7th Avenue at 3 for $10, I love New York. New York is one of the easiest cities I’ve photographed. The people, the architecture, the vibe of the city make for great stories everywhere, and especially great for iPhoneographers.

Created in January by Mike Ayers, old new york in a modern world is a project and photoblog which features photographs which makes modern day New York look old. Many of the images were either shot on an iPhone or processed with Lo-Mob.

“Yeah, I agree, New York is a great place to see the photos, especially these days,” says Ayers.  “It’s an interesting city to live in and see on a day to day basis, the changes, the people that coexist.”

If Mike Ayers sounds familiar, it’s because you may have read his work in any number of media. He’s an arts & entertainment journalist and has written for The Village Voice, Billboard, Reuters, New York, Spinner and AOL, along with a host of others. His day-to-day creative outlet is writing, but he’s always loved photography.

“I woke up one morning in early January with the idea that I wanted to see modern day New York as it might look in a bygone era. People lament about progress and change and how bad it is for many reasons, so in a way, I thought this could be a nice juxtaposition.”

There’s some interesting street photography here. Click here to visit old new york in a modern world.

=M=

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Related Links: Michael D. Ayers website |   Mike Ayers on Twitter @michaeldayers

Old NYC on Twitter @oldnyc

New York in LoFi by Marty Yawnick  part I |   part II

Sample image from Andigraf

Andigraf
Version 1.0.1

Bottom line: Great filters help make this camera more fun than you’re expecting

Andigraf by Subkernel is a new camera in the Quad-cam, Supersampler style. It’s an app that takes serial photography, using one of four multi-lens configurations from 4 to 9 lenses. It also features several “film styles” to apply filter effects to your images. Currently, there are four film styles — GrafPhoto Color, LoMode Turquoise, GrafProfessional Black&White, and 1945S Classic Sepia with more films promised in future updates.

Serial photography is a lot more fun than you would initially think and I really like this app!

I’d seen similar apps in the app store, but didn’t think I’d like shooting serial photographs, but I found it to be fun and a bit of a creative challenge to think about a series of images to capture the story, not just one.

One of the things that first caught my eye about Andigraf is that it supports full-resolution on the iPhone 2G, 3G and 3GS — up to 2048×1365 pixels. The app is skinned and has feels and works like a plastic toy camera. It has shades of Hipstamatic in the UI, in that lenses and films are changed with the flip of a finger. You may consider it nicked Hipstamtic’s user-interface, or you can look at it like Hipstamatic reinvented the iPhone camera interface. Either way, the interface is familiar and easy to use. There is an adjustable timer to set the delay between shots.

The app itself is good. It’s easy to use. The Supersampler, Quadcam and other toy camera styles are well done. The filters or “film styles” are well-rendered and very nicely lo-fi. The Turquoise filter adds a good vignette to each frame and a hint of cyan that gives it an old AGFA or Fuji 35mm film feel. The Black & White filter has good contrast and makes for a nice monochrome image.

The viewfinder is pretty accurate as to framing, except for the Supersampler (4 in a row) lenses, which produce thin and striplike images. The app renders about as quickly as you’re going to see in a full-res app of this class. A complete shot cycle for a Quadcam/Turquoise shot was about 35 seconds from shutter to “reload” on my 2G. It was about 42 seconds with the 9-lens option.

I did find one annoying bug. The Quadcam lenses save to the iPhone’s camera roll in portrait mode only, no matter which orientation your image was shot. I’d like to see this fixed in a future update.

What I like most about this app is the ability to tell a longer story in photographs, even if it’s only a series of images within a few seconds of each other. The quality of the photographs and the multiple lens options make this a good app to explore different styles of serial photography.

Andigraf won’t appeal to every photographer, but if you’ve never shot serial photography like this, try Andigraf. It’s $1.99 USD in the App Store and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. It’s a good app to have fun discovering what you can do in a series of shots.

App Store link: Andigraf

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Glyn Evans recently reviewed Andigraf on The iPhoneography blog. Read his review and see his excellent video walk-thru of the app here. >>>

BeFunky FX, Grunge preset 3. Click image for full size

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BeFunky FX
Version 1.0

Bottom line: Great looking effects, but low resolution output and other problems spoil the app.

BeFunky FX is a new app from BeFunky that applies really nice edgy effects to your images. BeFunky has several other iPhone apps which apply a variety of effects to your images. They’re also the creators of the Befunky.com website which features an arsenal of effects you can apply to your images using a Flash-based browser interface on your desktop or laptop.

BeFunky FX, Cartoonizer preset 1. Click for full size

The app is very easy to use. You can take pictures within the app or open images from your photo library. It features many of the effects from the Befunky web site. There are many very well rendered effects in this app — cartoon, charcoal, grunge, pinhole, Lomo  just to name a few. The effects are cool looking and you have several options for each effect. You can set up the app to easily share to Facebook or Twitter after you’re done applying filters.

I have two very big problems with the app. The app saves your images at a very low resolution — 375×500 pixels. Although this is larger than the image I saved from a free account from the website at 345×469 pixels*, this is even smaller than the 450×600 that Facebook reduces your images to. Your photos will look a little small when shared on Facebook or Twitter. You won’t be able to print any pics at a reasonable size if they are processed with this app. Also, BeFunky FX does not save your original image, so you will not have a full-res copy of your unprocessed file if you use the app’s camera.

The second problem I have with the app is that you need an internet connection in order for it to even work. The app sends your images off your iPhone to the BeFunky servers to process your images. If you don’t have a fast 3G or a WiFI internet connection, your upload times are going to be incredibly slow — especially with the larger images of the iPhone 3GS. If you’re out of cell phone or internet range or have your iPhone in Airplane mode, you’re completely out of luck — the app won’t work at all. At least BeFunky FX saves your image state until you are back in data signal range.

This is obviously an app built to create and share web-ready images, but I think its sub-Facebook, low resolution barely is able to do that. For a $2 app, ideally I’d like full resolution output so that iPhoneographers can print out the excellent effects this app applies. Realistically, the best I can expect would be at least 800×600 pixels and good Flickr integration as well. This is a very consumer-oriented app, but some of the effects are so good, they are worth a higher purchase price or an in-app upgrade for onboard processing and full resolution support.

Many of the effects are gorgeous. I’d give this app one star if the the effects didn’t look so good. But for me, the very low resolution and the requirement of a fast internet connection make this an app to be wary of.

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Glyn Evans at iPhoneography.com had some tasty words (and a tidbit or two) on BeFunky FX. Click here to read his review.

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* — A free Befunky.com account allows you to save images that are 460×616 pixels maximum, but I never hit that. Saving up to 4000×4000 pixels costs $199.99/year on the website. 2500×2500 is $49.99/year.

Film Lab sample image

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Film Lab is a new app from CLBITZ Ubiquitous Communications, the makers of Retro Camera. It’s coming to the App Store soon, barring any unforeseen delays. iPhoneographers who used to shoot with film or who want to recreate the look of analog film stocks will love Film Lab.

I’ve had the chance to test a beta version of Film Lab. Like Retro Camera, Film Lab applies the look of vintage films to your photos. It’s different from Retro Camera in that it doesn’t apply film grain, edges and other imperfections.

Film Lab supports resolutions from 352×480 to 2348×3200 — an approach that I like in that it gives the photographer the option of quick saves or high-res. This means that Retro Camera will also be supporting high resolution in an upcoming update as the two apps share the same “engine”.

There are 79 film styles available in the beta I tested. It’s an impressive set of filters and many of them are incredible renditions of the film stocks they recreate. Each film stock is labeled as you preview it. There are filters which mimic film stocks from AGFA, Fuji, Kodak, Ilford, and Polachrome.

Other features include:

• Color operation: 18 kinds
• Hue and chroma adjustment
• Brightness and contrast adjustment
• Sharpness
• Blur
• Undo
• Redo

You can watch a video of Film Lab in action here:

There’s a lot to love about Film Lab. Even better, it should be available for only $0.99 USD when it hits the App Store.

Add this to the list of excellent iPhoneography apps in the pipeline. We’ll keep you updated on Film Lab and its release.

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Related links: Official Film Lab website

Saturday Night on Belknap 01

Saturday Night on Belknap 02

Saturday Night on Belknap 03

Saturday Night on Belknap 04

Toolbox: MonoPhix, Best Camera, CameraBag (Lolo)

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HipstaMatic

I have much love for Hipstamatic. No other app (or Photoshop plug-in) creates such organic and analog-looking images so easily. The new Hipstamatic 150 update is available now in the App Store. From the list of features, it’s a terrific update to an already amazing app. The update adds a ton of new features and improvements, in-app file sharing to Flickr, as well as addresses several performance issues. Start-up time has been improved significantly. There’s also a new monthly photography contest accessible in-app. We’ll post more details as they become available.

As is the case with the previous Hipstamatic 110 update, there’s a new optional HipstaPak available as an additional in-app purchase, featuring two new films. I can’t wait to shoot with the new BlacKeys SuperGrain B+W Film!

The free update is live now or you can (and should) purchase the updated version if you don’t already own the app.

Here’s a list of what’s new and fixed in Hipstamatic 150:

What’s New in Hipstamatic Model 150

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

• Full resolution support in “High Quality Prints” mode
• (1200px square for 2G/3G, 1536px square for 3GS)
• Faster startup time
• Misc user interface improvements

SHARING IMPROVEMENTS

• Prints can now be posted to Flickr in-app

NEW FEATURES

• Shake-to-randomize: Shake your Hipstamatic to select a random lens, flash, and film
• Save favorite combos: A new button in Recent Prints lets you “change camera lens, flash, and film to match this print”
• Prints now have EXIF data with lens/flash/film information
• (accessible from within Hipstamatic only – not the Photo Library)
• Film preview window on camera back
• Improved HipstaProcessing for greater print variety

“THE BIG HIPSTAMATIC SHOW”

• A new monthly contest accessible in-app
• Anyone can win fabulous prizes

NEW FLASH AND FILMS

• New free flash: Dreampop
• New HipstaPak: Camden (includes Alfred Infrared Film and BlacKeys SuperGrain B+W Film)

BUG FIXES

• iPod music will now keep playing when opening Hipstamatic
• Fixed a bug where occasionally the flash would not fire, even when charged
• Other misc fixes

…

Hipstamatic is still available for $1.99 USD.

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Related links:

“Q&A: Hipstamatic: The Story Behind the Plastic App with the Golden Shutter“

ClassicPan

ClassicPan is a vintage-style panoramic camera app from misskiwi. I recently reviewed version 1.0.1 of the app. ClassicPan has been updated to version 1.0.3, currently available in the App Store, and it is a great update. Not only does it fix the two biggest issues I had with the app, but it adds two new film modes and some minor UI tweaks.

ClassicPan now supports higher resolutions. It now gives the option to save at 1530 x 680 pixels. While not full resolution for any iPhone, this is most certainly usable. The higher resolution also helps improve the details of the vintage filters.

The film grain on the High-Speed Black & White filter has been greatly improved. It’s lighter, softer and now has variance — much like real film. It’s now a more subtle noise effect and is one of the more realistic film grain effects available.

The two new filters are gorgeous. The High-Quality Vivid Film filter nicely adds color saturation and contrast. I found it to be a little on the cooler side, which reminded me of some of the Fuji 35mm films I’d shot with. The Vintage Damaged Film filter not only adds a great sepia to the image, but a subtle amount of dust and dirt around the edge of the frame. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of Sepia filters, but I like the look and texture of ClassicPan’s.

Another nice addition, albeit a minor one, is greater functionality for the shutter button, which can now also be used as an “Apply” button in the app’s settings.

This new update makes ClassicPan a great, unique vintage camera app to have. No other app available produces vintage panos in one camera and the quality of the filters is superb. The developer is responsive and quick to fix issues with the app — actually a little ahead of their planned release schedule. They have some great plans for this app.

I highly recommend this updated app if you’ve been waiting for the fixes.

ClassicPan is still $0.99 USD.

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Recently, I wrote about The Best Free iPhoneography Apps: Camera Replacements. Now that you’ve shot your image, how are you going to process it? Here are nine great image editing apps and best of all, their price is free!

I realize that this list is not complete. There were several apps that I didn’t include for various reasons. In compiling this list, I found some apps that duplicated features of others. In those cases, I chose what I felt to be the app that did the job quickest, easiest and best. Also, there are great free apps being released all the time.

Some of these apps may be ad-supported, but none of them add a watermark to your images and all save at or really close to your iPhone’s full resolution, unlike many lite photo apps available. These are all full-featured apps and they produce good, if not outstanding effects. Again, for little more than bandwidth and real estate on your iPhone’s screen, there are some gems to be found in the photography section of the App Store. These apps should start you off with a well-rounded iPhoneography toolbox or enhance your existing iPhone “camera bag” — and all for free.

Free Image Processing Apps

Color Leap (formerly Zipix Lite)
Color Leap by Zipix is a quick, easy all-around image enhancer. In addition to exposure enhancement (simulated flash), Color Leap now also features image sharpening and noise reduction — reducing the grainy artifacts that you typically get in dark areas of iPhone photographs.

The app has a bare-bones camera and you can load any image from your iPhone’s Camera Roll. Settings aren’t adjustable, but Color Leap does a good job of fixing dark areas of an image, often times doing a better job than many commercial apps. It also does a good job of tweaking the contrast of a decently exposed image, compensating for the overall gray cast in some iPhone images. The sharpening is subtle, which is good as it’s very easy to over-sharpen in an iPhone app. The noise reduction didn’t eliminate, but it certainly reduced artifacts in my test image without blurring details into unrecognizability.

I often recommend Color Leap to friends who may be a little hesitant about spending money on an exposure enhancer. Definitely worth a download.

App Store link: Color Leap

Flash For Free
A single purpose app, but it accomplishes that purpose very well. Flash for Free is an exposure enhancement app from Free the Apps who produce several other free and commercial photo apps for iPhone. It’s easy to use. You can only open images from your camera roll. You then choose the best image from a nine thumbnail preview screen. I particularly like the multiple thumbnails showing you the various intensities of the effect. It’s a unique feature not found in any paid apps I’ve tried so far. The exposure correction is good with good brightness and color saturation — on par with many of the mid-level commercial apps. It doesn’t leave your photos looking flat and washed out.

Combined, Flash For Free and Color Leap are good, free apps that should cover many of your exposure tweaks.

App Store link: Flash For Free

Format126
I recently wrote a full review of this Format126 both here and at iPhoneography.com.

Format126 by Chris Comair and Glyn Evans is one of the jewels of free iPhone photography apps. It makes your images look like they were shot with a number of retro cameras and films from the 1960′s and 70′s. All eight filters are well-rendered and very usable. They span the gamut of color effects from a stark monochrome (MonoHi) to the oversaturated look of the LOFI filter. The PolaColor filter produces results that are different than the look of the Polarize app — the images are a little more washed out with different vignetting. The three monochrome filters produce good results that look like a superfast film.

Format126 is a great concept and a worthy edition to your toolbox of Retro Camera apps. The filters are well-rendered, nicely done and the app is easy to use. It’s a fun and, especially for free, an essential app.

App Store link: Format126

Mill Colour
Mill Colour by The Mill is a color grading app that gives you unprecedented control over your image. Rather than taking a broad slider-based approach to image adjustment, Mill Colour uses a dial-based approach allowing you to make extremely precise color control in editing the lift, gamma, gain and saturation of an image, with a level of precision and subtlety unavailable in any other image editing app.

Mill Colour also features 10 preset “looks” to quickly and easily apply effects like adding warmth to the image using the Golden filter, some great retro bleached effects and a really nice monochrome Noir filter.

There’s an excellent help page in the app to guide you through what everything does. Mill Colour supports iPhone 3GS resolutions. It’s one of the best image editing apps for iPhone period.

App Store link: Mill Colour

MonoPhix Lite
The little sibling to MonoPhix, MonoPhix Lite by Phoenxsoftware is a color-to-monochrome (black & white) conversion utility. It gives you much greater control over the contrast of your image than simply converting to black & white. The single slider control adjusts the contrast all the way from a smooth grayscale to a very high contrasty black & white. The Lite version doesn’t have the separate highlight and shadow adjustments and the sepia and antique filter that the commercial MonoPhix has. Having greater control over your black & white conversions is nice and the investment to upgrade is worth it, but MonoPhix Lite works very well in most situations.

MonoPhix Lite creates excellent monochrome conversions — better than most commercial apps. It’s quick, easy and creates impressive black & white images.

App Store link: MonoPhix Lite

PhotoSharpFree
From the developers of the mighty mighty PhotoForge, PhotoSharpFree by GhostBird Software is the sharpening component of their flagship image editor. PhotoSharpFree enhances the details of objects in your photo by applying an unsharp mask filter — something Photoshop users will recognize.

Tip: Don’t go crazy with the sharpening! Use it sparingly for best results. Cranking the sharpening won’t improve details that aren’t there — it’ll just make your images look ugly. Photoshop 101.

Once you figure out the menu bar on the bottom of the screen, the app behaves pretty much how you’d expect. PSF features a nice Undo/Redo for easy comparison. Another nice touch is that the app retains any undos when you quit as long as you don’t close the image.

The app also has Hue, Saturation and Brightness adjustments. PhotoSharpFree supports up to 1200 x 1600 resolutions — iPhone 2G and 3G. If you don’t already have an image editor like Photogene, PhotoForge or Perfect Photo, no other free app offers this combination of filters and this level of control.

App Store link: PhotoSharpFree

Photoshop.com Mobile
Click here to check out my full review of the app.

With the names Adobe and Photoshop in the title, you would expect an image editing juggernaut — the mack-daddy of image editing apps for iPhone. It’s a good app, but it’s not editing powerhouse you expect. Photoshop.com Mobile by Adobe Systems is fast and stable. It’s got a pretty lean feature set and some good filters. There are basics like crop, rotate and flip — PS Mobile performs these tasks quickly and easily. There are basic adjustments for exposure, saturation and tint. The Vibrant filter does very nice tweaking contrast and pumping up saturation. I use the border filter often to create a classic, plain white edge around an image. Missing are some of the Photoshop basics that are found in other iPhone image editors — features such as sharpen and overall blur. Within the app, you can upload and share our images to Photoshop.com.

Photoshop.com Mobile is not the only image editor you’ll need, but it’s a nice addition to your toolbox. If you overlook that it has the Photoshop name, you’ll like it a lot more.

App Store link: Photoshop.com Mobile

Polarize
Another great app from Chris Comair, Polarize is a fun app that makes your images look like they were shot with an old, retro Polaroid SX-70 camera. You can use the app as a camera or load images from your camera roll. The effects are great. The app punches up the color saturation and adds a subtle vignette around the frame, eally doing an excellent job of recreating an old instant photograph. You can also add a caption to the bottom of the image in a handwritten font — a nice touch not found in any other Polaroid app.

App Store link: Polarize

Tripod
I’ve found the iPhone is more likely to produce blurry images because of movement when I shoot in lower light situations. Tripod is the anti-shake component split out from CodeGoo‘s excellent commercial app Camera Genius. It’s pretty basic. You press the shutter release and Tripod waits until camera movement is below a threshold before firing the shutter. The less camera movement, the sharper your pictures. There are other apps with anti-shake, but I prefer CodeGoo’s settings. It just feels right and it’s helped me to get sharper low-light pictures.

App Store Link: Tripod

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Got a favorite free photography that I’ve missed here? Tell us about it below in Comments!

UPDATED 02.08.10: Now with a link to our follow-up story, “Wausau City Pages uncovers the real Hipstamatic backstory?”

The case can be made that the hottest camera app in the App Store right now was created in 1982.

Hipstamatic (link to Hipstamticapp.com) is one of the most popular photography apps in the App Store at the moment. It’s in the Top 5 in multiple countries. Flickr groups have popped up. The #hipstamatic hashtag is all over Twitter. The app has universally gotten rave reviews, and deservedly so. The environment, the sounds, the photos — it recreates the fun of shooting with an old, plastic, toy camera.

Read Life In LoFi’s full review here.

The original Hipstamatic camera is almost an urban legend. Part of the mystique of the new app is its backstory — that it’s based on the old, plastic camera that few people had heard of, let alone seen.

The story starts in North Central Wisconsin in 1982. While attending art school part-time, brothers Bruce and Winston Dorbowski came up with an idea for bringing photography to the masses cheaply. Inspired by an old Russian plastic camera and the Kodak Instamatic, they worked from their small riverfront cabin, developing and hand-producing the all-plastic cameras which they called Hipstamatic.

The original was a square frame 35mm camera. It had the ability to swap lenses and use multiple film formats. Each one had a yellow shutter button which became sort of cult icon. Only 157 of the cameras were ever made — the family currently has only 3 of those.

In 1984, Bruce and Winston were killed by a drunk driver on their way home from signing a lease on a new building that would have been their manufacturing plant. The Hipstamatic was never mass produced.

There’s very little history available on the original Hipstamatic camera. Most of what’s available is on their brother Richard’s Dorbowski’s blog, The Great Hipstamatic 100. An excellent read and a good tribute.

UPDATE: Actually, an intrepid reporter from the Wausau City Pages has followed up on this story and found that there is no evidence to support the Hipstamatic backstory. Click to read our follow-up story, “News: Wausau City Pages uncovers the real Hipstamatic backstory?”

The Hipstamatic might have been little more than a footnote in the history of quirky lo-fi cameras had it not been for two graphic designers from the Twin Cities. The iPhone version of HipstaMatic was created by Ryan Dorshorst and Lucas Buick with Synthetic Infatuation. Not only have they created one of best retro camera apps, they’ve also recreated the analog camera user experience. From the jet-black unibody faux-plastic case to the viewfinder to the great Hipstamatic Owner’s Manual, the app is loaded with little details. Everything about Hipstamatic is a loving nod to the retro, analog camera experience.

Life In LoFi was able to ask Ryan and Lucas a few questions. Below, they talk about the Hipstamatic, the backstory and how they got involved with this rare, classic cult camera.

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LOFI: Why LoFi? What got you interested in “toy” cameras?

L & R: We have always been obsessed with all things retro, vintage, and mechanical, as well as tech toys and gizmos. The physical experience of taking photographs has really been lost over the past several years. 10 years ago you had to be much more intimate with your camera. Just by removing the need to put your face up to the viewfinder, we have lost that. Polaroid has always been a favorite at Synthetic. We have a collection of shots of people that stop by our office or would come to our exhibitions, but now we have run out of film.

LOFI: In addition to being a really cool app, the whole package — the backstory, the user interface of the camera, even the downloadable owner’s manual — this is also a tribute to the Hipstamatic 100 and to its story. How did this all start for you?

L & R: We become aware of this obscure toy camera about a year ago through a family member. We had a hell of a time tracking down Richard Dorbowski. His blog went offline just after we reached out through email, and we didn’t hear back until we finally got a phone number, which was over the summer (we have since helped him put the blog back online). Anyways, the idea of creating an app was something that we wanted to do for quite some time — actually, the idea of having a product to sell instead of working with our clients was a big factor in going into app development. As a brand consulting and design studio, Synthetic has always been about creating experiences, so when it came to developing the Hipstamatic we set out to recreate the experience of having an analog device yet make the best possible use of the iPhone technology.

The story of the original Hipstamatic was something that we really related to. The idea of a couple of guys from nowhere that set out to innovate and inspire an entire industry couldn’t have possibly hit any closer to home. After meeting Richard and seeing the vision of Winston and Bruce, we really wanted that product to live.

LOFI: With only 157 of the cameras ever produced, this is probably the rarest, most hard-to-find lo-fi camera in existence. I read on Richard’s Hipstamatic blog that you got to spend some time with one of his cameras. I’m envious that you got to handle one. Tell me about your hands-on with the actual camera.

L & R: Over the summer we did get to play with one of the original Hipstamatic 100s, As it turns out the sucker was much more of a prototype that you would have imaged. But it was super fun to be able to change lenses, and we even rigged up a modern Canon lens to the Hipstamatic, which was the inspiration to the Lucifer VI. All in all, the original camera was a ton of fun. We even dropped off the film at the drug store for processing, which is something neither of us have done in years. Only a handful of our images turned out but for us it was beside the point.

LOFI: Did you get to keep one?!!!!

L & R: Sadly no, Richard has only three cameras left, and of those only one of them is really usable.

LOFI: How was the process to capture the look of the Hipstamatic and get it from film to iPhone?

L & R: We took a lot of creative license with making the Hipstamatic. Though the idea of the camera was from the Hipstamatic, the end result is more of a mashup of all of our favorite things about lo-fi cameras. The flash charge sound, for example, is something that reminds us of family vacations and our childhood, so we had to add it.

LOFI: I hope this is a huge app for you. So far, it looks like it is. What are your plans for Hipstamatic and beyond?

L & R: We are completely blown away by the community that has begun to pop up since the Hipstamatic came out a few weeks ago. We are currently working on an update that will include more manual control of the camera, and more unpredictable effects. The Hipstamatic is a way to spark creativity and allow people to see things in a new way. We would like to start putting together exhibitions of people’s prints and we are looking for a partner to allow people to order prints directly from the app or the website.

We are also working on an app to change the way users manipulate images taken outside of the Hipstamatic. That’s really all we can say at the moment.

Longterm goals for Hipstamatic are all about the community and inspiring creativity in people. There is nothing better than seeing someone who doesn’t consider themselves ‘artistic’ uploading a HipstaPrint to Flickr or sharing it on Facebook or Twitter.

LOFI: Any other favorite analog lo-fi cams? Other than Hipstamatic, what are your three favorite camera apps in the store right now?

L & R: Hands down, ShakeItPhoto (App Store link). Nick Campbell, the creator, is the most giving designer/entrepreneur ever. According to Facebook, he has another app in the works. I have seen some test images and they look amazing. We would love to have him create a HipstaPak for the Hipstamatic.

LOFI: Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. Any parting words?

L & R: We would like to thank everyone for feedback they are sending with feature request, problems, praise, etc. The more we hear from our users the better we can make this app.

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UPDATE: A recent issue of City Pages in Wausau, Wisconsin features a story about hometown hero and one of Hipstamatic’s creators Ryan Dorshorst. City Pages’ Deputy Editor Rick LaFrombois, who wrote the story, dug pretty deep into the Hipstamatic backstory. What he found indicates that the Hipstamatic backstory may be “a myth.” Read the full story here.

We’ve got a lot more Hipstamatic news throughout Life In LoFi, including all the latest on updates and HipstaPaks. Check out all the news by clicking here.

Format126

Format126
Version 1.0

Bottom Line: Essential! There are apps that you’ve paid for that aren’t nearly this good. It is a fun and, especially for free, an essential app.

As a kid, growing up, my very first camera was a square frame Kodak Instamatic 100 with the peanut bulb flash and the textured plastic near the shutter release that was supposed to look like one of the old light meters. It used 126 format film, which was single perforated 35 mm film housed in a plastic cartridge. The camera was inexpensively made and was produced for the masses. It was built more solidly than the plastic “toy” cameras and didn’t produce a lot of the Lo-Fi artifacts that are the trademark of those cameras, but it was a fun camera for a kid growing up to explore the world in photos 24 square images at a time.

Format126 by Chris Comair is a new app that is the result of a collaboration between Chris Comair, who created EffectsLab, LOFI and Polarize, and Glyn Evans who writes and publishes iPhoneography.com.

Format126 makes your images look like they were shot with a number of retro cameras and films from the 1960′s and 70′s. As an Instamatic emulator, Format126 takes some liberties with the number of effects the app offers, and given the limits of the 126 format, this was an excellent choice, making the app much more interesting than the original film format.

As with Chris’ previous apps, the interface is simple and the app is very fast. In version 1.0, there are 8 filters to choose from, as well as three additional cropping and frame effects — Vignetting, Square Format and a border– a nice nod to to the 126 film format.. All choices are easily accessible from a single drop-down menu.

All eight filters are well-rendered and very usable. They span the gamut of color effects from a stark monochrome (MonoHi) to the oversaturated look of the LOFI filter. The PolaColor filter produces results that are different than the look of the Polarize app — the images are a little more washed out with different vignetting. The three monochrome filters produce good results that look like a superfast film.

While there are other apps that produce similar results, Format126 applies these filters with unique results. I especially like the ColorPlus, which adds just a bit of contrast and saturation, the PolaColor, which desaturates just a little, and the Mono filters.

Format126 sample images (click to enlarge)

The filters are not adjustable. I don’t mind this omission as when shooting with the low-end consumer films, your options were limited. When using the app as a camera in square-frame mode, the viewfinder aspect ratio does not match the crop — the viewfinder is always in full-screen mode (the next update addresses this issue). However, the app is based on classic point-and-shoot where viewfinder accuracy was sketchy to begin with, and it’s certainly more accurate than HipstaMatic’s Classic wandering viewfinder. These are minor, minor points and for me, do not detract from the enjoyment or function of the app at all.

iPhoneographers have already embraced this app and deservedly so. This app is also easy enough for a casual photographer to use if they want to add some easy, cool retro effects to their snapshot.

Format126 is a great concept and a worthy edition to your toolbox of Retro Camera apps. There are more effects here than the original Kodak 126 format had, which I feel adds to the value of this app. The filters are well-rendered, nicely done and the app is easy to use. In keeping with the spirit of the original camera, I suggest you challenge yourself creatively and leave Format126 in square-frame mode.

There are apps that you’ve paid for that aren’t nearly this good. Format126 doesn’t recreate the environment of shooting with an old 126 camera, but it is a fun and, especially for free, an essential app.

App Store Link: Format126

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Bottom Line: Recommend

HipstaMatic

True lo-fi photography is not an exact art. Primarily because of the nature of the equipment (mainly mass-produced plastic or “toy” cameras), unpredictability is an essential element. Most lo-fi cameras have cheap, plastic lenses; many of them have imprecise cases that don’t completely seal, causing light leaks, vignetting, lens distortions and other imperfections. To the lo-fi photographer, these imperfections are desirable and add to the look of the image. It’s the quest for the happy accident.

There are apps that duplicate the images taken by classic lo-fi cameras such as the Holga and the Lomo — classic cameras widely produced and still easily found. Hipstamatic by Synthetic Corp is the first app to replicate the look of one of the rarest lo-fi cameras, the Hipstamatic 100, a square-frame 35mm camera most of us probably never heard of until now. I think the images this app creates are gorgeous and even though there are flaws in this first release, I love this app!

HipstaMatic viewfinder: What I saw and what it shot

The app itself is fun to shoot with. The developers had access to one of the 157 Hipstamatic cameras produced and the user-interface duplicates as closely as possible for an iPhone app the experience of shooting with a toy plastic camera. Shutter release button, viewfinder and flash switch are on the “backside” of the camera. On the “frontside,” there are interchangeable “lenses” that effect the look of your images. The square viewfinder wanders and is not very accurate to what you actually shoot. This is great for “shoot from the hip” photography. I found the randomness of some shots made in this way interesting, but at times I found others frustrating to make and I wanted a more precise viewfinder to take advantage of Hipstmatic’s great filters. This has been addressed and a switchable precise viewfinder will be in the next release.

HipstaMatic 100 sample images

Hipstmatic comes with a basic lens set that produces great results and some really incredible images. For additional effects, additional lenses and filters are available as HipstaPaks for purchase within the app. To add more films, lenses and flash, I bought the first two available HipstaPaks — they weren’t that expensive and they easily add some great filters to the camera, including a great Black & White and additional film stocks. Once downloaded, the new lenses and films integrate seamlessly.

Hipstamatic produces some of the nicest analog film effects I’ve seen in an iPhone app and really does a great job recreating the imperfections of a toy camera. Each combination of lens and films produces different results. The color shifts are nicely done and the vignettes and fake light leaks look natural. The “film stocks” do an admirable job of mimicking the actual film stock. Each film stock comes with a unique border which is well-rendered and adds a nice touch. About the only thing missing from the filters is simulated film grain.

It’s a fun camera to shoot with. It just feels analog. It’s the experience of an old camera shooting within an iPhone and I like it a lot. There are other camera apps that do this, but the experience isn’t as authentic for me. For me, the experience is one more reason to like and recommend this app.

Hipstamatic is not without its flaws in this initial release. It’s frustratingly unstable. While testing this app, it crashed often, causing me to lose about half of my test shots. Some may have issue with the “wandering viewfinder.” I was okay with it some of the time, but would have liked to have had the option of a more accurate viewfinder for getting images that I don’t have the luxury of multiple reshoots. Both of these issues — the stability problem and the viewfinder — have been addressed in the 110 update which has been submitted to Apple. Hipstamatic won’t let you load images from your camera roll. While I understand that this would take away from the overall user experience of shooting with this digital toy camera, I have other images that I’d love to run through Hipstamatic’s filters. I guess we’re spoiled. In the days of analog photography, we’d have had to match the camera, lens and film to the photo shoot in much the same way Hipstamatic makes you do so.

Hipstamatic is a really fun camera app. It’s not a replacement for Camera or your usual camera replacement apps. It’s a really good toy that you’ll have fun making some great and interesting photos with. Especially with the stability of the new update and the regular addition of film and lens options, Hipstamatic is a great app to discover the happy accidents of lo-fi photography.

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Related links:

“Q&A: Hipstamatic: The Story Behind the Plastic App with the Golden Shutter”

“New! Hipstamatic 150 update – Hold on to your hats!“

LOFI

LOFI
Version 1.0

Bottom line: Recommend!

With the name LOFI, I couldn’t pass this app by.

LOFI by Christopher Comair is “a celebration of imperfection.” It’s a digital lomo app. Cross processing results in unnatural color shifts. Lomography tends to be oversaturated and blurry. LOFI wraps your image in both and then turns it up to 11, kicks it around, amps it up and leaves it exhausted and sweaty on a blanket on the sofa. This is probably one of the best free photo apps in the App Store.

Filter options in LOFI

LOFI is more than just a color throttling filter, although supercolor is a large part of what it does. You can shoot an image with the app’s basic camera or select one from your iPhone’s camera library. You can then choose from one of 12 color adjustment settings ranging from monochrome to Original (the more traditional lomo setting) to various degrees of super color saturation. LOFI supports 3GS files sizes and you can set the preferences to save your images at their original resolution.

LOFI produces color results that are not found in any other app I’ve come across. The color is even more saturated and vivid than the Lolo filter in CameraBag. These 12 filters alone produce great, often stunning results.

LOFI also lets you create multiple image photographs within the app. There are built-in templates for 2-image diptychs, 4-image quadtychs and 9-image frames.. Each frame of the image can have a different filter or image applied to it. Applying different filters and images allow you create some interesting visual and color contrasts. While I really liked the color intensifying the app does, I think the multi-image feature is an excellent compliment. The two components together have the potential to allow you to produce some very powerful images.

4-image quadtych created in LOFI

The interface is pretty straightforward. Undos are tricky and you may find yourself simply starting over on an image. This wasn’t a big issue for me as the the app is so simple that you really don’t lose much time.

LOFI is an app for experimentation and juxaposition. I was consistently pleased with what I was able to produce.

It’s very rare that a developer offers an app this unique and this well-coded for free. I’ve paid for many apps that aren’t this good. For many reasons, this excellent app is a keeper.

App Store link: LOFI

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