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!
What??? You still don’t have ProCamera? It’s still only $2.99 USD in the App Store.
=M=
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