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.
Vintage Camera Pro has lush effects like Hipstamatic, the BeFunky apps or Leme Leme Pro. It features a slick retro camera-like interface that’s pretty fun. Like Instagram, effects are applied through easy one button processing — there’s no changing the intensity of the effects. The app only comes with a small selection of 13 one-button effects. No options for frames other than what’s built into the preset. There is nothing really compelling or original about these effects and you probably already have them all in several other photo apps on your iDevice.
Vintage Camera Pro saves to low 640×640 resolution, whether you shoot within the app or load from your photo library. It’s pretty low-res and suitable for sharing by email or posting to Twitter or Facebook, but all the detail will be lost. Photos won’t even look great on Flickr which likes larger images for viewing all file sizes. Vintage Camera Pro’s photo size is unsuitable for printing except at the smallest sizes — no larger than about 4″ x 4″. The app doesn’t save your original hi-res photo so that is lost as well. Even Instagram now saves at full device resolution — anywhere from 2 MP-8 MP.
Vintage Camera Pro only shares to Facebook, Twitter, and the developer’s own social photo network. There are not Send To App, PhotoAppLink, or Send to Instagram hooks — pretty big omissions, in my opinion. To share your photos on Instagram, you’ll need to save it first to your camera roll, open Instagram and import. There are many other photo apps that share quickly and directly within the app.
Vintage Camera Pro is a sexy looking photo app from the outside, but right now it’s another low res app that needs some pretty significant improvements before it can really justify the the “pro” label and the dollar price tag.
Vintage Camera Pro is $0.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.
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Vintage Camera Pro
Effects Quality
Resolution & Image Quality
User Interface
Price / Value
No Thanks
Another low-res, square format photo app, with a limited number of effects, albeit good-looking ones. The l0w 640x640 resolution kills it for me.
