While things are a little slow, I get to play catch-up. Here’s one from October that you may have missed the first time out.
Instacam bills itself as “Yet another Instagram camera with Live filters preview.” It dismisses itself too easily. This retro photo app is probably one of the more interesting Instagram companion apps in the store.
Instacam comes from Taplayer, the developer behind the very good TtV Camera and TtV Photo Studio apps. Instacam isn’t merely another square format shell for Taplayer’s great TtV effects. It’s a good Instagram camera with its own set of 19 lo-fi and retro photo filters such as the requisite LOMO, Vintage, black & white Noir filters and others. Worried about crossover with Taplayer’s other apps? It only shares four filters with its TtV siblings.
Shoot in-app or load from your camera roll. Either way, filters preview real time. The camera supports up to 2048×2048 resolution. Importing images often produced lower resolution files for me, usually between 1200 to 1500 pixels square. I suspect this has something to do with the zoom and crop function. Instacam also supports the front camera on devices equipped with one.
The app saves the high res image to your camera roll and saves a low res 612×612 image to its lightbox, where you can quickly and easily share to Twitter, Facebook or any of the “SendToApp” supported photo apps, including importing straight to Instagram.
Filters are one-click easy. There are no sliders to adjust the intensity. As with Taplayers other photo apps, the retro and TtV effects are authentic looking, well-rendered, and full of color and detail.
One of the great things about Instagram is the one-click ease in which it’s possible to add effects to images and quickly share them. Recent Instagram updates, though, have removed some of the app’s more interesting filters and added some nice but unexciting filters. The good Instagram companion apps combine ease of use, a good filter set with different and exciting filters, and seamless integration with Instagram.
This isn’t an iPhoneography power user app. Some users might not like Instacam’s lack of controls over effects. It definitely doesn’t offer all the filters and tools that TtV Camera and TtV Photo Studio have. But Instagrammers who want a greater variety of filters than Instagram currently offers plus an app that’s fast and easy to use will probably like Instacam.
It’s currently on sale for $0.99, down from $2.99. I wouldn’t drop three bucks on it, but for a dollar it’s worth it to help your images stand out in Instagram.
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 4.1 or later.
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