Instant: The Polaroid Instant Camera
Instant re-creates a pretty authentic Polaroid shooting experience on iPhone. Its tiny viewfinder is almost like shooting with the original SX-70 cameras. It has a broad range of film effects, including many styles of Polaroid stock recreations. It even has some damaged and expired film stocks. Instant lets you add roller bar streaks to your image. It can also add some great looking wear to the photo, including fingerprints, dirt, and frame texture. Instant is a far cry from the point-and-shoot simplicity of Polarize and ShakeIt Photo.
Instant: The Polaroid Instant Camera is $1.99 in the App Store.
App Store Link: Instant: The Polaroid Instant Camera – ThinkTime Creations LLC
Camera+
Got Camera+? There’s a pretty decent fauxlaroid hidden within this app. It doesn’t have a one-click instant film effect per se. If you use any one of its retro analog effects along with the Instant border that’s part of the standard gear, you can create some interesting if not entirely authentic fake Polaroid-style photos.
Camera+ is $2.99 in the App Store.
App Store Link: Camera+ – tap tap tap
Original CameraBag (left) and CameraBag 2’s updated Instant frame (right)
Bonus: CameraBag
If you’re lucky enough to have the original CameraBag for iPhone before it was deleted, you have one of the better fake Polaroid affects available for iOS. The SX-70 style frame looks authentic. The app lets you cycle through some good-looking, washed out Polaroid effects. Somehow, this did not translate to the update CameraBag 2. In the update, effects look a little too saturated and much of the time the colors look off to me. The frame has been changed from the classic SX-70 print to a ugly, elongated, instant… thing. The original CameraBag, though, gets it right. It may not be one tap – you might want to cycle through a few iterations – but it’s one-tap easy to get a classic, retro faux-Polaroid look with CameraBag.
Did I miss any? Share your favorite fake-Polaroid apps in the comments below!
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