Camera+ App is Software Worthy of iPhone Hardware

Yesterday the news that Camera+ is back on the iPhone was announced.  It had been pulled by Apple because the app made use of the hardware volume buttons to take a photo.  Shocking!  What is more shocking to me is that I have used the app consistently, and never thought to use the hardware buttons, darn it!  So with nothing to lose, I went for the update to see what the improvements were like.

Tap Tap Tap  is the developer, and I first read about Camera+ on Lisa Bettany's blog, via a link from TUAW or TIPB.  But what intrigued me was that Tap Tap Tap was using a professional photographer to create the easy to use workflow and photo treatments.  Now the latest version has added more photo treatments, and improved the interface menu along the bottom of the edit screen.  This is the best paid app in the App Store- read on to see what you can get for a buck...



My iPhone is my primary blogging tool, as well as my primary camera, among all the other functions it fulfills so well.  Because my blog is as visual as it is verbal, the pictures are important.  Camera+ is one of several tools I use to make it more visually interesting.

Camera+ is a powerful, feature rich package that can replace the native camera and most post processing apps.  In fact, its slight shutter speed lag and its understandable lack of HDR functionality were the only reasons I went back to the native iPhone camera.

The Old Start Screen

The new version has improved the start up speed to be equivalent to the native iPhone camera, and removed the hokey SLR start screen that further slowed time to first shot.

In a move showing a triumph of good sense over ego centric affectation, the new version simply starts up ready to take a photo.  If you want to get into editing, or using the lightbox feature, you simply tap on the lower left corner, where your last shot is displayed, just like the native iPhone camera app.  Good move TapTapTap!


TAKING PICTURES

Start-up

On this screen you also get access to timers, burst shooting, and the stabilizer which is invaluable for high quality macros.  Using this stabilizer makes you realize how unstable one is when shooting photos, and makes me long for an iPhone tripod adapter.  The icon on the right is the menu for settings, app info, etc.

Aperture (exposure) & Focus (square

The grid overlay is helpful in composition, and a digital zoom is included, if you must.  When  shooting a photo, Camera+ allows you to choose the focal point, and the exposure point, a unique and powerful feature.  It is possible, when shooting very close, to get some depth of field, so the focal point is important, and it is also a great feature to be able to choose your exposure point in a scene so you can manage how light or dark it will be in the picture, and keep from blowing out important highlights, like parts of a face, a weakness of the native iPhone camera app.

These tools will make taking composed photos a challenge to the photographer, not the camera- good work TapTapTap!

The Lightbo

One of the best things about Camera+ is that all the photos you take with it are saved to a "lightbox", where you can decide what to do with them before saving to your Camera Roll.  At first I thought this was a hokey way to make you think you were a big time Life photographer (a good angle in Heller's Catch 22), but I came to appreciate that it was cleaner and forced me to deal with photos rather than accumulating them for work "later".

This encourages you to "be the photo", and spend more time in "post editing" to get the look you want before adding the final product, and the edits, to your camera roll.

POST PROCESSING

Some Scenes & Menu

In all, there are 15 settings to adjust color temperature, or white balance, 36 photo treatments, 10 cropping settings, 18 borders, and adjustments for alignment and rotation. It is easy to make mundane photos more fun and interesting with all theses options.  You can also buy 9 more effects designed to mimic the golden days of film photography.

One of the FX treatments, called HDR, is fun, but should not be confused with the serious HDR function of the iPhone's native software, nor apps like TrueHDR.

Once you are done with the editing, sharing is easy within Camera+, at least to Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook.  The linkage is included from the Lightbox.

SAMPLES

This photo, of a cafe in Manhattan was treated with "Magic Hour", to make it warmer and more inviting than the native light.  

And inside the cafe I used So Emo just because it can be fun to do so.  This is a whimsical look that can make straightforward portrayals more dramatic and evocative.  

This old modem in our local airport was treated with Hipster, kinda period appropriate I thought.

This salad was post processed using the Food filter, which increased the sharpness and contrast, and warmed it up a touch.  It is really sensational when used on french fries.

CONCLUSION

To summarize, Camera+ is the imaging app I find most essential to my iPhotog style.  Thank you Tap Tap Tap and Lisa Bettany!  How lucky we are to enjoy such good work at such little cost!  And do yourself a favor, spend the extra $.99 to buy the Helios effects.  If I had one space on my iPhone for an imaging app, this would be the one.