My iPhone Camera Apps
A roundup of camera apps that I’m currently using, and the ones I no longer use.
The Current Lineup
There are a ton of iPhone camera apps out there, and I haven’t come close to trying them all. But I’ve tried a few, and here are the ones I keep around and use regularly, ordered by preference and frequency of use.
| Halide Mark II by Lux Optics | I was very skeptical of the high price tag on this, but after testing it became my primary camera. | |
| 65x24 by Guillaume Ardaud | The camera app I didn’t know I needed until I loaded it. Use this quite a bit now for mid-size panos. Sure you can crop, but this app is fun to use. | |
| Camera by Apple | The OG camere. Fast, relatively easy to use, good for basic snapshots. | |
| Hipstamatic | I’ll be honest, this app is a bit overwhelming. There’s a lot of visual noise and I have to take a moment to settle in a get my bearings. Best thing here (unless you like chaos) is to find a few favorite “cameras” and stick with them. I tried the paid Camera Club membership and their built-in social media feed. Neither did anything for me, but I do enjoy being able to apply effects to pictures already in my camera roll. | |
| BitCam by the Iconfactory | Let’s be honest, 3-bit color pictures aren’t really that useful, but I use this once in a while for fun. |
No longer used
Some I tried and rejected, others I just don’t need any more
| Camera+ (Legacy) by LateNite Apps | I had this loaded and don’t any more, but honestly I don’t remember much about it. | |
| Classic Camera by Hipstamatic | An earlier version of the current Hipstamatic camera with fewer distractions and slightly greater ease of use. Can still be used to apply effects to pictures already on the camera roll. Honestly, I need to spend some time to figure out whether it’s better than the newer Hipstamatic app for this purpose. | |
| FX Photo Studio Pro (no longer available) by MacPhun | This app let you apply some cool effects to photos, which at the time of its release (a looooong time ago) was novel. Now every app has this and it became obsolete. | |
| Obscura Pro Camera by Ben McCarthy. | I used this briefly and hated it. The interface is pretty, and perhaps even better than anything else out there. But its different-ness made it very hard for me to use. | |
| Photoshop Camera (no longer available) by Adobe | I used it once or twice because I‘m an Adobe subscriber, but I never understood why they bothered to make it in the first place. I guess that’s why it’s dead. | |
| Spectre Camera by Lux Optics | This is a useful app for long exposure photography, which is just not my thing. | |
| Unsquared for Instagram by Ege Gurmericliler | This is a great little app if you use Instagram. It lets you split panoramic images perfectly so that the swipes are seamless in the Instagram app. Only problem for me is that I don’t post to Instagram any more. |
Video
I rarely shoot video, and when I do it’s usually only for my video vignettes series.
| Camera by Apple | The one I normally reach for first. | |
| OK Video by pixelrock. | Some folks over on the socials were raving about this not too long ago so I loaded it, but I haven’t had too much experience with it yet. More to come. |
So there you have it, a quick look at what’s in my virtual camera bag (as it were). Happy shooting!