DAVID ROCCATO

Today, I’m going to tell you which are my best camera replacement apps, why I use them and how. So that you can have an idea more to add to your information and decide if it’s the case to buy another app or not. I usually use two different concepts, I shoot with one app and I edit with another one. Just in few cases I use the same app to do everything.

The first app I generally use is the famous Camera+, I use it in general situations and when I take a lot of pictures in the same day. What I like the most is the possibility to control focus/exposure and WB. The exposure feature is what I use the most and with the last update, you can lock everything you want with a simple touch. Of course, with Camera+ you can do a lot of things, and you have plenty of FX effects to apply too. One of the adjustment I like the most is the Clarity one, this feature is quite awesome, it works great with a lot of different scenarios, so it’s worth trying it.

Another reason I use camera+ is for the lightbox. When I take a lot of pictures I save them all in the lightbox too and I use it as backup, so if something happens when I transfer them, I’m not anxious to lose everything. And it’s quite easy to manage, you can zoom the pics you want, get information, share, save them and pick up what you want to start editing it. Great app!

As I like videos too, sometimes I like to create a video, with a mix of videos and photos, about an event, or a rally, or a party and so on. So in those cases, I want to quickly switch from videos to photos shooting mode. And ProCamera does this job greatly. It offers the possibility to control WB, focus and exposure when you’re taking pictures and when you’re taking videos too. It’s very easy to change from one mode to another and I find it very useful when I need to do that again and again without having to change app.

Another thing I like about ProCamera, is the RapidFire Mode. You can take a lot of pictures in a short amount of time but you can decide for a high-res quality too. Because if you have the burst mode but it’s only very low-res, it becomes pretty useless. The high-res RapidFire ProCamera Mode, will be a little bit slower but at least you’ll have good quality pictures.

As I have already written to you in this previous article, I like to use Pro HDR when I find a difficult situation and I’m not able to manage the exposure in the right way. So, for example, there is a too dark area, and the contrast is too high. No matter how you change the exposure, there won’t be any other solution that having an overexposed area or an underexposed area within the picture. Pro HDR allows me to save the moment in these situations. It takes the two extremes and it merges them together in a great result.

The app is also quite good to control the movement of my hands because I don’t take pictures always in a stable position. When the result is ready, you’ll have the possibility to make further adjustments, and in few seconds, your picture will be ready to use. Awesome!

If I find myself to take pictures during the night or in very low light situations, I use NightCap to do that. This app lets you control the time of exposure in a real way, and not like others that take a series of pictures in video mode, merge them together and upscale the result. You can control the time of the exposure up to 1 second. This is quite cool and you might need to do some test before to get full control and confidence on the app. It is also better to be in a stable position when you take the picture or at the opposite, move the iPhone to get weird results that you could use after in different layers and weird creations.

Now, the awesome thing, is that NightCap just updated to the version 2.0. I can say this is a great update because now you can see the ISO and the exposure time, in real time. You just move your iPhone and you’ll see the parameters changing. This is even better than Mattebox where you can have the ISO displayed after the picture. Here, you can have it all the time.

Another great feature is that now you can lock WB, focus and exposure on NightCap too. It’s a bit different, you have a square at the centre of the iPhone screen, you point it in the area you want the exposure, or focus, or WB, and then you simply lock it. It works great for me. Then you tap the settings and you’ll see the possibility to control the exposure time, always seeing the scenario in the background. I have to say that this has been a great improvement and I’ll probably use a lot more NightCap from now on.

When I just don’t want to think at anything and just random shooting, I open Nofinder and I leave the karma doing the rest. Nofinder is a quite weird and great app at the same time. There’s no viewfinder so it means you cannot see anything. So, why is this cool? Well, let’s say it’s relaxing sometimes. I use it when I’m in a car, not driving of course, and I just leave my hand with the iPhone, outside the window randomly shooting everywhere for fun. I like it because sometimes I get some cool result so I understand that a new angle I didn’t think before at, it might work as well. There are few combinations to chose but the High Contrast BW is my best choice.

The last one I mention is Hipstamatic. This app is another must have, even if there are similar clones this app is the best in its category. Hipstamatic has got a lot of combinations and the strong point is that you cannot change them later. You need to chose what you want before to take the picture and then you push that shutter button. It requires a bit of analysis before, because you need to learn the lenses and the films to suit your preferences and then decide what you use depending on the situation. I generally don’t use the flash, so I don’t care about it.

I don’t use Hipstamatic so often because there’s no point to have hundreds of pictures look the same, but I still use it when I think it’s the right time to do it for me. With Hipstamatic, you need to take your time, relax, chose the combination you want, take the picture and wait for the result. I would prefer it a little bit faster at full resolution but fair enough, it’s like that. Even so, I still love this app and I’m sure I’ll keep using it for a long time.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this article and my selection. If you want to know all the apps I generally use and get all the links for these ones, you can look at the page with all the apps I did here and that I often update. My tendency now is to reduce the apps I use and try to deeply learn them in order to get the most of them instead of jumping too much from one app to another. When you have built your group of tools, you don’t need to add new ones so often.

Have a great day.