Camera Plus
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Review: Camera Plus has some unique features to make your iPhone photography better
Camera Plus (not to be confused with the best-selling and excellent app Camera +) is a US$0.99 (on sale for a limited time) app that offers nice control of your photography both before and after you snap your pictures. The app offers three focus modes: Macro, Normal and Far. You can lock your focus once it is set. Another clever feature is "Lumy," an exposure slider you can see in the main live screen. It increases luminance in low light, and keeps the noise down. Another nice function is called Pix'd. Basically, it's an automatic tweaking feature for color, contrast and brightness. A lot of auto-enhance features don't work very well. Pix'd does a nice job. It's used after you take your photo, rather than before. The app also offers a stabilization mode, burst mode, timer controlled photos, the ability to use the volume buttons on the phone to snap a photo and optional geo-tagging. The app also supports video and you can select your resolution as either full-res or 480p. Photos can be shared via Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Twitter, iMessage and Mail. I gave the app a spin in the neighborhood. I was happy with the performance and appreciated nice little touches like an on-screen level indicator that helped me get my horizon straight. The focus modes were quick and accurate. The Pix'd feature did help most of my images, and it did not go overboard and kept them looking natural without overdriving saturation. Although you can cancel the Pix'd effect without saving, I would have liked to have seen a split-screen look at before and after, or a quick revert button for comparisons. The app does not have any HDR capabilities, which is a negative for the way I use my camera. It does have some useful editing tools, but they are a bit hidden. When you open the app's camera roll, you hold your finger down on the image you want to edit. You'll find tools for cropping, color adjustments and image flip / rotation. You can also enter edit mode when you are in the Pix'd editor. You can edit other photos from your camera roll not taken in Camera Plus, but some panoramas I took were deemed too large to open. Camera Plus is quick and produces images as good as other top-tier photo apps. While not overflowing with seldom-used features, it has what you need to take excellent photos by providing tools to help you align, focus and compose your images. The Pix'd feature is the best post-photo feature. It does the job well, and there are also other basic image editing tools. Camera Plus is not a universal app, and it requires iOS 7 or greater. It's optimized for the iPhone 5. The app gets excellent reviews from users, and I agree this is a well-done camera app.
Camera+ coming back to the App Store
Do you remember Camera+? It was the amazing US$1.99 photography app from development house tap tap tap that ended up getting yanked from the App Store after the developers used the iPhone volume button as a camera shutter button. In a postscript to a blog entry today, tap tap tap let it slip that Camera+ is on the way back to the App Store. The teaser comment says that it's currently in review, and that this will be the "biggest update yet." Let's hope that they stay within the sometimes ridiculous guidelines for App Store approval, and that the app is as successful in its second incarnation as it was in the first. Camera+ might face an uphill battle for renewed market share, however. One of the cool features of the app was its ability to share apps to Twitter, Facebook and Flickr with one tap. Since Camera+ went missing, the relatively new and free Instagram app has become very popular, and it also features easy sharing and fun filters. However, Instagram doesn't have the zoom or exposure controls that made Camera+ so useful, and a recent update deleted a popular filter (Poprocket) that was enjoyed by many users. However, competition is good for those of us on the receiving end of the app wars, so it's good to see that Camera+ is going to be back soon. TUAW will let you know when the new version is available on the App Store and what those exciting new features might be.
How to use your iPhone's volume buttons for shutter control in Camera+
If you use Camera+ -- and you should; we love it -- you might have been excited by the recent talk of using the volume control buttons on the side of your iPhone to take pictures with. We've all found fumbling with the touchscreen button a little fiddly from time to time, right? I've come worryingly close to dropping my iPhone on occasions, shooting one-handed, fingers contorted into a claw, trying to curl my pinky over to the centre of the screen. Camera+'s developers tap tap tap must feel my pain, because they recently added this much-requested feature to a new version. Unfortunately, Apple rejected it from the App Store, because repurposing the volume controls could "potentially result in user confusion." Tap tap tap is philosophical about this decision, saying they understood Apple's position and that they hoped they would change their minds in the future. Although a few other camera apps do offer the use of volume control as a shutter release, these were either only available via the jailbreak store or the developers smuggled the feature through under Apple's nose. However, it turns out the current version of Camera+ (v1.2.1) has this feature, albeit hidden away-- but it's a snap to activate (pun intended). (Thanks to Dan at UneasySilence and everyone else who sent this in!)
