New iPhone Photo App: Hipstamatic
Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 2:45PM | Glyn Evans Digital photography never looked so analog. The Hipstamatic brings back the look, feel, unpredictable beauty, and fun of plastic toy cameras of the past!
Description from the AppStore: The Hipstamatic keeps the the quirks of shooting old school but gives you the ability to swap lenses, film, and flash settings all with the swipe of a finger.
Characterized by vignettes, blurring, over saturation, discolored images, Hipstaprints have a casual and seemingly accidental snapshot feel. The Hipstamatic can be downloaded to any iPhone sporting the 3.1 or beyond software update. For $1.99 you can download the base model Hipstamatic 100 which includes the John S and Jimmy Lenses, as well as Ina's 1969 and Kodot Verichrome film and a standard flash option complete with humming sound. Additional lenses, film, and flash options are bundled within the app as 'Hipstapaks' and start at 99 cents. Each Hipstapak includes multiple items
Pictures taken with the Hipstamatic have their very own look and unique character. Artistic and painted with light and quirk, Hipstamatic images are sometimes surprising and offer a delicate beauty turning any iPhone into an instant art making machine. Images can be uploaded directly to your Facebook album or emailed to your friends and family.
About:
Back in 1982, the Hisptamatic was legendary- well, with at least a few hundred small town kids in Wisconsin. Known for its ability to swap lenses and take multiple film formats, this plastic camera was well on its way to being a big deal. Sadly less than 200 cameras were produced. Today, a digital reproduction is brought to the iPhone with lots of added features.
Welcome back Analog!
Features:
- HipstaSwap™ lens technology
- HipstaSwap™ film technology
- Square format prints
- Built in Facebook sharing
- Sweet sound effects
- Jet black molded plastic unibody
- KwikProcess™ technology
- Swank Camera flip action
- HipstaAlbum™ viewer w/sharing
- HipstaMart shopping for additional film & lenses
In app purchases:
- The Williamsburg [$.99] - Includes Helga Viking lens, 3 color flash gels, and Pistil film.
- The Portland [$.99] - Includes the Lucifer VI lens and BlacKeys film.
AppStore Link: Hipstamatic - Price £1.19/$1.99
Editors comments: I'm a little unsure about this app, as you can not apply the effects to exiting photos, and for me the interface looks a little gimmicky. The other feature we have seen on a few photo apps before, but are generally is not liked, are in app purchases. For me I'd rather pay the extra and have all the features available rather than keep buying add-ons.
If you are interested in discussion this app, then there is already a thread over at the discussion board, so check it out and add your comments.
Hipstamatic in New iPhone Photo Apps
Reader Comments (8)
I think it's an amazing app. Yeah, I would rather be able to load my photos. However, it takes amazing photographs, I was shocked out how good they look. The chaos of the fx are subtle, extreme and brilliant. You are right that many other cameras do simliar fx. What sets this one apart is that it does it better than any of those apps.
I bought the app, all the in-app extras as well. The app in full with all additional purchases is a $4 app (though it is miss leading & makes you think there is an extra 5x $0.99 worth of add-on... Thus a $7 app). But that is not the case & the Developer corrected me on my original tweet (thank you). So for $4 is an excellent looking app, great results from the filters, lenses, gelpacks & etc. Really a great visually made UI kudos on that & the added flash effect generated is well done. Though the 2 things I look for in an app & are my 2 biggest MUST HAVES in any iPhone photography applications are both missing here unfortunately.
- FULL RESOLUTION is missing! Yes given the app takes a square shot your max resolutions are going to be 1536x1536 / 2048x2048 on a 3GS but it is a true disappointment seeing that the High Res this app saves to is 1050x1050. I will state it is acceptable BUT a disappointment that all this hard work went into making this app to short change even themselves with anything less than Full Resolution.
- Photo Library & Camera Roll images are not enabled for use in this app. That as well to me is a huge let down & true disappointment over all. I understand the whole "shoot from the hip" idea but if I really wanted to shoot from the hip I wouldn't have paid for this app at all ... My iPhone comes with a FREE built in camera. So to limit the consumer just seems unfair. Yeah you can say oh well they are bringing back the old instant camera etc & well you couldn't do it then so why now? True enough but then again back then you didn't develop an app on your computer for a state of the art handheld digital device. So sure you are giving the feel & vibe of the retro Hipstamatic but shouldn't limit to a feel or vibe. Let your "paying" customers have the choice with their $500 iPhones to decide if they want to apply these effect to existing photos or to take the original approach & "shoot from the hip".
So that all being said I do highly recommend this app to anyone interested it is a great app with good results. Keep in mind the limitation of it's resolution & lack of use when applying effects to your own photos.
Once those have been addressed & implemented I don't really have any complaints.
* I do hope as well that when updates are available they don't only come in the form of paid in-app purchases & that the developer gives more to the standard users rather than teasing them with additional paid upgrades of add-ons.
***
ADDITIONAL INFO what you see in the apps view finder when you take a photo being that it is a square view finder with an app saving a square photo... is NOT what you get when you have taken the shot. (One more HUGE reason why the app MUST add the ability to use your OWN photo library images!)
As well if you take a shot in landscape & take the same shot in portrait mode you get a totally different photo & NOT for the better.
These 2 findings to me are BUGS needing to be addressed.
I emailed the Developer at 2 separate emails upon the apps release & have NOT had any reply... And that was prior to any findings of a bug.
MUST HAVE ADDITIONS... FULL RESOLUTION, ABILITY TO ADD YOUR OWN IMAGES
And if possible users choice to have full un-cropped image (Landscape/Portrait) or as it is now a cropped square image. THAT SHOULD BE A USERS CHOICE...
I mean really why do why own 3GS iPhones with high resolution IF WE cant even use & utilize them ???
SCW
I think all the shots look a little too fake or something. It just seems off. I dunno this apps seems like more show then substance.
I wrote a review of this app (because I really liked it) which addresses some of the features people seem to dislike. Eg. not being able to load your own photos. It's really about the spirit of the Film Camera App as a camera in its own right. No more than you'd expect stripping exposed 35mm film out of a camera and loading it into another for double exposure to be easy, these apps don't allow you to "do what you want with the device you paid for" because restrictions sometimes add a little thrill and force to work harder.
It's the reason why I liked ShakeItPhoto more before it allowed you to simultaneously save photos both in processed and original form. Given that option, there's no way I could force myself to uncheck the box and get only processed photos without a backup, but damned if I didn't love using the app more more when I knew that all I would have at the end of a lot of shaking was my one shot at capturing a moment, under or overexposed as it may be.
Anyway, here's the URL:
http://blog.sangsara.net/2009/12/hipstamatic-new-iphone-toycamera-app.html
I have to disagree somewhat with @SCW on the lack of processing images from the camera roll. I find it quite interesting that I am limited to the creative range of Hipstamatic. When I see somebody's picture they claim to be taken with and only with Hipstamatic, I know that the image is true if I can trust the person. I do not think "I wonder how, and how much he or she has post processed that photo".
I was surprised to find as many and so powerful photography tools as I have found for the iPhone (which I got about a month ago). It is almost too easy to do stuff. Now, I like easy, but I also like a challenge that inspires me to be creative.
Praise aside, I have experienced several crashes using Hipstamatic. More often than not, I take a shot, see the developing dots, only to have Hipstamatic crash and return me to the home screen as soon as the developing dots are gone (image lost), or when I after the dots are gone, try to switch to the front side to change lens/film/flash or when I try to view the image that has been successfully "printed". I do use the high resolution option as the low res option really is useless for me.
Devs, please fix this!
@fnurl I have experienced the crash bug also. The developer posted yesterday on twitter, I believe, that they were working on that issue and hoping to have the update to Apple by Friday.
Can you guide on a high definition review website. I got this from my friend looks ok
High definition camera
Bob
Same thing here - bought it (it's March 2010 by now!) through the iTunes store, but the app just opens up quickly and then crashes. Disappointing that is.