iPhone App Review: CameraBag

I've never reviewed CameraBag here on the iPhoneography blog, because when I launched the blog back in November last year the app was already well established and had plenty of online reviews. However following recent upgrades and the issues surrounding the Polaroid effect, I decided it was time I did a quick review, so here goes.

Launch CameraBag and you are presented with the "Helga" filter screen, where you have a series of icons.

First across the top of the screen you will find an "i" icon, tap this and you are presented with the apps various options that you can switch on or off, set the output size and set up your email account details for emailing your photos straight out of the app.
Across the bottom you will find 4 icons, a camera icon used to take snaps right in the app, a letter icon used to email your filtered photo from with in the app, a floppy disk icon which is used to save your photo and finally 2 overlaid photos which allow you to open a photo from your photo albums.

Wether you choose to take a photo or open one from your album, the effect is applied. Changing the effects is as simple as flicking your finger from left to right, or right to left, and as you do so, each filter effect is applied to your photo, and if you like what you see you can save it, or if not flick on to the next effect.

When you're happy with the effect hitting save instantly saves the photo to the photo album, and then you can either apply a different effect to the photo, load a new photo, take a photo, or email your photo right from with in the app.

Provided you have correctly set up your email options, then emailing your photo is as simple as tapping the email/letter icon, entering an email address or selection one from your address book, entering some text and hitting send. The app will then process the image and send it, and that's it, the app could not be any more simpler to use.

CameraBag focuses on emulating styles and processes from some of the most interesting cameras of the past to enhance the mood of an image. The cameras included in CameraBag are:

• Magazine - Emulates a common photographic effect used in fashion photo shoots.
• Helga - A square-format toy camera feel with washed-out highlights and old-school vignetting.
• Instant - No need to shake this instant-developing film.
• 1974 - This is your father's camera. Faded, tinted, and hip.
• Lolo - Shoot from the hip and take life as it comes with vibrant, colorful shots.
• Cinema - Dramatic, moody, wide-screen stills from the ongoing saga of your life.
• 1962 - Dynamic black and whites from the photojournalists of a bygone era.
• Mono - Smooth gradation from black to white.
• Infrared - Simulation of the popular landscape photography technique.
• Fisheye - Popular fish eye lens effect - for fun effects, try it in combination with other filters.
• Original - The unaltered image.

Overall this is a nice app, both to use and for the effects it achieves, and an app that has never left my iPhone since purchasing it (the app that is) back last November, but it does have a few negative points. The first one is the app can still crash at times, which was a past gripe, although it only happened once whilst writing this review. The second is the Fisheye effect, which I personally hate, and have switch off in the options, and finally something that is currently outside of the developers control, is the horrible new white boarder used for the "Instant" effect (but you can read more about this here).

Despite these minor negatives CameraBag continues to be one of my favourite iPhone apps, and if you are looking for an app that can produce some nice looking results simply and easily, then CameraBag may also be for you.

AppStore Link: CameraBag - Price £1.79 ($2.99)

Comments

[greg]

Camera Bag is tons of fun. With the new phone and the higher resolution do you think that any of the photography apps are going to start saving pictures in the higher resolution or would that be too difficult considering that there are still the earlier iPhones out there? Have a good day.

[Mike]

Best app on iPhone

[Henry Fool]

If I could only have one App - this would be the one.

Beautiful GUI great user experience, only one gripe though and you picked up on it too - the fisheye, well at least you can turn it off suppose...

[Glyn Evans]

Hi Greg,

The answer to your question will be YES, and I don't think you will have to wait too long either. Hope your liking your 3G S.

[greg]

Thanks Glyn. I am loving the phone so far. A great upgrade from the 1st. gen.