App Review: King Camera part 1, the Camera

When King Camera first hit the App Store I posted news on the app and its special pricing by saying "King Camera is a promising looking new app, that whilst not quite as sleek and speedy as the camera found in Camera+, it does look like it will give the current leader of the pack a run for its money, and already equals the camera functionality found in ProCamera." Now this was my first impression of the app, based on only a very short time playing with it. Now this may have been an unfair comment to make after only a short time, but now that I've spent more time with it, what do I think?

Well below you will find part 1 of my two part review of King Camera, with a short comparison between this app, and its closest rivals Camera+ and ProCamera, so read on to find out what I now think of King Camera.

As mentioned above, this is part 1 of a 2 part review, with this part looking at just the camera functionality.

The camera

So King Camera is billed as an "all-in-one" camera replacement app, which means that you should have no need for any other app, or need to exit the app to take or edit your iPhone photos.

As with all the camera replacement apps available for the iPhone, launching  King Camera takes you straight to the camera interface, from where you can quickly and easily change settings and/or enable camera features.

On the cameras home screen, you will find the forward/rear facing camera toggle button in the top right, the up to 4x digital zoom slider down the right-hand side and the stills/video, shutter, and "Photo Desk" buttons across the bottom. Then down the left-hand side of the screen, you will find the camera menu bar, which can be shown/hidden by swiping your finger from left to right or right to left.

The features

On the camera menu bar, you will find quick tap icons that allow you to enable/disable or set the various camera functions, which include:

• Flash - on/off/auto
• Self timer [5-30 seconds]
• Anti-shake [takes a photo when the camera is steady}
• Sound trigger [detects ambient sound, and then fires the shutter when a loader sound is detected, like when a group say "CHEESE']
• Burst/rapid fire [3-12 photo burst at full and medium resolution]
• Big button/full screen shutter button/trigger
• Timelapse
• White Balance lock [lets you set and lock the white balance]
• Exposure Lock [this is a cool feature that lets you set and lock the exposure]
• ...and finally the settings menu

The camera in action

Lets start with King Camera's front camera [the one that faces you] controls, which just like ProCamera, lets you to control and lock the exposure, by using the "Exposure Lock" feature, something that ProCamera can do, but currently Camera+ doesn't.

Now to the main camera, which takes about 4 seconds to launch and be ready to shoot from cold [please note, launch to shot is much quicker if the app is already running in the background], which is on par with others apps in this category.

Touch to focus and exposure control is quick, easy to use, and accurate, however is more like ProCamera than Camera+, as to enable the dual feature, you have to touch and hold the screen to bring up the apps green and yellow focus/exposure spots, which can then dragged around the screen and positioned as desired.

Once focus and exposure are set, tapping the shutter button takes the photo, however it is here that the app is let down, as King Camera takes nearly 4 seconds to process the photo before the next shot can be taken, something that Camera+ can do in about half the time, and ProCamera does in a split second [please note, that ProCamera only save to the iPhones camera roll, which is a less memory intensive process], which is all down to caching and memory managment/optimization.

How good are the focus and exposure modes?

In my tests, I found, as expected, that all 3 apps performed equally well when it came to correctly exposing and focusing on the subject, so which ever app you opt for, you can be sure of correctly focused and exposed shots.

Shoot video with King Camera

King Camera, just like ProCamera has its own video camera switch, which means you can shoot HD video without the need to leave the app, unlike Camera+.

Likes, dislikes and bugs found

For a first release this is a pretty good and solid app [at least from the camera functionality point of view], however, I did discover a bug that is both advantageous and a pain at the same time. If you have been shooting stills, and have the digital zoom set above 1x, and then you decide to switch to the video camera, then the zoomed view remain as was, zoomed in. If a bug, and I suspect it is, as there is no zoom controls within the video camera app itself, then it's a nice bug, as the video still captures at HD, and still looks pretty good, but if it's not a bug, then the video app is missing the zoom controls.

So what do I like? Well, I pretty much like all the features found in King Camera, although I probably wont use them all, but in particularly I like the full-screen button and the exposure lock, which is not found in either of the other two apps.

And what don't I like? Well the long time delay between shots is the deal breaker for me, and this has to be the number one priority for the developers to fix.

So how does King Camera's camera compare with Camera+ and ProCamera

Right, at the beginning of this post, I said I would compare King Camera with the two leading camera replacement apps, so here we go.

• Startup - From cold all 3 apps take about 4 seconds before they are ready to shoot.
• Save direct to camera roll - Yes all 3 offer this, whilst King Camera and Camera+ also save to their own library.
• Flash control [subject to device] - Yes, all 3 allow full control of the flash settings, offering on/off/auto.
• White balance control - All 3 apps let you control the white balance [AW].
• Self-timer - Yes, all 3 have a self-timer.
• Anti-shake - Yes, all 3 have anti-shake.
• Geotagging - Yes, all 3 geotag.
• Burst mode - All 3 offer a burst mode, with King Camera saving at full or medium resolution, Camera+ saving at low resolution, and ProCamera saving at full resolution, but via a continuos shooting mode.
• Full screen shutter - Both King Camera and ProCamera offer this feature.
• Time-lapse - Only King Camera offer this feature.
• Exposure lock - Both King Camera and ProCamera offer this feature.
• Video - King Camera lets you shot HD video, whilst ProCamera lets you shoot HD, HQ and LQ video, whilst Camera+ has no video features.

Final thoughts, and marks out of 5

Well as I've already said, as an all-in-one camera replacement apps, King Camera has got off to a good start, with some nice camera features, and some not found in its rivals, but it needs some real optimization, because with the camera apps current time lag, you risk missing that once in a lifetime shot.

For the first time ever, I'm going to give this app 2 ratings, first I'm going to give it 5 out of 5 for features, because it offers near perfect functionality, but because of the time delay between shots, I'm only going to give the camera app an overall rating of 3 out of 5; so if speed is more important than features, then, at this stage, you may want to consider one of the other apps mentioned in this review.

App Store Link: King Camera; Price: £0.59/$0.99/€0.79

Stay tuned for the 2nd part of this review, which will be coming soon

Comments

[Charles]

2 questions for me with any camera replacement App: is it a better CAMERA than the one I have; does it place another interface between me and my subject (usually people). Sadly the answers are almost always NO and YES in that order.

I understand that these Apps are quite sophisticated and bring a lot of additional capabilities with them... but the additional capabilities aren't new or revolutionary. Rather they're also available in other Apps if I want them..

While I applaud the creativity and effort I insist the first 2 questions are answered properly first. Similarly "golly whiz bang" manipulation Apps that don't save full resolution are too expensive for me even if they're free.

(The only camera replacement App so far to pass the 2 question test is QuickPix but keep trying.)

[SayCheezzz Apps]

Hi Glyn,
I just thought I'd drop by to thank you for the accurate and positive review of our Camera Module.

Thanks for finding the zoom bug when switching from Stills to Video mode. You'll be happy to hear we are planning on adding a Zoom in the Video Mode, so we'll be addressing the bug you described at the same time.

We are also currently making it a priority to optimize speed between each shot taken. We are confident speed will be on par with your readers expectations. We are hard at work to come out with an update of King Camera asap.

Should users find any additional tweaks needed, please drop by our website and use our Support Page to report suggestions/bugs/praise.

Cheers to all and happy shooting!

Martin Perreault
SayCheezzz.com

[Greg Mills]

ProCamera > Camera+

[Periculum Vitae]

Is it just me or is there a bug in the anti shake mode? It seems to be much more sensitive in landscape mode than in portrait orientation. In fact I cant shoot in landscape with anti shake on.

[iProPho]

Some points are not correct:
ProCamera offers a Fullscreen button from day one (2 years ago) and has also been the first app having the exposure lock (in expert mode)..

[Albi Kl]

As iProPho mentioned above. ProCamera does include both 'exposure lock' and a 'full screen shutter' and was the first app to include these features. It would be prudent to change this article to reflect that.

What is still missing from all apps is true manual focus control (tap to focus is not the same as manual focus). Perhaps if King Camera's devs could include this feature I would be swayed to switch from ProCamera?

[Glyn Evans]

@iProPho and @Albi Kl, thanks for pointing out my mistake, which I have now corrected.