iPhone App Review: Fast Tap Camera

Fast Tap Camera priced at £0.59 ($.99) is a very simple app that allows you to take a photo by tapping anywhere on the iPhone's screen.

To use this app, just launch it, tap anywhere to take a photo, let the app automatically save to the iPhone's camera roll, and that's it your ready to take the next shot.

This is a simple and effective app that does exactly what it says on the tin, and makes photo taking on the iPhone so much easier. So much so that I have now made it the default photo taking app on my iPhone, and the good news is I have 5 promo codes to give away.

UPDATE: No sooner had I published this review, then the app received an update. The update fixes some known bugs (not that I found any), and adds the option to take three photo's before being saved to the camera roll. This is not a multi-shot option, it just allows you to take up to three separate photo's and then save them.

iPhone App Review: MonoTaste v Vint B&W v OldCamera

Despite the advent of colour photography, black and white photography continues to be a popular medium with photographers, and this style like so may other styles is available to iPhone photographers through various apps. Whilst black and white photo's can be achieved using photo processing applications, this mini review covers three dedicated mono apps for the iPhone.

MonoTaste with Toy Lens - Price £0.59 ($.99)

Launch MonoTaste and you are presented with a nice and clean app screen, which has a camera icon in the bottom left hand corner (this icon is used to launch the camera for taking photo's from with in the app), next is an icon to open the iPhones Photo Albums so you can select an existing photo to convert. Next to the open album icon is a save icon (this is grayed out until you have a photo to save). Next to the save icon is a ticked box, and it is this icon that controls all the apps features and effects, which are listed below, and finally an "i" icon that gives you information about the app.
Effects:

• Toy Lens
• Square
• Tunnel
• Tunnel Hard
• Center Bright

Film:

• None
• Soft
• Hard

Color:

• Standard
• Cool
• Warm
• Sepia

To take a photo using MonoTaste, launch the app, then select the mono effect you want, select the camera icon and take your shot, and either select Retake or Use Photo at the preview screen. If you use the photo, the app processes the effect and displays the resulting photo. If you are happy with the results, then merely select the downward arrow to save to the iPhones camera roll.

If you want to apply a mono effect to an existing photo, then the process is almost the same as taking a photo with the app, except after launching the app select the upward pointing arrow to import your chosen photo and apply the desired effect. This option for me was the best, as you can take your photo's with the iPhone's native app and then apply effects later using this or any other app.

One of the problems with this app like others in this category, is if you choose to take a photo using the app camera's interface, and after taking that photo you do not like the effect, then you have to retake, and as such are unlikely to get a second chance at that same shot. However at least with this app you can (and I would recommend) apply mono effects to shots from the camera roll. Another down side to this app, is you have to select the mono effect, then open or take the photo to apply that effect, but if you decide you want to change the effect you have to start the whole process again.

Vint B&W - Price £0.59 ($.99)

Launch Vint B&W, and like all the apps in the Vint range, you are presented with a very simple and basic interface, that offers you two options. Option one is to select cancel which exits the app, and the second option is press the green camera icon to take your picture. When you have taken your picture you will go to a Preview screen where you have the option to either Retake or Use Photo. If you use the photo, then the developers predefined black and white effect will be applied, which to be honest does a pretty good job.

OldCamera - Price £0.59 ($.99)

Launch OldCamera and like Vint you are presented with a simple interface that has a green camera icon used to take a photo from within the app, and a Cancel button. Confusingly the Cancel button does not exit the app, but mearly exits the camera interface, taking you to a blank minimilistic screen that contains only a camera icon, a file with upward pointing arrow and a "i" icon. The camera icon does exactly what you would expect, and that is take you back to the photo taking screen. The file icon allows you to upload the photo you take direct to either BigCanvas PhotoShare or Flickr (you need accounts with these services to use this feature). The most confussing icon is the "i", mainly because you expect the "i" to stand for information, where as the "i" in this case is where you configure the app. Click on the "i" and you are presented with the apps configuration options.

Features:

• Cropping
• Rich Black & White
• HiCon Black & White
• Silver
• Platinum
• Kallitype
• Cyanotype
• BigCanvas PhotoShare
• Flickr

To take a mono photo using OldCamera you need to first launch the app, and then like MonoTaste select your desired effect from the configuration screen, then select the camera icon to go back to the photo taking screen. From here you touch the green camera icon and take your picture, and either choose Use Photo or Retake at the preview screen. The problems with this app like MonoTaste, is that if you do not like the selected effect, then you have to retake the photo with a new effect, and the problem with this is, you never get a second chance at the same shot, so may have lost the moment.

Conclusion

All three of these apps offer something different, and it will depend on your own requirements which one you will choose, but here is the run down in order of my preferance.

3rd Place - Vint B&W
Vint B&W is a very capable bur basic app, that if all you want to do is take quick and simple black & white photo's and not have to think about any configuration options is ideal.Above: Gate bolt taken with Vint B&W2nd Place - OldCamera
OldCamera just pips Vint B&W in to 3rd Place, because it offers features similar to MonoTaste, however it lacks the option to apply its effects to existing photo's.Above: Gate bolt taken with OldCamera1st Place - MonoTaste
For me the clear winner in this head-to-head is MonoTaste. Like the other apps you can use MonoTaste to take quick and easy shots direct from the app and save to the Camera Roll, or you can take a photo or open an existing photo and apply a wide range of effects.Above: Gate bolt taken with MonoTasteSome of these apps have so many options that I have not been able to cover in this mini review, but the good news is, that like most of my reviews I have a handful of promo codes to give away, but don't forget if you are new to these promo codes, they are only valid if you have a US iTunes account :( If you would like a promo code, then please request via the comments section of this post, specifying which app or apps you would like to try.

iPhone App Review: Vint Shift v TiltShift

Back during Macworld I posted a geekbrief.tv video on the Lensbaby Cpmposer, and compared it to the TiltShift app for the iPhone. Well it looks like this effect has grab more than one developers eye, with the release this week of Vint Shift.

Yesterday as promised I tried out and compared Vint Shift with TiltShift, and here is my review, which I hope you will enjoy.

Vint Shift - Price £0.59 ($.99)

Launch Vint Shift and you are taken straight to the apps camera interface, where you have only two options, take a picture (camera icon) or Cancel.

As it suggests, if you select Cancel you will exit the app, but if you click on the camera icon you take a photo. The app then processes the photo you have just taken and gives you a Preview screen, where you can either choose Use Photo, or Retake.
If you select Retake you are taken back to the apps camera interface screen to retake your photo, however if you choose Use Photo then the app processes (applies the soft focus effect) and saves the photo to your Camera Roll, and then takes you back to the app camera interface ready for you to take another photo, and that's it.

TiltShift - Price £1.19 ($1.99)

Launch TiltShift and you are presented with the apps interface and a sample image that you can play with, which is OK for getting you started.
When you have finished playing with the app, it is time to get down to applying these effects to your own photo's, and this is done by clicking on the Pics button at the top of the apps home screen. After clicking the Pics button you are presented with a screen showing a series of sample photo's , which you can click on and use if you wish, or you can select the camera icon to take a new photo, or the little photo icon to select an existing photo from you Photo Albums.
Once you have selected and opened your chosen photo you are ready to begin applying the soft focus effect, and this can be either to the area around your subject, or the subject itself. If you select the area around the subject to soften (as I have), then you need to adjust the center area by pinching or stretching the red oval to mark only the area you want to leave sharp, and then use the slider bar to adjust how out of focus you want the background to be.
When happy with your results, simply select Save and your TiltShift photo is save to your Camera Roll, and that's it job done.

Conclusion

Vint Shift is a very basic app that only allows you to take a photo and then apply the predefined soft focus effect (as the photo below shows), where as TiltShift is a much more feature rich app that allows you to take or edit existing photo's and apply the soft focus effect that you desire (as the photo below shows).
Above: Original photo without the Vint Shift ot TiltShift effect.Above: With Vint ShiftAbove: With TiltShiftWith a price tag of only £1.19 ($1.99), for me TiltShift is the clear winner in this head to head, but this is only my opinion.

If you have used either of these apps, then please post your views or comments.

I also have some promo codes available for Vint Shift and TiltShift, so if you want to try them out then make your request as usual in the comments section of this post, but don't forget that these only work if you have a US iTunes account.

iPhone App Review: Pop Art

Want to give your photo's the Andy Warhol effect? Well now you can (well sort of) with Pop Art.

Released today, Pop Art (App Store Link) priced at 59p ($.99) allows you to either take new photos using the iPhone's built-in camera or import your existing photos, and then apply the Andy Warhol effect.

The apps interface like so many photo apps is very basic, with just 3 buttons, Camera, Photo Albums and Pick Colors.

With an easy to use color picker interface, you can choose from 80 different pantone colors to customize your Pop Art photo with a different set of pantone colors for each of the Pop Art frames.

As the photo's below show, the out of box colours really do not work, or look much like anything Andy Warhol would produce, but with a better subject, a bit of tweaking of the colours and increasing the contrast of the photo (with a third party app) better effects can probably be achieved.

The below photo shows the default effect.

The photo below show the same photo with increased contrast and diffent colour palette.

Like so may photo apps currently appearing for the iPhone, this app still needs some work, but again like so many apps it has potential.

If you have this app, then let me know what you think, and if you agree or disagree with my comments.

iPhone App Review: DoubleExp FREE

DoubleExp (App Store link) is a free double exposure iPhoneography app for your iPhone. Like in the good old days of film, when you accidently reloaded your 35mm roll back in to your camera and ruined your holiday snaps, this app mimics that double exposure effect, but without ruining your pics.

This app has a very simple interface with the options to take photo's, load 2 photo's from the camera roll (1 at a time), apply the effect (FX) and save the resulting image. There are 3 special effects, Half Mix, Screen and Overlay.

I did not have any suitable images to test this app, so I took a couple and applied all 3 effects (individually), but the results of my test did not show any visible differences between them, and as the photo below shows did not really work.

For me this app has limited appeal, as photo's used have to be suited to this effect, but if you have a need for this style, and as this app is free you have nothing to loose.

UPDATE:  It would appear I had been incorrectly loading the images in to this app, and that was the reason the various effects were not working.  I will post an update with photo's soon, along with reviews of other apps from this developer.