As I mentioned last week, I’ve gotten back into the world of Instagram over the last couple of months, which has led me on a merry hunt for the best photo apps currently available.
As a (previously) dedicated DSLR user, I’ve embraced the camera in my iPad, and continue to be amazed at the quality of photo it is able to produce. So today, I share my two favourite apps with you.
Camera+
I take all of my photos with Camera+.
Why?
I love that you can set the focus and exposure points independently. Simply tap on the square for focus and the circle for exposure, and you can control where you want your camera to focus and how light or dark your shots will come out.
your focus button is the purple square and the exposure button is the orange circle – to activate them you tap on the square and circle in your menu
The macro function gets a workout with me, and the clarity function (you’ll find 2 of these – one in Scenes, which is the automatic one and one in The Lab, which is Clarity Pro and lets you be a bit more selective with its impact) can really breathe life into your photos. Scene modes – which is like playing with your white balance – is also another favourite function of mine.
There are dozens of 1-touch effects to experiment with – my personal favourites are Ansel in the Retro effects and Mono, Tonal and Noir in the Standard effects. An added bonus here is that you can head into the Advanced Settings and play with the slider to decide on how much of the effect you want on your photo.
the Ansel effect
All of your pictures end up in the Camera+ Lightbox, which makes it easy to keep track of your photos. where you can quickly and easily skim through them and get rid of bad shots. You save only the photos you’re satisfied with so that your camera roll stays neat and clean.
This is seriously just the tip of the iceberg with this app. My recommendation is to download it and play.
Just a heads up here too. I’ve got the iPhone version. The iPad version doesn’t seem to have been updated since January 2014, so consequently the reviews are all that great on it (lovely Camera+ developers, please feel free to update me here!) .
VSCO Cam
My other go-to app for photography is VSCOCam.
I mainly use this one for editing my photos with the presets that are available (both free and paid), which are honestly stunning (again, I have my favourites – Minimalist and Clean being two I quite frequently use). They have been developed to look like film stocks that photographers still widely use – to replicate the tones and colours – for an authentic and beautiful rendition of your photo.
Processed with VSCOcam with t2 preset (and some others I can’t remember!)
Again, this is just scratching the surface of the functionality of this app, and if you want to get a better idea of just how much you can do with VSCO Cam, head over to this post – The Complete Guide to VSCO Cam.
The VSCO crew also have an awesome community with inspirations and, best of all, tutorials!
If you’re new to the world of iPhoneography, I hope this really short and sweet post helps you out (honestly, there are far more comprehensive posts on both these apps out there, from people who have been using them for a lot longer than I have). The best thing you can do is muck around with these apps – and any others you have in your arsenal.
