Alternatives
I loved reading all your opinions on Instagram yesterday, so here's a follow up. I decided to check out some alternatives. Truth is, I am a toy camera junkie. I have a lot of them, and I would collect a lot more of them, but I've decided not to (it's a somewhat expensive hobby, I already have more cameras than I can use) - so naturally being able to stuff a whole bunch of different toy cameras (so to speak) on my phone seems like a good solution to feed my addiction when I find myself out and about without any of my other cameras.
Here's a good article on some alternatives to Instagram:
Five Better Instagram Alternatives for Android
I decided to check out some of them.
This ended up being completely different from what I was expecting. This is a service that creates virtual postcards out of your pictures. Like with Instagram, you are forced to share the pictures with the Hipster social network site. You can't simply save the pictures to your phone. I did a test picture, and got a like on it a couple of minutes later ... I can see the appeal of getting likes on your pictures from random strangers, but it's not what I want. I usually take pictures of a lot of random things, and most of them aren't interesting enough to be shared.
I want a camera app, not a new social networking craze.
There's no real easy way to share the finished picture, in-app option gives the opportunity to send a link to the postcard to various other apps + e-mail. Not ideal.
The filters feel rough, there's not a lot of picture left, and though you can resize/recrop, the cropping of the postcards is always rather awkward. Pictures can be geotagged and you can add your own text too.
[Test photo: Hipster]
To make my test pictures more interesting, I decided to take pictures of some of my real toy cameras. I'd use my blackbird, fly (a TLR camera that takes regular 35mm film) a lot more if I found a place that could develop prints with sprocket holes ... (the camera uses the entire width of the film - it can give you some really beautiful results... if you are able to find a place that can develop them like that).
I use the free version of this application, and I have to say I like it a lot. The pictures always come out looking really crisp and gorgeous (the app seems to make my phone camera focus better than the actual camera app that came with the phone, so that's confusing and interesting). I had this installed previously as well but decided to delete it. It drains battery really fast, is kind of limiting in choice of "filters" (it's a clunky process of choosing an in-app camera before you take your pictures). The resulting filters look nice, but they always look the same. They seem to function more like a photoshop brush than a filter that takes into account things like brightness and colours ... the free version of the app also has ads, which is incredibly annoying, but due to the limitations mentioned previously, I don't feel like paying the $3 they want for the full version. Not sure if the full version has more options or if it's just ad free.
The app gets a huge plus for not having any social aspect to it, it's simply a camera app. The finished picture is saved to your phone's camera roll, and you can share it like any other picture.
[Test photo: Retro Camera]
This is one of my two Lomography cameras. I have a love/hate thing going on with the whole lomo thing ... I'm not really a huge fan, but I do like some of the cameras. The Fisheye is one of them. Notice how sharp the focus is in this picture? I don't get it, I can never get my phone camera to focus like that with the regular camera app ...
This app comes with a social networking option, but you are not forced to use it. The app saves the edited picture as well as the original picture to your phone's camera roll. There's an extensive choice of filters to choose from, and they seem more adaptive than the "filters" in Retro Camera. This app uses the phone's standard camera to take pictures, so my focus isn't as sharp ... the app gives you the option to share the picture directly with a wide variety of social networks with a simple tap of the finger, but since the pictures are saved to the phone anyway you can easily go in and share the pictures any way you want later.
[Test photo: Lightbox Photos]
My Harinezumi - I love it so. Sees way too little use ... I should do something about that. I brought it with me to Amsterdam, but found the battery had died. Forgot to pick some up. Oh well.
Based on this, I think Lightbox is my app of choice. For now anyway. It gives me the option to buy into a whole new social networking experience should I want to do that later on, but it also lets me save my pictures to my phone so that I can do whatever I want to do with them later on. The application is easy to use, and seems pretty solid (the Hipster app crashed twice during my little test run for this post). Retro Camera would definitely be the winner if it weren't for the annoying limitations.
Lastly some side by side comparison shots:
[Comparison shots]Regular camera:
Hipster:
Retro Camera:
Lightbox Photos:
Now if only I could make the regular camera app focus the way Retro Camera does .... also lol at the "lomo" filter in Lightbox, I guess it was a bad example, but it was the best I could do with the lighting conditions available
Here's a good article on some alternatives to Instagram:
Five Better Instagram Alternatives for Android
I decided to check out some of them.
This ended up being completely different from what I was expecting. This is a service that creates virtual postcards out of your pictures. Like with Instagram, you are forced to share the pictures with the Hipster social network site. You can't simply save the pictures to your phone. I did a test picture, and got a like on it a couple of minutes later ... I can see the appeal of getting likes on your pictures from random strangers, but it's not what I want. I usually take pictures of a lot of random things, and most of them aren't interesting enough to be shared.
I want a camera app, not a new social networking craze.
There's no real easy way to share the finished picture, in-app option gives the opportunity to send a link to the postcard to various other apps + e-mail. Not ideal.
The filters feel rough, there's not a lot of picture left, and though you can resize/recrop, the cropping of the postcards is always rather awkward. Pictures can be geotagged and you can add your own text too.
[Test photo: Hipster]
To make my test pictures more interesting, I decided to take pictures of some of my real toy cameras. I'd use my blackbird, fly (a TLR camera that takes regular 35mm film) a lot more if I found a place that could develop prints with sprocket holes ... (the camera uses the entire width of the film - it can give you some really beautiful results... if you are able to find a place that can develop them like that).
I use the free version of this application, and I have to say I like it a lot. The pictures always come out looking really crisp and gorgeous (the app seems to make my phone camera focus better than the actual camera app that came with the phone, so that's confusing and interesting). I had this installed previously as well but decided to delete it. It drains battery really fast, is kind of limiting in choice of "filters" (it's a clunky process of choosing an in-app camera before you take your pictures). The resulting filters look nice, but they always look the same. They seem to function more like a photoshop brush than a filter that takes into account things like brightness and colours ... the free version of the app also has ads, which is incredibly annoying, but due to the limitations mentioned previously, I don't feel like paying the $3 they want for the full version. Not sure if the full version has more options or if it's just ad free.
The app gets a huge plus for not having any social aspect to it, it's simply a camera app. The finished picture is saved to your phone's camera roll, and you can share it like any other picture.
[Test photo: Retro Camera]
This is one of my two Lomography cameras. I have a love/hate thing going on with the whole lomo thing ... I'm not really a huge fan, but I do like some of the cameras. The Fisheye is one of them. Notice how sharp the focus is in this picture? I don't get it, I can never get my phone camera to focus like that with the regular camera app ...
This app comes with a social networking option, but you are not forced to use it. The app saves the edited picture as well as the original picture to your phone's camera roll. There's an extensive choice of filters to choose from, and they seem more adaptive than the "filters" in Retro Camera. This app uses the phone's standard camera to take pictures, so my focus isn't as sharp ... the app gives you the option to share the picture directly with a wide variety of social networks with a simple tap of the finger, but since the pictures are saved to the phone anyway you can easily go in and share the pictures any way you want later.
[Test photo: Lightbox Photos]
My Harinezumi - I love it so. Sees way too little use ... I should do something about that. I brought it with me to Amsterdam, but found the battery had died. Forgot to pick some up. Oh well.
Based on this, I think Lightbox is my app of choice. For now anyway. It gives me the option to buy into a whole new social networking experience should I want to do that later on, but it also lets me save my pictures to my phone so that I can do whatever I want to do with them later on. The application is easy to use, and seems pretty solid (the Hipster app crashed twice during my little test run for this post). Retro Camera would definitely be the winner if it weren't for the annoying limitations.
Lastly some side by side comparison shots:
[Comparison shots]Regular camera:
Hipster:
Retro Camera:
Lightbox Photos:
Now if only I could make the regular camera app focus the way Retro Camera does .... also lol at the "lomo" filter in Lightbox, I guess it was a bad example, but it was the best I could do with the lighting conditions available