Capturing Images

Above you can see two screenshots of the capture interface. Sadly, the way Vignette pulls in camera data doesn’t allow for screenshots of the live preview screen (hence the black background). If you compare it to the Camera360 capture interface, it appears almost spartan. The screenshot on the left shows the selective focus/radial menu feature. When you tap anywhere on the screen, this large circular menu appears around your finger. Drag to the top, and the image will be refocused on that point. Drag to the bottom, and the capture options are shown (screenshot on the right).

But just because the interface is minimalistic, doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful. Unlike Little Photo, the capture stage here isn’t an afterthought. For instance, look at how many different capture modes you get.

Some of these bear explanation. “Blind” is the weirdest one. You get no live preview; the screen just goes black, and you’re supposed to aim your phone as best as you can, and snap an image. Perhaps it’s for times when you’re not supposed to be taking pictures, or for getting spontaneous shots. “Steady shot” tries to figure out when the phone is shaking and moving fast, and waits for you to hold it steady before taking the picture. The others are fairly self-explanatory.

Next, let’s take a look at the camera control options:

This gives you very explicit control over your phone’s camera; not many apps let you set the exposure compensation, for example.

Next, before moving onto post-production, let’s take a look at the file settings screen:

Here you can see one of my favorite features: Vignette can capture full-resolution images, and is beefy enough to apply effects to them. A 5-megapixel image is large (around 2MB). You can also control the quality, folder, and naming convention.

Okay, now let’s capture an image and try applying some effects.

Post-Production

My serious-looking cat, Ivan, will serve as our model for evaluating post-production and effects. Here’s the raw image, captured using Vignette, before applying any effects:

Now, let’s look at the effect interface:

This is one of Vignette’s weakest points. The effects are actually very powerful (and numerous), but there is no instant preview! If you don’t know what a certain effect does, you just have to apply it, go to the image, view it, and go back to apply a different effect. Quite a laborious process really; perhaps Vignette can learn something from Little Photo’s elegant effect interface with its instant live preview and transparent menu.

Interface considerations aside, Vignette offers a boatload of possible effects, neatly sorted into categories:

I decided to go for an over-saturated looks, accentuating Ivan’s eyes:

Another key difference between Vignette and Little Photo is that you can’t apply multiple effects all at once. You need to pick just one; but once you pick it, you can heavily customize it:

For instance, I wanted to add some extra vignetting to the effect I selected, as well as some light leaks. The tweaked result looks like this:

Quite a mild effect, really. Of course, you can also add a frame, out of a staggeringly-rich menu of options:

I went for a 16:9 white rounded frame, and the end result looks like this:

Saving Presets

After you’ve tweaked all the options to death, you might want to save them as a specific preset. If course, Vignette always saves the last values you used, but given the app’s breadth of options you may not want to limit it to just one type of photos. So let’s just save this set of options with a descriptive name:

In the future, I could easily pick out this specific combination (effect and frame) out of the list of favorites:

And what’s even cooler is that Vignette lets me create shortcuts for specific setting combinations right on my homescreen:

So instead of using three different apps (one for HDR, one for “normal” photos and one for Retro-style, say) I could just create three shortcuts to the same app, with different settings.

Bottom Line

Vignette is a powerful, capable, no-nonsense camera app. Its biggest drawback is the lack of a live preview feature for the effect interface. Other than that, it makes for a very solid choice. Stay tuned for more quality camera reviews – and feel free to recommend some of your own in the comments, of course.

First, you should know that this review is about the free version (there’s also a paid Ultimate version). When you launch the free version of this Android camera app, this is the first thing you’re going to see:

That’s right, a plug for the paid version. I force-closed the app to see if the screen shows up when I re-launch it, and it did. This would probably not be a serious issue for most users because the app would just run in the background, and you don’t get the nag screen when you switch to it. Still, it does make the initial launch not as snappy as it could be.

Next, the main screen:

Here you can select one of several looks (or “cameras”) to work with. Let’s try the Effect mode:

Here you get to select what effect you wish to apply to your photo before you take it. This is different than most similar apps, where you apply the effect post-factum. It’s an interesting approach. While it means you need to take an extra step before snapping your picture, you would have a better idea of what you’re going for when you take it. Let’s try the LOMO effect.

This is the capture screen. The live-preview looks rather jagged in the screenshot, but in real life it’s as smooth as you’d expect. This screen is chock-full of options; let’s take a quick look at some of them. When you tap the question-mark, a very helpful help layout pops up:

The most visible thing is probably the composition grid, which you can easily toggle off, or switch to a different grid style called “Modern core section” (a fancy name for a simple grid).

Tapping the cogwheel icon opens a menu with several options that you’d normally expect to find on a “real” camera:

You can select one of four different focus modes, choose one of three different options for recording location information along with your photo (GPS-based, cell-based, or no location information), and more. Fortunately, you can also mute the (loud) default beep the camera makes when it takes a photo.

Next, let’s look at the available Shooting Modes. The most useful one, to me, is the image stabilizer, which is off by default.

As you may have noticed, the English here isn’t perfect (Stabiliger? Brust?). This is even more visible in the options menu; the Ultimate version is selling quite well on the market – perhaps the developers can invest in some decent English localization. Brust means Burst mode, by the way. The camera just keeps on taking photos at regular intervals until you hit the shutter button to make it stop.

Last but not least on the capture screen are the Camera Settings:

You can easily adjust brightness, saturation, and several other parameters. Oh, right, I guess you can also tap the Camera button and take a picture (a minor option, but I figured I’d mention it anyway). Here’s what the image looks like:

Mind you, this is with the LOMO effect. You van also tweak the effect, but some of the options are paid-version only (those with the tiny shopping cart in the corner):

One you’re happy with your image, you can easily share and save it. Finally, when you quit the app, the developers can’t keep from plugging the paid version one more time:

Bottom Line

Camera360 is a robust, powerful Android camera app. I haven’t even touched on the image sharing options it offers or explored its other camera modes (Tilt-shift, Color-shift and more). Its two main drawbacks are the poor English in the UI (sometimes to the point of making things needlessly confusing), and the strong push for the paid version plastered all over the app. Still, the Free version is not time-limited, and is fully functional with plenty of filters and interesting image effects. All in all, a very capable app.

The application launches with a splash, so to say:

No explanation text, no lengthy dialogs. Just one Abe Lincoln graffiti slowly panning across the screen, and two large buttons. If you’re not partial to Lincoln, fret not: it’s actually a fancy slideshow with all sorts of images (but with no credit for the photographers, I’m afraid). There’s not much to do except press that Create Account button, so let’s do just that:

Lightbox Photos doesn’t use your Google account credentials like other applications (Words with Friends, for example). You’re going to need to create an account the old-fashioned way, password and all. All fields are required: It won’t even let you leave the “full name” field blank. This may be a bit of a turn-off for some new users. You haven’t even started using the app, and you’re already required to give away your details and pick a password. Lucky for you, I’ve done just that so you could see what the app looks like on the next screenshot:

Here you can connect with various social networks. That’s a large part of the attraction for many users of this app, because you can share your photos all over the place. For this review, I won’t be connecting with any services. Onwards!

The next step has you pick out a profile photo. You can actually skip it – just hit Save and you’ll be fine. You now find yourself in the app, looking at a grid of popular photos pulled in from the Web:

The reason you see some blank squares is that the photos took some time to load, even on my Wi-Fi connection.  Tapping a photo brings it up in full-screen mode, with full photographer credits:

Lovely image, really. You can then swipe the screen to smoothly transition over to the next image – this time there’s no waiting at all. Here it is, mid-swipe:

When you rapidly flick between images, you may have to wait a little bit. But if you actually look at the new photo for a moment, the next one will load in the background, so browsing the gallery would be a seamless experience. But while these photos are very beautiful, they were not taken by my friends. This is what My Lightbox is for:

Okay, so I don’t really have many friends (sitting here on a lonely Friday night writing this blog post, violins sadly wailing in the background), but the concept seems rather cool. Next, let’s see what image capture looks like:

Confused you there, didn’t I? This is actually an image of my screen – of the very application I use to take screenshots of my device. Pretty neat “crazy mirror” effect. Speaking of effects, once you take an image you can apply all sorts of funky effects. Here’s what the image looks like after I applied an effect called XPro:

It’s very low-fi, but I think it works with my phone’s simple camera. Once you’re happy with the effect, you get to describe and share your photo:

The UI isn’t very standard (one of Android’s pitfalls, really), but it’s clear in this case. I’ve chosen to post the photo to my public Lightbox.com wall, which looks like this:

Talk about minimalism! I quite like it, actually. That’s a very clean look for a gallery.

Bottom Line

I’ve previously used one of Lightbox’s primary competitors, Picplz, which we reviewed back in November. Both applications require up-front registration, but Lightbox feels snappier and more responsive than Picplz, at least on my own device. Another thing I like about Lightbox is that it doesn’t automatically log my location along with the image – I had some trouble convincing Picplz not to use my location. I also like Lightbox’s tight Flickr integration. If you regularly take photos using your smartphone (or want to make it a habit), you would do well to check out Lightbox.

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The D300 is Nikon’s entry level dSLR which comes equipped with a 10.2 MP sensor, a crisp 3″ rear LCD display, amazing 11-point autofocus system, 3 frames-per-second burst image capture and it comes bundled with an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 VR Nikon lens which is an okay everyday lens. Not a bad start indeed.

The Nikon D3000 supports image capture in both JPEG and RAW formats and accepts SD cards. It’s also capable of minor in-camera editing.

Even though the D3000 may look barebones compare to the rest of the Nikon line, using a digital SLR trumps a compact digital camera any day of the week.

So if you’re even the slightest bit excited about owning a new dSLR, here’s how to join the giveaway.

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Canopy Camera Tools is an app designed to help you get the most out of your mobile photography, and much like Joby’s Frame X Frame it has been created with a specific attachment in mind – the Kapok Canopy Case, with tripod mount. You don’t need a tripod to benefit from this one, as there are plenty of features you can use in your hand. You could always fashion something to hold your device steady (I find Blu-Tack works well without leaving a mess) if you fancy creating a time-lapse sequence.

Getting The Basics Right

The iPhone (or any iOS device) camera isn’t the be-all and end-all of mobile photography. Whilst the iPhone is the most popular and oft-used “camera phone” solution; Apple’s in-built app leaves you wanting a bit more control and a few extra features.

Without being overly complicated, Canopy places 6 main buttons on your viewfinder, which can be toggled on and off with a tap. These are persistent in both Camera and Video modes, which are selected at the bottom of the screen, along with quick access to existing photos and app settings.

The left hand side of the screen allows you to choose between front and rear facing cameras, toggle time-lapse mode and the camera timer which is perfect for group shots and also works with video. On the right hand side of the screen there are buttons for controlling flash behaviour, toggling exposure lock and white balance lock.

The lock buttons are especially useful, and add some genuinely useful functionality to your phone. For example, whilst taking a video by default the camera will adjust exposure as light changes. Should you want to maintain exposure throughout the video, exposure lock allows you to do this and your camera won’t re-balance every time you move.

This also goes for white balance, and if you’re really serious you could use a piece of white or grey card to take a perfect white balance reading and lock this for the duration of your video or photo session.

Advanced Features, Better Results

Of course Canopy also includes the aforementioned time-lapse mode, which automatically stitches your photos into a video. It works, though as the handy notification I received pointed out – phone calls will interrupt any sequences you’re working on. The best way around this is to activate Airplane Mode from your device’s Settings.

Time-lapse photography takes up a decent wedge of battery (I’ve yet to use an app which is “light” on power for this task) so make sure you’ve got enough battery to complete the sequence and find your way home afterwards. It works well, and doesn’t fill your camera roll with hundreds of images – great news.

The Settings menu afoot the viewfinder is also full of goodies. Much like Frame X Frame there is a spirit level (for that perfectly straight horizon) which – unlike Frame X Frame – does work in landscape mode. There’s also a grid that can be activated for aiding composition.

Saving the best till last, it is also possible to use touch gestures to control the camera and this can be customized in the Settings area. As you can see from the screenshot below, the default configuration is pretty intuitive.

Conclusion

Canopy Camera Tools is probably the best free camera app I have used on the iOS platform. Features like time-lapse, exposure and white balance lock along with well-implemented touch gestures make it a joy to use, and provide some excellent results. You really don’t need a tripod, Kapok case or Gorillamobile to enjoy Canopy. Grab it now and start taking better pictures!

Have you found any similar great tools we’ve yet to feature? Do you like Canopy Camera Tools? Do you own a tripod/mount for your device? Let us know how you shoot on the go in the comments below.