Quick App Review: Camera360

On 01.13.12, In App Reviews, by Mike Lewis

Recently, I posted about a widely used and favorite paid app, Camera Zoom FX. About the time I was working on that the developers at Camera360 changed their paid model into a free app. Camera360 has been covered here once already, but I wanted to take a fresh look at the app, some new features, and discover if this is a viable free alternative to Camera Zoom FX and others like it.

As I mentioned, this app, formerly four dollars is not completely free and ad free. I don’t know if that means the developers are going to give up on the app; I’m hoping they continue to work with this app. The developers are at Pinguo Technology. From what I gather, they mostly create picture and video editing applications for mobile devices, Android and iPhone. Compared to other camera apps, this app has a vast library of filters and tweaks and has a lot of available options. Here’s what Camera360 brings to your phone or tablet (from Android Market):

* Effect like LOMO, Retro Effect, Dreamlike Effect, Art of Black and White, Back to 1839 and Night Enhancement will make your photo more beautiful.
* The amazing HDR effect is even better than iPhone HDR.
* Unique Funny Mode: Effects like Surrealistic B&W Paining, Vertical/Horizontal Left Symmetry, Vertical/ Horizontal Right Symmetry, Ghost are available.
* Unique Scenery Mode: It takes the interesting composite photos, you can choose whether be in a movie poster, an art painting, a outdoor advertisement, or greeting cards.
* Unique Tilt-shift and Color-shift Mode allows you to see the world from another angle.
* Share your photo to Facebook, Twitter, etc.

So with the extra options, this would be a cinch for preferred camera application. So far it has not been the case for me. My experience is probably unique running a phone with Ice Cream Sandwich. I remember it worked much smoother on Gingerbread. The stability feature for example does not work well if at all. I also have some focusing issues where the pictures come back just a little grainy. The learning curve is also fairly large for novices that are learning how to use an app like this, but overtime, I’ve developed good mastery of the options.

For a free application, this does very well overall and provides a wide variety of tweaks in the camera and sharing space. I’d recommend the download to see if it works. The share box in the app, zooming, grids, ability to take pictures up to 2560×1920, white balancing, collage effects, timers, and bursts modes gives Camera360 enough versatility to become a regularly used camera. Has this replaced any of my other apps? It has not, but I do use it when I want to play with various filters to enhance some poorly shot pictures in my gallery. If anyone else is using Camera360, please share your experiences in the comments.