G700-1st Soft Camera ($1.99)
Version – 2.9.1
REVIEW – “A camera that works more like the real thing”
I have used a variety of different apps that are designed to help you take better photos with your iPhone. G700-1st Soft Camera by Shiningworks Co. has taken an entirely new angle from the ones I have tried before. Instead of trying to come up with a unique
interface, or one that is similar to the built in camera app, this app has been designed to work more like a real digital camera!
The load time of the G700 is very quick, and once it is started up you’ll be presented with what looks like a camera from the backside. There are a variety of different options and settings, as well as a button to take pictures around the outside of the “screen” in the center. By default the app opens up ready to take a picture, and taking a picture is as simple as pushing the large round camera button on the right side of the screen.
On the left side of the screen there are four small buttons that allow to apply various filters to pictures as you take them. The “flash” feature, while obviously not as effective as a real flash, allows you to add some brightness and contrast to pictures which will allow you to take much better pictures in low light conditions. This combined with the “Anti-Shake” feature does a 
surprisingly good job of improving pictures in situations where lighting is slightly inadequate.
A feature that is fairly unique that I found to be a lot of fun is the “Sound” button. When this is enabled the camera will wait until a certain sound threshold is reached after you press the camera button and then take a picture. This is even better than the “Timer” feature because you don’t have to just wait and guess when the picture is going to be taken, you can actually control it by making a loud enough noise. Although obviously if there was too much noise going on around you this might be hard to use, being able to set the noise threshold makes problems with this minimal.
The digital zoom in this app is a very nice feature as well. While there are a 
lot of apps out there that implement digital zoom through the use of the “pinch” gesture or a slider bar, it just feels so much natural to have to buttons dedicated to zooming in and out. Unfortunately with no hardware zoom available the quality of the zoom feature is not anything amazing, but there is not anything the maker of the app could do about this, it is a limitation of the hardware.
Another really nice thing about this app is that once you can do at least some simple editing of the pictures from directly within the app. Once you have taken your pictures just touch the “playback” button in the upper left corner and you’ll be able to scroll through the pictures you’ve taken. To get a quick overview of all your pictures just touch the small button that has an icon that looks like a small checkerboard above it.
As you look through the pictures you’ve taken you have the option of running them through a variety of different “filters.” These 
range from a simple black and white filter to more advanced filters that do things like make the photos look aged or display them with inverted colors! In addition to these filters you can also add “flash” (which again increases the brightness and contrast) to your photo after you have already taken it.
I would have to say while I been through a lot of camera apps that increased the capability of the iPhone’s camera, I had not found one that made it this simple until now. If you are a photo-fanatic, but you don’t always have an expensive digital camera in your pocket, this app may be just what you’ve been looking for!
Not only does this app offer all of the features I mentioned up till now, but you can also upload your photos directly to a variety of different social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter! So what are you waiting for? Head to the App Store and start taking better pictures today!
- David H.
Download Now!
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Developer – Shiningworks Co.
URL: http://www.shiningworks.com/products/1stSoftCamera-G700
© 2010, Davidh. All rights reserved.