Recently, I picked up an iPhone and was thrilled at the quality of the photos it could take. Its picture taking abilities might not be up to par with DSLRs but its small size makes it discreet to use. On our blog you may have noticed we tint and tone our photos for a vintage look. When I found out the Toy Camera application for the iPhone could do this, I was excited and purchased it to see what it could do.
According to Takayuki Fukatsu, the designer of this app, it is the number one selling camera app in Japan. It allows you to transform your iPhone photos into color popping Holga/Lomo inspired images.
To start, you begin by taking a photo through the Toy Camera app. Once it’s done, you have a choice of retaking or processing it. If you press the “use” button the app will put your image randomly through one of its many effects which include:
- Vintage green
- Vintage warm
- Vintage yellow
- High saturation
- Low saturation
- Rich Black & White
- HiCon Black & White
My initial impression is the filters work best in bright to moderate lighting. This is due to the iPhone’s poor sensitivity to low light and not the software itself.
The options menu is well laid out with features that allow you to select which filters you can use during random or non-random modes. Other options include the ability to turn on or off vignetting and square cropping. I find the vignetting to be very heavy and dark so I have this off.
When I first purchased this app, I thought you could apply filters to photographs previously taken, but instead they are only applied to photos taken through Toy Camera. I would like the ability to view the original image as well as revert any filters applied.
At $1.99, the app is a lot of fun to use and I highly recommend it for those who would love to add a vintage look to their photos.
Click below to jump to the Toy Camera app website.
If you interested on other ways to take toy camera images, check out our previous post on the Holga DSLR lens.
Those are sweet…