Top 10 camera apps for Android : make your smartphone snapper the ultimate shooting tool
"These are the best alternatives to your native Android camera app."
The default camera app on your Android smartphone doesn’t often do justice to its snapper. Small tweaks to exposure, shooting modes and ISO, not to mention effects like HDR, Tilt Shift and Selective Focus, can get you far better results than if you shoot in plain auto. If you're looking to upgrade your camera app, the Google Play Store has an infinite number of options to choose from. These are our top picks.
Camera ZOOM FX (Rs 180)
Camera Zoom FX has enough controls to satisfy the pro photographer in you. Apart from the regular Burst, Time Lapse and Stable Shot shooting modes, there’s also a Voice-Activated Shutter which will snap the shutter button when you clap or make a loud noise. The app also offers grid levels, a horizon overlay, and controls for metering, focus, white balance and ISO. There are several FX effects to choose from, including Tilt Shift, Composite and Vignette. The app also lets you customise your Android device’s hardware buttons, like programming the volume button to activate the shutter.
Pro HDR Camera (Rs 107)
Most photo apps offer an HDR mode, but not all of them create true composites, and try to emulate the results with post processing instead. Pro HDR Camera wants none of that fake stuff, and creates a true HDR image by taking two consecutive images, one overexposed and the other underexposed. It then merges the images and aligns them correctly for true dynamic range. There’s a fully automatic mode which does the job for you, only requiring you to press the shutter button and hold the camera still while the app takes care of the rest. There’s also a manual mode where you can adjust exposures of both images yourself, and then let the app combine them. In both cases, you can adjust brightness, colour, tint and more before the image is saved to your gallery.
Fast Burst Camera (Free)
A burst mode is a useful feature in a smartphone camera, especially when you want to capture images of a fast-moving subject. Fast Burst Camera is an incredibly useful app for situations like this, and can capture up to 30 photos per second with zero shutter lag. All you have to do is keep the shutter button pressed and it’ll do the rest. There are various shooting modes available, like Single Shot, 5 burst, Full Burst, Pre-Shot and Motion Trigger. Once you’re done, you can apply filters, frames and text, arrange them in a collage or even an animated GIF.
A Better Camera (Free)
A Better Camera will turn your plain ‘ol smartphone camera into a point and shoot digicam. There are 11 modes to choose from, including Auto, Burst, Night, Panorama, Best Shot, HDR and Group Shot. A useful Object Removal mode lets you remove unwanted objects or people from images. You can opt for one of the various scenes, or enable manual controls like focus modes, exposure, white balance and metering. And if you fancy dabbling in pro features, swipe on the viewer to bring up grids and histograms.
Cymera (Free)
A fun camera replacement app that lets you experiment with lenses, Cymera has seven options to choose from, including fisheye and various photo-booth styles which let you take multiple images and combine them in a collage. Shooting options include Anti-Shake, Timer, Self Portrait and Touch Shot. There’s a fun depth-of-field mode which lets you select an area of focus and blur out the rest. The app also offers a wealth of editing options, like filters, beauty effects, stickers and text. Plus, you can also tweak exposure, saturation, contrast, brightness, etc. You can register for a Cymera account, but this is entirely optional, and you can use the app normally without signing up.
Focal (Beta) (Free)
Focal (Beta) used to be a standard on CyanogenMod devices, but has now broken away from the operating system and moved on to Android. The app is still in a beta stage, but is still fully functional, offering several options for the more seasoned photographer.
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