Top Camera Improves Your iPad Camera - ... and the one on your iPhone too!

... and the one on your iPhone too!

Nowadays we all grab our smart phones and even our tablets to take pictures. After all our iPhones and iPads are right there while our regular point and shoot cameras are usually not. So how can you shoot professional looking photos and video with your iDevices? With an iOS app called Top Camera.

Top Camera, developed by Lucky Clan, gives you so many settings and options you are going to be left breathless! We cover some in the video, but the fun starts when you really start to play around with all the features!

We’re still experimenting with the new technology of video-capturing our iPads onto our PC’s and videoing a video of a video proved a bit challenging but you get the idea of all that the app entails. We love that unlike our iPhone’s built in app we can select multiple photos at a time and select what to do with them, including delete or email.

We absolutely love the 5x zoom in both still photo and video mode! Sometimes we like to sneak up on our subject and you just can’t do that with the regular iDevice cameras. Now I can! I can also take those photos or videos and upload them immediately to Twitter or Facebook, to Flickr or Picasa and even upload it to my Dropbox account! We can use a slow shutter or fast, to capture action shots in still photos, and we can edit the heck out of them.

I really like the HDR feature. The photo at the top of this post was taken with that option and edited very little. It is the dried floral arrangement you see sitting on the table in the video. It almost has a painterly effect it is so realistic. I actually took that one with my iPhone and it wasn’t difficult to hold the phone still while it continued to snap three times, although I did have the stabilizer engaged to help with shake.

Top Camera Features:

General: The app was designed in cooperation with Artist / Photographer David Scott Leibowitz to incorporate the highest quality in every detail. An extraordinary amount of time was spent designing the interface, to make it as beautiful and intuitive as possible:

Both portrait and landscape orientation are supported
File sharing integration
Save images to the internal gallery, the iOS Photo Library, or both

Camera: In shooting mode, the app provides a host of visual aids to help users take the best photograph possible. Controls are quick and intuitive: one indicator for focus, and a second indicator for exposure. The photographer now has the fine adjustment camera controls missing from the iPhone’s camera:

Video recording
Live adjustments: contrast, brightness, saturation, temperature
Shot stabilizer
Timer mode
Burst mode – rapid burst (about 6 photos per second) for low and medium quality
HDR (High Dynamic Range) – Auto and Manual mode available, it uses the align algorithm
Slow Shutter – Auto, Manual, and Light Trail Modes
Digital zoom slider
AWB – Auto White Balance with optional lock
Screen Button
Picture alignment grid
Virtual Horizon – provides a visual leveling bar to keep images perfectly straight
Exposure box
Focus Box
New Slow Shutter mode, with Auto/Manual Light-trail options

Photo Gallery: Clicking the picture icon in the lower left corner brings the user into the world of Folders, Viewing, Editing, and Sharing. Entering this function of the app, photographers can see the contents of selected folder. Selecting an image in the Main folder reveals a pop-up window with options to view, edit, change folder, export, delete, or email the image:

Folders – organize photos into folders. Create new folders, delete, reorder, export, change names, and move photos from one folder to another
Export – paste image to clipboard, export to photos or send by e-mail
Share – send one or more images to Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, YouTube or Flicker
Add new photos – import from the Photo Library, paste from the clipboard or duplicate a selected image
Select mode – Switching to select mode allows the user to quickly select many images, and then delete them, change folder, send by e-mail, share on Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Dropbox/Flickr, export to the Photo Library and copy to clipboard

Viewer: Tapping the View button, or double tapping on a thumbnail will bring up the folder’s images for fullscreen viewing and also give users info options to see the photo’s metadata including a GPS map view. Clicking the action icon in the topright corner displays a pop-up with e-mail/edit/change folder/export buttons:

Full resolution preview
Slideshow display
Display image info and metadata
Display GPS location in Maps

Photo Editor: Tap on the Edit button to open the app’s powerful photo editor. Here, users can crop an image, fix common photo problems like bad lighting, low contrast, or fuzzy colors, and apply special effects, or add a frame. Users not pleased with the results can easily revert to the original image:

Crop – free mode, keep ratio, square, 2×3, 3×4, 9×16, golden proportions
Rotate – rotate 90 degrees left/right, flip horizontal/vertical
Adjust – use sliders to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, improve (definition, sharpen), color temperature, tint, shadows, and highlights
Effect – choose one of 36 amazing effects like pencil drawing, auto contrast, sepia, grayscale, retro, grunge, lomo, and many more
Borders – add a simple border, vignette, or edge blur

NOW you understand why we couldn’t possibly cover everything in a five-minute video! We have replaced the camera app we were using on our iDevices with Top Camera in our docks. It is our go-to camera of choice for all applications and think you will agree. The price for Top Camera is ridiculously low! GRAB a copy and add Top Camera to your iPad or iPhone today! You will NOT regret it.

iPad Version: