Night Cam 1.8
False advertising
Night Cam is marketed as a good replacement for your DSLR, if you happen to own one. Not for everything of course, just for those casual night-time shots out in the city, or when you want to capture a landscape at night, the stars even.
Couldn’t be farther from the truth. The thing is incapable of shooting anything with clarity, let alone boost lighting using alleged “sophisticated ISO and long exposure algorithms.” At least not by using it with your bare hands. Admittedly, developer Lucky Clan does say at the very end of the description, “To improve sharpness use a tripod.” Thanks a bunch? Now I have to go out and buy a tripod for my iPhone? Not exactly the casual experience I was hoping for. Best to take my DSLR with me after all then.
Sleek UI
It’s a shame Night Cam is useless because it has a really nice interface. There’s no settings panel, just a constant preview of what you’re about to shoot with a center indicator in the middle and a camera button at the bottom. You can select one of three options to take the photo as:
- a single shot;
- a multi shot that captures allegedly “bright, noise-free photos in low-light conditions using both incraesed ISO and long exposure capture.”
- and a multi+ shot “similar to multi with increased exposure, use for the darkest conditions.”
What the app actually does
Whether or not it does use any advanced algorithms, Night Cam does try to increase the exposure of a shot by keeping its “eye” open for a few seconds (as opposed to just a fraction of a second, as normal camera apps do). Thing is, it doesn’t really work. The result is blurry, very noisy, and not at all better than what you’d achieve with Apple’s own Camera app. The only good thing about it is the exposure toggle, but that’s something you’ll find in any photography app today.
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0/5
Hits & Misses
hits
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misses
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Bottom Line
Design / UI8
Looks great but the design just goes to waste because the app itself isn’t very usable in the dark. |
Function6
While it doesn’t do a very good job at shooting night-time photos, you can employ Night Cam for daytime photography. But why not just use the iPhone’s built-in app then? |
Security9
No issues in this department. Photos do not retain any location details or anything else that can be traced back to you. The app itself is almost fully local, but does allow you to send photos via email. |
Battery7
Drains a fair amount of power when the lights go down as it struggles to resolve images. |
Price8
The app costs a few bucks, but it's not going to empty your pockets. |
Compatibility7
Requires iOS 7 and supports iPads natively. It’s not very well optimized for any iDevice, though. |
Best to use it during daytime, or not at all.
Specifications
- price:
- 1.99
- current version:
- 1.8
- reviewed version:
- 1.5
- developer:
- Lucky Clan
- category:
- PHOTOGRAPHY
- os version req.:
- 7.0
- age rating:
- 4+
- in-app purchases:
- Yes.
- hits:
- 346