Not too often will you run into an iPhone app that does one thing really superb and other things in a rather underwhelming fashion. Snapture is one of these rare apps.
Great Action Shooter
Snapture really shines when it comes to action photography. While it is more like Tobias Unger than Usain Bolt, as one review claims, it is certainly the fastest shooter I’ve ever encountered on the iPhone and the only app I would use for action photography, like my cat rolling around on our sofa. You can take action shots through the High Speed Multishot feature, which rapidly snaps 3 images, but I typically did it by just tapping anywhere on the screen whenever I wanted to take the shot. The app buffers these shots before writing them to memory, thus you can keep snapping and don’t have to wait for the photo to be saved as other apps have to do. Image quality was on par with other apps and you can save in up to three different sizes, including 1600×1200 for the iPhone 3G or 1048×1536 for the 3GS. Overall, this is a great feature and absolutely worth the money you spend on this app.
No Autofocus on the iPhone 3GS
It is noteworthy that you take the shot by tapping anywhere on the screen, thus the iPhone 3GS’ autofocus feature is disabled.
Helpful Level Aid
Level Aid is helpful, but overlaying it with a grid would be much more helpful. If you keep the level as is, please allow it to rotate as you rotate the phone.
Quickview to organize photos
Quickview allows you to look at images and dismiss them or email them. Frankly, I never used this feature. When I want to capture action, I focus on snapping. By the time I was done taking photos, all but the last ones were saved, so I simply looked at the images in Photos. This might be a good selling feature, but in real life I cannot see myself ever using it.
Zoom – hopefully it keeps its patent pending
100% crop of a 5x zoom in Snapture versus upsizing a regular shot on the Mac in Preview. What a difference! I will never use Snapture's zoom again.
From the Manufacturer: “Snapture’s patent-pending multi-touch zoom technology will take care of the rest. Capture exactly what you want. 5X zoom for the most discerning of photographers.” I’m not a most discerning photographer, but I am discerning. Just look at the comparison image above – if you want zoom, do it with a dedicated app or on a PC or Mac and not in Snapture. The quality simply is not there.
Touchzone does not stabilize your photos
Touchzone simply reinstates how you shoot images on the iPhone. Rather than tapping, which is how you usually use Snapture, with Touchzone the image is taken when you release your finger — the same way the Camera app does it. That has nothing to do with image stabilization and contrary to the manufacturer’s claim, Snapture did nothing to help me get less shaky images. There are apps that prevent you from taking images when the iPhone is not steady – Snapture is not one of them.
Conclusion
Overall, despite its shortcomings, I like Snapture for the one innovative thing it does great – action shooting! But don’t mistake it for a replacement of the Camera app – it is not.
Verdict: Highly recommended and an Editor’s pick, even although we struggled for a while whether we should really bestow it to an app with so many weaknesses. But in the end, its unique ability to quickly snap many pictures deserves an Editor’s Pick!
Price: $0.99 from iTunes.
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Nice review, and the same conclusion I came to, although I only have an iPhone 3G, so was not aware of the autofocus issue, and I’m not a fan of using a digital zoom on the the 2 megapixel 3G.
Thanks, Glyn – I’m not a fan of digital zooms, period. Digital zoom belongs into the digital darkroom, since the algorithms in PC and Mac photo software are so much better.
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