Remember when cameras didn’t have LCD screens and you didn’t know what your picture would look like until after you had developed and printed it? No? Me neither, but Hipstamatic does. It’s a toy camera app that’s more awesome than your real camera. It remembers all of the little switches and dials you used to […]
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Review: Hipstamatic for iPhone

May 8th 2010 by

hipstamatic for iphone

Remember when cameras didn’t have LCD screens and you didn’t know what your picture would look like until after you had developed and printed it?

No? Me neither, but Hipstamatic does.

It’s a toy camera app that’s more awesome than your real camera. It remembers all of the little switches and dials you used to use, and has assembled them all within a charming, oldie-but-goodie interface, for your $1.99 purchasing pleasure.




The interface is almost completely themed, and contains only a handful of the common iPhone interface buttons of other apps. So not only will you have to learn to use the app’s different lenses, but you’ll also have to tap around a little before you figure out how to take a picture. Don ‘t worry, though, learning how to use this interface is part of the fun.

Lenses, not filters

Before you actually take a picture with Hipstamatic, you’ll have to pick one of the three default lenses. If this were another app, these lenses would be called filters (because of the post-processing effects they add to your photos), but there are no “filters” here, only lenses.

Film, not frame

Hipstamatic takes a similar approach to photo frames, which are described as film. However, this is the one camera app you’ll use where the the frames don’t suck. Using different film types can have quite an effect on how your picture looks once it has been printed.

Toy Camera

When taking a picture, you don’t see the camera’s actual field of view like you do in the default camera app. This digital version of an analog viewfinder has glare built right into it, and you’ll really only see part of the picture you take before you take it.

Support for 3GS auto focus is noticeably absent throughout the app. This would probably lead you to believe that this is an app better suited for the slower, fixed focus iPhones (2G and 3G), but saving a picture takes far too long on my 2G on firmware 3.1.3. Hipstamatic ‘s processing is pretty heavy, and best enjoyed on a fast device like a 3GS.

One last thing to keep in mind here is that Hipstamatic requires you to take new pictures: you can’t just process shots from your camera roll, so it would be pointless to load the app up on an iPod Touch.

Mystery Photography Theatre

After you take a picture, you have to wait a few seconds for it to develop before you can take  another one, and you won ‘t have any impressions of how your picture turned out until after it has been printed. How analog is that? šŸ™‚

Printed pictures are shown as thumbnails on a separate screen, and tapping on said thumbnails will provide you with lens and film information. You can also choose to e-mail or upload  your photos to Facebook/Flickr, or even enter your shots in contests ” all right from within the app.

Returning the novelty to photography

I won ‘t get into this much because it’s an age I didn’t belong to, but I will say that Hipstamatic does a great job of returning some of the mystique to photography — the idea that you simply won ‘t know what picture you took until it has developed and printed. Granted, this only takes a few seconds, but this feature (or lack thereof) almost encourages you to get into the habit of snapping more pictures and enjoying the creative experience, instead of constantly checking the screen to see whether you ‘re doing it right…and I think that’s pretty cool.

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Hipstamatic is available for $1.99 on the App Store. Special thanks to Judie of Gear Diary and Gadjo of Canadian Reviewer for the heads-up.

The app was bought by JAiB for review on the site. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.

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