One of the greatest things about Apple’s iOS App Store, is that you never know what kind of cool apps are going to pop up and provide you with a useful utility, a little bit of fun, or sometimes both at the same time. Now the situation is getting even better with Apple’s latest batch of API included in iOS4, as well as their recent clarification and relaxation of policies for App Store submission and approval. We are seeing apps that wouldn’t have been allowed before, such as Google Voice clients, and the VLC Media player rolling out at a quickening pace.
One such app, made possible with some of the APIs recently released in iOS 4.0, is Camera Duo from Jambasoft, which found its way into the App Store just a couple of weeks ago. It’s main function is to allow you to take pictures while recording video. For someone with young children, like myself, this can definitely be a lifesaver in a pinch. You just never know what cool or hilarious things your kids are going to do, or what situations perfect for preservation in the digital family album are going to present themselves. We’ve all had those moments when you either have to choose between shooting pictures or video, ask someone else to help you out, or try to pull both off yourself. Camera Duo gives you a creative solution to this dilemma.
I had a recent experience at a birthday party for my little girl where my video camera’s battery failed, even after charging all night. And of course, it failed right when it was time to open presents. Awesome. When else would it fail, right? Fortunately, I have a decent digital camera with a large SD Card, and I was able to switch it over to video and just go with that. My Dad was kind enough to take over photo duty for me with his camera, but I still wanted to take a few shots of my own. All of the other kids in our family were crowded around my daughter while she was opening her presents, and I was the only one close enough to get a good shot of the chaos. While I was videoing, I got my iPhone out and used it to snap a few pictures with my other hand. If any of you out there have done this before, you know what a pain it is trying to keep both devices framed, focused, and zoomed properly without shaking and moving all over the place. Now, we have a new app that fills this little niche nicely. With Camera Duo, you can shoot video and snap pictures on a single device on the fly. It also includes several settings that make it superior to the native iPhone Camera app for shooting video alone. Let’s zoom in and get a closer look at what Camera Duo brings to the table.
When the app is first started, you are presented with a very clean and simple interface.
Your video consumes the main screen, as you would expect, and you have buttons for Settings, Video Record, and Picture Taking on the bottom toolbar. Without doing anything else, you can tap the red record button, and then start taking pictures by tapping the camera icon immediately after.
Tapping the Settings button brings up several options on the left side of the screen.
I really like the way Jambasoft handled this. Instead of having to go to another screen and come back, you are always looking at the video frame and you can still shoot video and take pictures with Settings options up on the screen. You can also switch many of them on the fly while recording a video.
The Settings include Flash, Torch, Focus, Exposure, White Balance, Swap Camera, and Photo Mode. While Camera Duo is compatible with older iOS devices, the Flash, Torch, and Swap Camera settings are obviously only available in the latest generation iPhone and iPod Touch. Jambasoft has also included links to Camera Duo’s App Store page to write an app review, and a Customer Support email link. Below are descriptions of each of Camera Duo’s key features:
- Flash- Can be set to On, Off, or Auto. Camera Duo must be set to Real Photo Mode (See Photo Mode Below) for the Flash to work.
- Torch- Can be set to On, Off, or Auto. This mode keeps the LED flash lit all of the time if turned On. In Auto, it will stay on when the app deems it necessary based on the iPhone’s light sensor. This mode works for pictures in either camera mode, because it isn’t flashing, but providing constant light for video.
- Focus- Can be set to Lock, Auto, or Continuous. Auto works like the native Camera app, using touch to focus for video. Lock will leave it set at the last focus point. Continuous brings autofocus to iOS for video.
- Exposure- Can be set to Lock or Continuous. In Continuous, the app dynamically accounts for varying light levels. In Lock, it stays at its current setting, no matter how your shot changes.
- White Balance- Can be set to Lock or Continuous. Works the same as Exposure. In Continuous, it varies based on the detected light source. In Lock, it sticks with its last detected setting.
- Swap Camera- Works only with the iPhone 4 and 4th Gen iPod Touch.
Also notice that only Exposure and White Balance settings are available with the Front Camera. It is also limited to 640 x 480 picture quality. - Photo Mode- This is the only setting that takes you to a separate screen.
There are two modes available. Real Photos takes higher quality pictures and allows the use of the Flash mode, but retains the standard shutter sound. Extract from Video takes lower quality pictures, takes longer to process pictures and does not have Flash support, but does not use the shutter sound.
The settings allow Camera Duo to perform its intended job simply and easily. As an added bonus, you not only have the app’s primary function of snapping photographs while taking video, you also gain access to these same settings for video alone, which are not available in the native Camera app. Having access to the continuous Focus and Torch modes alone are worth the $.99 price of admission for the app. The Flash mode is also quite useful when shooting video and photos in dimly let areas. Unfortunately, it is also quite noticeable when watching your video. Despite the inherent battery drain, I personally prefer the Torch mode, as it provides light for both video and photos, and the effect is much less jarring when watching your video, since the light is constant and uniform.
The Focus mode of Camera Duo is a big step up from the native Camera app, as the Continuous mode brings true autofocus to iOS for video. I definitely prefer not having to manually tap the screen to reset focus all the time, especially when I am limited to one hand operation. That’s a lot of tapping when you are videoing your kids running around the yard. For those that prefer the standard method, Touch to Focus in the Auto mode works just like the native app.
The Exposure mode can be helpful when trying to account for highly varying light levels, such as shooting with an open window in the background, or with fluorescent lights overhead. However, since Camera Duo relies on the iPhone’s automatic exposure adjustments, it also suffers from the same problems. Apple’s camera software (and to be fair, many other manufacturer’s software, as well) has always suffered from problems with blowing out bright areas of photographs that have their focus and exposure tuned to darker areas. The photo below is a good example.
I tried to use the Exposure Lock to work around the blow out issue, and unfortunately, this is what I was left with:
With a little more finesse, and some decent editing software, you can get around the blowout with Exposure Lock. It just isn’t quite a seamless experience.
This exposure issue is the main reason why Apple rolled out HDR as part of their iOS 4.1 release. It is supposed to help deal with this issue by combining separate photos taken at different exposures. Unfortunately, Apple has not released APIs for their HDR implementation to third party developers yet, so apps like Camera Duo cannot yet take advantage of this new feature. Sure, there are third party HDR photography apps out there, but they are built from the ground up for just that purpose and that is a lot to ask for from an app like Camera Duo, which has a somewhat narrow focus. Regardless of its shortcomings, I am glad that Jambasoft implemented the API that was available to them to give the user some way around the camera’s exposure issue.
The White Balance is the only setting I didn’t find very helpful, but that is due more to Apple’s implementation of the feature in the SDK and the white balance issues of the iPhone 4 than the anything that Jambasoft has done with it. Basically, it only allows you to lock in whatever the phone detects, which doesn’t help much when the phone messes the white balance up. In my experience, the iPhone 4 does a lousy job in a dimly lit room with standard incandescent light bulbs. It does ok with fluorescent light and great with natural light, but if I am stuck indoors in a dimly lit room with no way to get to another light source, my picture comes out with the yellow or orange tinge that many iPhone 4 users have complained of.
Even locking to a white piece of paper doesn’t really work reliably in poor light. I really thought Apple would have fixed this by now, but until that occurs, it is up to developers to deal with the issue with the APIs that are available to them. With Camera Duo’s White Balance lock, you can try to account for the problem by going to a location with a different light source, locking in the balance, and then going back. Unfortunately, you can’t always count on multiple sources being available. Like I said before, this isn’t Jambasoft’s problem. It is Apple’s problem to fix, and I hope they get around to it soon.
The Photo Mode selection is a creative way of getting around what appears to be an iOS SDK limitation. In the Real Photo mode, you are actually taking a picture as if you were using the native Camera app in photography mode. The only difference is that, since you are simultaneously shooting video, your pictures are limited to the video resolution of 1280 x 720 on the iPhone 4 and 4th Gen iPod Touch rear cameras, or 640 x 480 on the iPhone 3GS and current gen front cameras. Even with the lowered resolution, the photo quality is acceptable, especially when the convenience of simultaneous pictures and video is factored in. From my testing, you can take five shots in quick succession before Camera Duo has to pause to save your pictures in this mode.
There are a couple of small drawbacks to the Real Photo Mode. First, since you are actually taking a standard photo, the shutter sound is audible every time you snap a photo. This can easily be gotten around by muting the phone using the hardware switch, so I didn’t think too much of it. I did also notice that the video occasionally stutters when you take a picture. I asked the developers, and I was told that it only happens when device memory is low, especially on older devices. It was just a moment’s hesitation, so it isn’t a deal breaker. To be on the safe side, you might clear out some open apps or reboot your phone if you are going to shoot longer videos.
Since there is no way to turn off the camera’s shutter sound other than muting the entire phone, Jambasoft also included the Extract from Video Mode. This mode avoids the issue of the shutter sound, but doesn’t allow the flash. That is because it isn’t taking pictures, per se. It is actually tagging spots in the video to extract as photos. You can, however, still use the Torch Mode for lighting in this mode. Because it is tagging spots in the video, it is well suited for multiple shots in quick succession. Unlike the Real Photo mode, Extract for Video mode doesn’t have to pause after a certain number of pictures to save, because the picture extraction doesn’t occur until after the video is stopped. Just remember that the more pictures you snap, the longer the processing will take after you stop videoing.
The Extract from Video Mode is a creative way around the shutter sound issue, but also has its own drawbacks. First, you may have to wait a minute or two before starting to record video again, because the app has to go back and pull the photos out and process them into separate images.
Also, even though the image is the same resolution as in the Real Photo Mode, the image quality is lowered slightly because the app is pulling the photo from a finished video which has been recorded in a compressed format. I applaud Jambasoft for giving the customer choices, even if they both have some compromises. After testing, the photos in Extract from Video Mode aren’t noticeably worse, but I would personally suggest using Real Photo Mode and just muting your phone using the hardware switch. This gives you a little higher picture quality and access to all of Camera Duo’s features.
Now that we’ve looked at the settings, let’s see how Camera Duo performs when the rubber meets the road. Here is a sample video with accompanying pictures taken during a recent family trip to the Memphis Zoo. Keep in mind that the video had to be compressed due to WordPress size limitations for inclusion in this review. The actual video is of the same quality you would expect from the iPhone 4 under normal conditions.
As you can see, the picture quality in the three with uniform lighting is quite good. The exposure and white balance are accurate, and even with the lower resolution and compression, they show off what Camera Duo is capable of. Unfortunately, the last picture is marred by the iOS Camera software’s exposure issues that I mentioned before. However, that isn’t Jambasoft’s fault. Hopefully the next iOS release will include APIs for developers to use iOS’s built-in HDR capabilities, which would help prevent these issues. However, the other three pictures should adequately demonstrate that Camera Duo does its job well.
Camera Duo is a fairly simple program, but it does something that no other app in the App Store does, and does it very well. That is a lot more than most $0.99 apps can say. Overall, I am very pleased with it. Other than the issues beyond Jambasoft’s control and the occasional video stutters in Real Photo mode, there was only one other problem that I came across in my testing. I ran into some occasional lockups and crashes coming out of Fast App Switching. Sometimes Camera Duo came back with a black screen and took a while to become active again. On a couple of occasions during a period of heavy use, it shut down completely and had to be re-launched. This is version 1.0 software, so it isn’t the end of the world. However, the developers definitely need to address this in the near future. When you are using this app to capture the funny antics of three kids from ages 4 to 9, you, your iPhone, and your app of choice have to ready to fire away at a moment’s notice.
I really like what Jambasoft has done with Camera Duo. They found a small niche in the photography area of the iOS App Store, and have filled it nicely. That said, there are some potential additions to the app would make it a little more powerful and refined. First, I would love to see a link to the Camera Roll added so you can get a quick look at your creations. It would be helpful to allow the user to lock the Exposure by tapping in a specific area of the video frame, separate from the focus. This would help users compensate for big contrasts in levels of brightness in the same shot. Also, as handy as some of their other settings have been for shooting video, I would love to see Jambasoft add the digital zoom from the native Camera app, as well.
Lastly, I wouldn’t mind seeing Jambasoft go ahead and add stand-alone photography to Camera Duo as well, even if it means adding it as an in-app purchase since it would be such a significant upgrade. During my testing, I found myself switching around from Camera Duo, to the native Camera, to the Photo App’s Camera Roll and back several times. Even with Fast App Switching, this takes time, so having everything available in one app would just simplify things a bit. I corresponded with the Jambasoft team about this potential feature, and they said that they have considered it, but had a compelling reason to wait and give its inclusion some thought. Evidently, there is a significant delay if you switch the camera from the lower video resolution back to full photo resolution. So, either you have a wait to get the full camera functionality, or you don’t have a delay, but you have to stick with lower resolution shots. With that said, I can understand why they are hesitant to add a feature that may detract from Camera Duo’s primary purpose. However, I still wouldn’t mind seeing Jambasoft apply the same treatment to this issue as they did with the camera shutter sound, and just give their customers the choice. To use my previous analogy, when you are chasing little kids around at a birthday party and need to use your iPhone in a pinch, the more versatile the chosen app is, the better.
Don’t let any of my minor complaints or suggestions for Camera Duo give you any pause about purchasing it. As I said before, it does something that no other app currently does, and it does it well. In addition, it provides access to several useful features that you can use in general video shooting. At $.99, it is a great value, and I highly recommend it, especially if you have kids and are always trying to capture that perfect moment.
Camera Duo is available for $.99 in the App Store here.
This app was independently purchased by the post author in the iPhone App Store. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
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TAGS: Apple, iPhone, iphone apps, iPhone camera apps, iPhone video recording apps
