QuickAdvice: ProCamera - Take the Place of Your Native Camera?

ProCamera ($2.99) by daemgen.net is an all-around photography app that could actually take the place of your iPhone’s native camera. Take better pictures, and do some basic editing right inside the app. Utilize features already on your camera and a lot more.

Open up the app, and tap anywhere on the screen to take a picture immediately. Or, tap the shaky camera icon to operate the anti-shake system; meaning the camera will snap a photo as soon as the iPhone is held steady. This is great if you are walking and snapping, or just shaky-handed! One tap on the timer icon will start the auto-timer countdown.

Magnifying glass icons with a plus or minus easily operate the zoom function. Personally I find this easier to use than the slider bar on the iPhone 4’s native camera. You get zoom function even on the earlier iPhone models that don’t include zoom on the native camera. For the iPhone 4: Tap the flash button to select flash options; auto, on, or off. The camera flip button (to switch to forward-facing camera) is there as well.

Tap the Pro icon for more options: level, compass, “rule-of-thirds” and other overlay grids. Tap Video Camera to switch to that function (if your iPhone model has video). Tap Settings to adjust the strength of the anti-shake system and the length of time for the auto-timer. Tap Album & Studio to get to the editing program.

In the editing program, you can shoot a picture or choose one from your album. Adjust brightness, contrast, or turn your picture into black & white or sepia. Save your edited photo, email it, and/or get image-information (width and height).

A recent update for iPhone 3GS and 4 gives you Expert Mode in the settings -- this allows you to set the exposure and the focal areas separately. This also gives you a White Balance button to lock the white balance on the current shade. These features can be used for both photo and video mode. Personally, I find these a little bit confusing to use, but for someone who is more interested in these features and has the patience to learn them properly, they could be really helpful.

If you’re not sure you want to shell out the dough for the full version, try the lite version first -- it has about half of the fuctions of the full version.

This is a very solid photography app. Sexy? Not particularly. But it supplies many real camera features that are lacking in the native iPhone camera.

To celebrate their recent update, the makers of ProCamera have given us five promo codes to give away! To win one, simply comment below and tell me why you'd like get a copy of ProCamera. I'll select five winners for this awesome app.

Contest ends Tuesday, August 31, at 2:00 p.m. EDT. Good luck!