QuickAdvice: QuickCam Is Fast And Easy - Plus Win A Promo Code!
QuickCam ($0.99) by Two Teeth Technologies is a simple, no-nonsense, fast, easy-to-use camera app that also contains some interesting and unusual features. This new app is designed with simplicity and elegance in mind. There are no menus or other screens to navigate. Everything you need is right on the main screen. Photos and videos are saved quickly and automatically to your camera roll.
Open up QuickCam and you’ll notice it’s faster than the native camera app. The native camera takes 2.5 seconds to open up. QuickCam about one second. A camera that opens up and starts shooting faster means fewer missed shot opportunities.
You’ll also notice that there are only six control icons. Starting from the top left, you’ll see a light bulb. This is actually a torch you can use to illuminate your videography. You can even just use it as a flashlight or video flashlight. At the top center is a camera swap icon; tap it to switch between the front and back camera. The top right icon is a lightning bolt; simply tap to turn on the flash, tap again to turn it off. You’ll see a zoom slider at the bottom center of the screen.
At the bottom left is a video icon. Tap to start recording video. At the bottom right is the still camera shutter button, and here is where it gets interesting. You can actually tap the shutter button to take photos WHILE simultaneously recording video! This is a great option for situations where you’re just not sure if you’d prefer to take video or still photos. Now, with QuickCam, you can do both at the same time. Photos taken this way are not full-quality, however. In my indoor tests, with a moving subject, the pictures tended to be quite blurry. They are not full 5 MP resolution photos; they are more like 2 MP. My outdoor photos, however, were pretty sharp. You can see a sample photo in this article. It’s an interesting option and a good tool to have in your photography tool kit.
Another great feature in the app is burst photography. Simply hold down the shutter button for rapid-fire, full resolution photos. See my gallery of photos below for a grouping of three photos taken in a burst.
There are three more extras that you can access with gestures but they won’t get in your way if you don’t want them. First, keep on zooming in beyond what the slider indicates with pinch gestures for infinite digital zoom. Second, double tap an area of interest to set separate exposure. And third, to reset zoom and exposure, simply triple tap.
All in all, this is an extremely fast and intuitive camera app. Controls are all right on the main screen; there are no menus to navigate. There is virtually no processing or saving time to get in the way of shooting your next photo. Cool extras like a flashlight you can use while shooting video, full-resolution burst photography, and simultaneous video/still photography add interest to the feature set. This is not an app to replace the many-featured “pro” camera apps. Rather, this is aimed at people who just want better, faster stock camera performance but not an overly complex app. If you are one of those people, you can enter to win a copy by commenting below. Contest ends March 19 at 1:00 EST. Good luck!
