Turn Your iPhone Into A Multiple Exposure Toy Camera With Fusioncam
Fusioncam ($1.99) by Stepcase is the next photo app from Steply, who have developed other nifty photo apps like Phototreats, Darkroom Pro, and Labelbox. It allows you to take photos with three filter effects and even has multi-exposure support.
When you open Fusioncam, you'll be greeted with a pretty retro interface that will definitely remind you of a toy camera. Most of the screen will be taken up by the viewfinder, and then there are buttons underneath that take up the rest of the screen space. The viewfinder is a square shape, so yes, your photos will be in the square format that is all the latest rage nowadays (or so it seems).
The buttons below the viewfinder consist of: Steply social network, shutter button and the numbers represent the options of different filters, flash on/off, and multi-exposure.
There are three options for filters in Fusioncam. There's B/W, a kind of lomo filter, and one with a vintage, reddish hue. You can switch between these by tapping on the numbers on the shutter button. The actual order is lomo, red vintage (not sure what it would be called), and B/W. Before snapping a pic, make sure the flash settings are what you want, then capture the image with the big blue shutter button.
Now, the reason this app is called Fusioncam is because you can merge two photos together to create a unique image. After you have an image taken, if the multi-exposure toggle is on (it will display "2"), a ghost image of the previous photo will appear in the viewfinder for you to use to align the next shot. After the next shot is taken and "fused" together, it will show up in the Gallery, along with the first original photo.
You can view the images you take with Fusioncam by hitting the small toggle at the bottom labeled "Camera...Gallery." Your images will be displayed like photo strips, and you can scroll between all your images by swiping up or down. As you view an image on the strip, you can save to the device Camera Roll by tapping the Develop button. You can also send the photo to the Steply network by hitting Share. A single photo can be deleted or all of them can be deleted using the appropriate buttons.
If you tap on the gear button, this will take you into the app settings. Currently, the settings are very basic and bare-boned, only allowing you to change the photo size (Maximum, Optimized, and Efficient). It will also have a little ad for the Steply family of photography apps for your iPhone. A help overlay can be easily accessed by tapping the "?" button that is always displayed in the lower right corner.
Unfortunately, like with apps such as Hipstamatic, you can only apply the filters on new photos that you take with the camera. There's no support for importing photos to the app to tweak. Of course, that would defeat the purpose of a toy camera app, right?
There also is no support for tap-to-focus when taking a new picture, so you'll have to just hope the image focuses correctly (though the iPhone usually does this pretty well).
My major issue is how the app processes photos. I like my photos to be highest resolution output, so I understand that it will take a while to develop. However, my gripe is that while it is processing, you cannot take another photo. You will have to watch the lights that the app displays as it is processing a photo. At least with an app like Hipstamatic, processing is done in the background so you can continue to shoot photographs.
I managed to grab Fusioncam when it was free on the first day of release. Since then, the price has gone up to $1.99. I think the fun with this one is how you can fuse two shots together to create something unique. If that's the kind of thing that floats your boat, then the app is worth the $2. I just hope to see background processing, as it would make the app much more usable.
