Night Camera – I think the iPhone’s built-in camera is pretty good, as far as cellphone cameras go. The one thing it, and probably every other cellphone camera, has a problem with, is taking pictures in low light.

Sudobility’s Night Camera aims to make pictures taken in low light better.

Launch the app, hold the camera steady, snap and save. Night Camera uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to detect when the camera is stable. A steady hand, or better yet a tripod, is the key factor in taking clear pictures in low light. As long as you’re steady, the camera will be ready.

With Night Camera you have the option of triggering the shutter yourself or have the camera do it. You can set a countdown delay of 1 to 5 seconds to allow yourself sufficient time to steady the camera. You’ll see the numbers count down, followed by a camera icon, which signals the camera is about to trigger.

Whether you or the camera decides when to shoot, after the shutter snaps, you’ll get a preview of the image, which you can either trash or save to your camera roll. It takes 8-10 seconds for Night Camera to save a picture in your camera roll, which seems slow to me.

Night Camera pretty much works as advertised. The interface is simple and intuitive.

The thing is, if you already know enough to hold the iPhone steady, especially when the lighting is dim, then you really don’t need this app.

I took pictures with and without Night Camera under different lighting conditions and I did not see much of a difference in letting the app tell me when the camera was steady and using the native camera app. In fact, some pictures without Night Camera seemed to have truer colors and better contrast.

Lastly, some pictures I took using Night Camera still came out blurry even though the app indicated that I was holding the camera steady.

I’d like to thank Henry for his patience during one of my photography sessions. The picture above was taken with Night Camera in my dimly lit home office.

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category: Photography, Worthwhile Apps