As any fule knows, digital camera image quality has never been purely been about piling on the megapixels, with other factors such as sensor quality, sensor size and the all-important optics all playing a part.
The iPhone comes with a fairly rubbish camera, and there’s no shortage of camera apps promising to improve things for frustrated snappers, like CrowdCafe’s 7.0 Megapixel Camera app.
The app claims to use a ‘unique algorithm’ developed over months to produce superior quality, “smoother, more detailed and overall better looking” pictures from all iPhone models.
There’s a fair smattering of standard features on offer for your 59p, including a countdown mode, time-lapse, ‘instant review and send’ and the ability to snap standard, 5MP or 7MP pictures by tapping anywhere on the screen.
Pixels galore
The real selling point, however, is the claimed ability to upgrade your lowly iPhone into a beefy seven megapixel job.
The website advises that we’d be unlikely to see the differences on the small iPhone screen, so we grabbed a load of shots at both standard 3GS and 7MP resolutions and compared them on our desktop monitors.
The acid test
After opening up both images and viewing them full screen on our 1920 x 1080 LG monitors, out first impression that there was no real difference at all.
In fact, everyone in the office thought that the lower resolution version was marginally better, as it had better overall exposure (the 7MP version seemed slightly overexposed).
We’ve reproduced both test pictures below (reduced to 580px and sharpened in Photoshop).
Taking a closer look
Determined to see if there was actually any point to the app and any validity to the claimed improved performance, we zoomed in closer.
The 7MP app certainly produces bigger files sizes – you can see the difference produces in these 100% crops – but are they any better?
Again, we saw no real improvement, so we tried blowing up the lower res image in Photoshop so it matched the 7MP version.
Surely now we’d see some differences?
Nope. Bugger all. In fact, to our eyes the blown-up smaller photo at the top still looks better than the 7MP app version below.
Determined to give the app a fair go, we tried a series of shots, and each one had the same disappointing results.
Conclusion
Unless there’s an over-riding reason for outputting larger sized files from your iPhone, you’d be better off sticking with the standard camera and saving that 59p for a nice choccie bar.
You’ll get photos every bit as good by using the regular iPhone camera, and if you simply must blow them up larger, there’s loads of on-line services that can do the job for free, like the amazing Photoshop clone, Sumo Paint 2.0.
Ratings
– Interface
– Ease of use
– Value for money
– Overall
I think the standard I-phone picture actually looks slightly clearer!
I tried this as well and had the same results. I couldn’t see any difference at all, even when I blew it up to pixel size on my Mac.
One has to follow the none directions . Take the picture enhance it and send it right from the 7.0 application. It is received in outstanding quality . Looking at it on your phone does nothing. Thank you guys the pictures I have taken are outstanding
ClearCam was recently updated for the iPhone which doubles resolution. As the developer of the app I can assure you it is not a scam. We used advanced image processing techniques to produce 11MP+ images on the iPhone 4 (http://bit.ly/cDrqO5). Check out the latest review:
“Hey all, it now works with the iPhone 4! I measured the megapixels of the enhanced mode an the resolution is 11.5MP! Don’t believe me? Download Danny Goodmans app, PhitoSize and see for yourself, or if that doesn’t satisfy you, upload your pics to google Picasa am it will also reveal 11.5MP!
Only problem: the iphone 4 zoom doesn’t work with this app, and the saving process is a bit long. Thanks for the update! ”
Let us know what you think!
Thanks,
Josh
Thanks for the
mailspam Josh, but increasing the size of a file does not equate to “more resolution.”The user reviews on the App Store don’t look too positive either:
Sorry Mike S – wasn’t meaning to spam the group as much as get the word out on an app I worked really hard on in my spare time. ClearCam is about sharper pics with less noise and I can assure you that it works. I fixed the iPhone 4 issue as soon as I could test it and yesterday ClearCam was the 111th best selling
app in the app store. Here is the latest review from The Unofficial Apple Weblog: http://bit.ly/czBBQG
Thanks,
Josh
So your way of saying sorry for spamming the site with details of an app totally unrelated to the one being reviewed is to post up yet another plug about your own commercial offering and brag about how much it’s selling?
ClearCam is not “totally” unrelated to the app being reviewed. It falls under the same category. Personally, I think its great.
Cheers
BAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The iPhones rubbish CMOS sensor is 5mp. Anything other than the native 5mp resolution is going to take the data from 5 million electron wells and totally fugg it in the butt. Upsampling will never increase the quality of the image because the additional data is based on assumption, not ACTUAL DATA. Buy into the bullsheet if you like, or you could get a panorama stitcher and combine 4 rubbish images into one image, actually based on what is there to be captured in PHYSICAL REALITY not bullsheet land.
Unless someone offers to pull the CMOS sensor out of your phone, or you have to take two separate 5mp photos and wait an age for them to be combined – YOU ARE GOING TO GET A POORER (ha! just when you thought the iphone cam couldnt get any worse ;D) IMAGE!