About a month ago I finally got a smartphone! Since I am a tightass and I am careless with my telecommunication devices, I got the HTC Wildfire. It's lucky though as I have already dropped my phone onto the train tracks! Only once though. So far.
Apart from being as excited as freshly percolated coffee about the Wifi and GPS on the phone (I will never get lost again!), I was even more psyched about trying the camera apps. So far I have only tried the free ones - Vignette Demo and Retro Camera. I also have installed Little Photo and Magic Hour demo but have yet to use them.
Of the two I have tried, I prefer Retro Camera, since each of the preset filters try to imitate the aesthetic of a particular type of film camera. I think they do anyway, I don't know enough about film cameras to be sure. Let me know if you know! While on the other hand, Vignette Demo lets you adjust the settings and filters until you are happy with the results. For me the photos end up looking a little unclear and over edited, but it probably is just a user problem and I like the flexibility and control you get with tweaking photos.
Sadly there is no Instagram for non iPhone phones.
This one was taken with the Vignette Demo camera of my much loved coffee press. I added vignetting and a blue filter for extra funzies.
These two pictures below are of a collaged shoebox and were taken with the Retro Camera using the Bärbl camera filter with the flash on. The colours are less saturated and are cooler than in real life. There's also some vignetting business going on around the edges. Overall the photos look OK (they looked better on the phone's small and crap resolution screen) but don't mimic the softness of film as the photos still look sharp.
These marshmallow lollies were addictive, they are matcha flavoured and have a matcha paste centre. Luckily they are on the pricier side otherwise I would be eating these all the time. The photos below were taken with...you guessed it, the Polaroid filter. As you can see, they are way too sharp to look anything like actual polaroid photos plus the colours are too saturated and 'correct'. Also the scratchy bits look fake.
This New Zealand brand of chocolate also have really cool flavours like kiwi and cocoa nibs which unfortunately aren't sold in the supermarkets except at the IGA in Market City (this is the only place I know of, this is in Sydney by the way). I also really like the toasted coconut and milk chocolate flavour. This photo was also taken with polaroid filter... I think it was a different one. My finger was probably covering a little of the lens hence the flesh coloured blur on the left.
While I have yet to find an app that I like as much as my film camera, I am still impressed with what you can do with a camera phone these days. The search continues.