8mm Vintage Camera – iPhone App of the Week
This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone and iPad Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive.
This week’s App is 8mm Vintage Camera.
Shoot old-fashioned 8mm movies in real time.
8mm Vintage Camera brings your iPhone and iPod Touch back in time to capture the beauty and magic of old school vintage movies. By mixing and matching films and lenses, you can recreate the atmosphere of those bygone eras with 25 timeless retro looks. Dust & scratches, retro colors, flickering, light leaks, frame jitters – all can be instantly added with a single tap or swipe.
£1.19
This is a lovely little application that allows you to use the usually excellent iPhone camera and rather than shoot clear 720p HD video, you can shoot film as though the iPhone was using 8mm film stock.
This short montage, shot from a mount in my car, of the M5 shows the different styles that you can get by using the app.
Now video purists would argue that what you should do is shoot in 720p and then use a video application on your computer to add the effect so if required you can always go back to the original footage. Now there is some merit in that argument, but personally if I was doing that I probably wouldn’t shoot the video with an iPhone and would use a “proper” HD camcorder. This app is about creating an aged film look to a video quickly, immediately and without worrying about finding a computer.
After starting the app you can change the lense, change the film type to various different types, add frame jitter and then press the red button to record.
It’s nice that the above help screen is included in the app. The video is saved to the app, you can then either save the video to your camera roll (to import into your computer later), e-mail the video (for example to Posterous) or upload to YouTube.
I was quite pleased with the effect and it is a quick and easy app to use.
This app has a lot of potential for practitioners who may want to “pretend” that they are in the 1970s or the 1920s to enhance a lesson, video or presentation.
