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Camera HD – Widescreen Photos is another excellent app from developer George Talusan. Like his other apps, it brings unique functionality to the iPhone. All this app does is crop your image to one of many selectable, preset aspect ratios, and does so quickly and easily. In the prefs, you select from 20 different aspect ratios, including 16:9 Widescreen HD, 1.85:1 American Theater, and 2.59:1 Cinerama. It’s actually been released for a while, but with the many other apps that have been released, good and bad, I think this one has fallen under the radar. This is a worthy app that deserves a second look.

It’s a simple camera. Other than in-camera cropping, Camera HD doesn’t offer any additonal features to Apple’s Camera. It’s stable — I’ve never had a crash — and saves to your camera roll fairly quickly.

When I photograph, some images just don’t seem to fit the standard iPhone aspect ratio of 4:3. Camera HD is a quick way to help compose an image for a wide (or stubby) frame. While I could use another app to crop the image after shooting, either on my iPhone or in Photoshop, I prefer to compose in-camera and see how my image will look as I’m shooting it. For me, it’s easier and helps produce better results.


"Carriage Ride in Central Park"
Shot using Camera HD and the 2:1 SuperScope aspect ratio. Click image to enlarge.

I use the app to shoot wide, landscape images. Camera HD orients your images correctly whether you shoot landscape or portrait. It supports 1600 pixels wide on my 2G iPhone. I don’t know if it supports the greater resolution of the 3GS.

It doesn’t enhance resolution like George Talusan’s other app, the excellent Camera XL, so expect this app to shave off some pixels from your image. An anti-shake feature would be a nice addition in a future update. Integrating the resolution enhancement from Camera XL would be a great addition as well.

You can use the app to create stills that match the aspect ratio of a video presentation. You can also take pictures that fill the screen of a digital frame.

Camera HD a simple app that does what it does well. Worth the dollar. I use it often.