Spectre Long-Exposure iPhone Camera App Now Free, Ushering in Spectre Pro

[VampyricGentleman]

I'm a self-proclaimed "pretty serious" photographer, I have a Canon 7D MK II and a great lens for it.

The best tool to create art is whatever you have, and whatever you make of it. I have taken some pictures on my iPhone that look as good as or potentially better than what I could capture on my Canon. My Canon, lens and battery grip also collectively weigh 20x as much as my iPhone, doesn't fit in my pocket, and doesn't go everywhere with me.

Equipment / brand snobbery in photography is boring and vapid; don't be one of those people.

This is so true. A long time ago when I was not in as good a financial situation as I am now I owned a Sony Ericsson Xperia X8. I had an old Sony R1 as my main camera. Anyway a friend invited me to a Facebook online camera club which was full of people bragging about how they “only” spent £3000 on a lens. Anyway, they hosted a competition for a winter shot. So I entered something from the X8 (which if memory served cost £85) and won the competition (which was judged on the number of likes) by a country mile. You can imagine the equipment snobs horror when I told them what I used when they were using equipment that could have easily been 30x more expensive and their results were no where near as good.

 

[LlamaLarry]

It may be decent and the non-subscription is awesome, however no serious person uses a phone to create art. If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod, and study how to frame the subjects of your photo shoot.

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

 

[zapmymac]

funny thing, because their other camera app Halide is a sub (with lifetime option available iirc)

Indeed! Which is why I do not use that app, but wanted to offer some bucks for Spectre 😬…nudge nudge

 

[Saturn007]

If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod, and study how to frame the subjects of your photo shoot.

Same applies to photos from an iPhone! If someone wants great photos from an iPhone, they should learn about composition, exposure, lighting, where to stand relative to subjects, etc.

End of the day a picture from a phone camera is better than no photo at all

True, tautologically so! It's a shopworn meme, however, and it doesn’t make the photos art. Nor does it make them good. There's also an exception — people can be so busy with their phones that they don’t live in the moment! We laugh when we see people at golf tournaments holding up their phones when they are standing at a great distance from the golfers — and watching everything through their phone's screen, just to capture photos with tiny distant golfers in them So, sometimes, having no phone or photo, just one's real life experiences and memories, can be better, much better!

Plus, whether the photo is memorable, high quality, or art, depends upon the photographer's skill and the subject as well.

Let's see any iPhone capture a decent photo of a bird's feathers and eyes from 60’ away that is sitting high up in a tree. Or, a fox creeping through a distant underbrush. For that, a “real” camera, with a good zoom (say 20x), and a tripod will serve the photographer much better!

 

[EllZ89]

Never heard of this app.

Anyone got any thoughts on it? One video i watched mentions light trails arent smooth lines and more dots. Also doesnt fully get rid of people. This was a review from 4 years ago though!

its an app, not a hitman!

 

[lazyrighteye]

High-freaking-five to the one-time fee strategy. I can’t count the number of apps in which I’ve been interested, that, be anuse of their subscription model, we’re DOA, for me. Very few apps offer a service, experience, or frequent enough of an update cadence to warrant a subscription. A one-time $5 from 1 million users seems a better strategy than $0 from 1 million users. 🤪😂

That said, just downloaded. Some tests pending, a Pro version looks likely.

 

[robertmorris2]

It may be decent and the non-subscription is awesome, however no serious person uses a phone to create art. If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod, and study how to frame the subjects of your photo shoot.

I’m a regular guy and am not a serious user but just likes to take a photo when it presents itself. An app that steps up the quality and user experience is what I need. I’m no camera geek or computer geek, I just want things to work well.

 

[OneBar]

It may be decent and the non-subscription is awesome, however no serious person uses a phone to create art. If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod, and study how to frame the subjects of your photo shoot.

I could post 2 images right now, 1 from my iPhone 11PM and 1 from my Pentax K70 and you'd not be able to tell me which was shot on which. A serious artist looks for things to limit their toolbag and exercise their creativity. Such as only shooting with a single lens, shooting with a point and shoot (which I used for my Photography class in university), or shooting with a phone camera. Using an actual camera doesn't make a person more artistic.

 

[Mousse]

For those unfamiliar with Spectre, the app uses a computational shutter to take hundreds of photos over the course of a few seconds to create an up to 3-second long exposure.

Noice. That eliminates a lot of issues inherent in long exposure shots.

Because it's taking hundreds of images instead of one continuous shot, users can hold their phone while taking long exposure images with Spectre, no tripod necessary.

This is one. Over exposure is a problem solved with this method. No need for a ND filter for long exposure in broad daylight.

In the end, it's another tool/technique to add to the arsenal. You can never have too many tools (usually) or too many techniques (maybe).

 

[BGPL]

It's worth it just to have the PRO icon.

 

[Mousse]

I could post 2 images right now, 1 from my iPhone 11PM and 1 from my Pentax K70 and you'd not be able to tell me which was shot on which.

If they're full rez images--not tiny resampled for the web pics--any photographer worth is salt could tell easily. We know the telltale signs of a tiny sensor: high noise or heavy noise reduction, limited bokeh, heavy handed processing (if saved as JPEG), smoothness in the color.

The average Joe wouldn't be able to tell😕, wouldn't care.🥺

 

[Porco]

Will download and probably unlock the Pro version.

I just love seeing the magic words:

“Data Not Collected

The developer does not collect any data from this app.”

Unfortunately far too rare.

 

[Cheesehead Dave]

It may be decent and the non-subscription is awesome, however no serious person uses a phone to create art. If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod, and study how to frame the subjects of your photo shoot.

"No serious person uses a camera to create art. If you want art, go get a canvas, some paint, and study how to frame the subjects of your painting."

"No serious person uses paint to create art. If you want art, go get a block of marble, a chisel, and study how to frame the subjects of your statue."

"No serious person uses sculpture to create art. If you want art, go get a bird feather, some smashed up berries, and study how to frame the subjects of your cave painting."

 

[Ch3ckM4te]

It may be decent and the non-subscription is awesome, however no serious person uses a phone to create art. If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod, and study how to frame the subjects of your photo shoot.

This is like saying drawing, sculpting and carving isn’t real art, if you want to produce real art, you have to but an easel, canvases, paint and brushes.

This is the way… 🙄

 

[ZZ9pluralZalpha]

I'm a self-proclaimed "pretty serious" photographer, I have a Canon 7D MK II and a great lens for it.

The best tool to create art is whatever you have, and whatever you make of it. I have taken some pictures on my iPhone that look as good as or potentially better than what I could capture on my Canon. My Canon, lens and battery grip also collectively weigh 20x as much as my iPhone, doesn't fit in my pocket, and doesn't go everywhere with me.

Equipment / brand snobbery in photography is boring and vapid; don't be one of those people.

Well of course an APS-C user would say that…

(I’m joking. I agree with you completely—my Canon takes great pictures, or at least it would if it weren’t used by an idiot, but is rarely present when those great pictures happen because it basically requires its own backpack.)

 

[wigby]

It may be decent and the non-subscription is awesome, however no serious person uses a phone to create art. If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod, and study how to frame the subjects of your photo shoot.

Every once in a while, someone types something so ignorant, so clueless that one can only assume they are feeling a little lonely and just wanted some interactions, good or bad. Have a good day.

 

[CookItOff]

Here we go boys! If you thought everyone going to subscription models was bad, here comes the era of separating features into a separate App and charging you a subscription for each. Long exposure should be in the Halide camera app by default.

 

[jennyp]

Because you are running beta software.....

I'm running 16 and it also wants full access. I don't trust that tbh

 

[gijsmans]

Isn’t long expose just part of the Apple camera app?

 

[ethanwa79]

It may be decent and the non-subscription is awesome, however no serious person uses a phone to create art. If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod, and study how to frame the subjects of your photo shoot.

This is a terribly entitled and ignorant comment.

 

[LockOn2B]

no serious person uses a phone to create art. If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod,

No serious person uses an image sensor to create art. If you want art, go get a real daguerreo camera + wet plate and study how to keep your subject still for a whole minute.

 

[TheKerremenke]

Already used the non pro app Spectre since it’s first release. Payed for it right away. Some times for ghosting people (so the are not any more on the photo). But also for long exposure shots. Always fun to make. See below for an example made during last holiday.

Is it perfect? No. But still fun for me. And that’s what counts to me.

 

[IconDRT]

No serious artists hang out in tech forums. And for the record, I carry a hammer and chisel everywhere I go, always ready to capture the moment. No subscriptions necessary.

 

[cnnyy20p]

It may be decent and the non-subscription is awesome, however no serious person uses a phone to create art. If you want art, go get a real camera, a tripod, and study how to frame the subjects of your photo shoot.

Here, you can check my gallery thread from some time time ago. These were taken with iPhone 4s.

 

[IconDRT]

Here, you can check my gallery thread from some time time ago. These were taken with iPhone 4s.

Nice. I like the pier photo.