Photon Camera 4+

Pretender

You can tell a real camera from the pretenders by the way it controls white balance. A simple warm/cool slider will get you in the general ball park but eye-balling what you see on the screen is not very accurate. Measuring beats eye-balling every time.

White balance is not simply along a warm/cool plane but also requires the green/red fine tuning. That can’t be accomplished by a simple slider. The only way to get a correct white balance is to measure it in the colour of the light falling on the scene, or in the case of indoor lighting, at the subject position with the existing lighting.

To do that you need a neutral white balance reference card and the ability to sample and hold a reading from the white balance card. In other words Custom White Balance, or White Balance Lock.

In addition, since the white balance lock button will be used so often it needs to be always available right on the main screen, and not buried in a menu somewhere. You simply fill the frame with your white balance card, in the light falling on the subject, tap the white balance sample/lock button and you’re good to go. It’s fast and easy. Bulletproof.

Note: a photographic grey card may work as a white balance card (if the manufacturer claims their card is usable as a white balance card) but be aware that grey cards are exposure tools not colour reference tools so they may or may not be correctly neutral throughout the available light spectrum. I have several grey cards and each is a slightly different colour, none of them correctly neutral.

It is much faster and easier to set the correct white balance at the time of shooting than it is to try to figure out what is wrong with the white balance in editing. In fact you may never get it right in editing.

Another thing conspicuously lacking is any HDR exposure controls. Ideally you would want adaptive exposure brackets rather than the simple equal step exposure brackets. HDR is widely used by serious photographers so this represents another serious lack.

This app is supposedly aimed at serious photographers and for that to ring true the app needs to offer the controls used by serious photographers. Or will it remain a pretender? I’ll wait to see how your app develops but for now I’m discontinuing my subscription. And $49.99 for a camera app! Are you serious?

Addition: the app appears to operate in shutter speed priority. When I set the ISO I expect it to stay where I set it and not keep changing. If some automatic exposure is required then ISO priority is the preferred method. The settings need to be easier to control. Left-right arrows would be preferable to the slider. If a slider is the only way then I want to see the numbers on the slider.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for taking the time to leave such detailed feedback! I've taken note of your concerns and forwarded them on to the engineers for review.

Too soon to leave a review!

You asked for a review before I’d started to use Photon. Ask me again in a month or so.

Won’t let you take a photo unless you pay

Could be a decent photo app if it actually worked. It is a scam that doesn’t let you take a photo until you pay a monthly or yearly subscription.

Developer Response ,

Photos can be taken without purchase as long as the manual controls are not used. Hope this clears things up for you!