The other two prominent open source camera apps are Fossify Camera and PhotonCamera. Fossify Camera does not support multiple lenses yet. PhotonCamera is nice because it does image processing and handles my camera lenses correctly but its UX is janky (on my device, with default settings, taking a photo takes 7-8 seconds and quitting the app before the process is complete loses the image), it's not on F-Droid and it doesn't automatically switch between lenses with zoom changes. There's also FreeDcam but I'm not a professional photographer and I'm certainly not going to buy a color calibration reference card that costs more than a hundred dollars.
It sucks that on my phone with /e/OS, instead of using a FOSS camera app, I resort to using Pixel's camera app with internet permission disabled to be able to take advantage of my hardware.
This post is talking about open source, and very little in the Apple ecosystem qualifies.
It's really unbeatable from a photographer / artist perspective, especially because I care a lot about imperfect gritty noisy looks and full control.
But yes, I am a photograper and always take raw photos with my DSLR.
Also I think this is overkill? "The following files are used in Open Camera"
https://files.catbox.moe/ukxte8.png
I do have to wonder if this is a net negative. At least for me, it significantly reduces trust and respect for the website and developer, while I can't imagine the traffic produces any meaningful revenue?
Edit: Just realized it's the same ad 4 times, haha. (I think the 5th one, offscreen, was the same too.)
https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/p/gcam-asus-zenfo...
It's far superior to anything I've seen natively installed on any device. It has a lot of options, which I suspect can be confusing to some, but they're worth familiarizing with.
My favorite feature is the macro, which when coupled with the right UI settings produces photos that when I have printed, result in the person saying "wow! You took that with a phone!?". And I say "yeah. Open Camera. It's great, try it sometime".
Highly recommend.
I havent tried Open Camera in a while, but my conclusion is that the phone's camera app is best.
I see criticism of Open Cam already, but I recommend trying it, with patience, and seeing what it can do. All my art images, all my videos, are all taken with open camera.
Edit: for the macro setting, it allows fine tuning, but the manual focus and manual zoom functions are superb for my purposes.
Edit2: Maybe irrelevant, but I always disable the stock camera and anything camera related. Not sure if that helps, but I know I don't want any fucking thing to do with shitware, so go as nuclear as possible.
Edit: one feature I'm fond of, when posting images on the Internet, is disabling exif data. I don't always want to put my coordinates on the Internet.
Its the same way that the Pinephone is "usable" but really, it sucks.
Randomly, I wish more UI/UX designers contribute to open source.
Like, literally just add a photo of the app to your landing page. It's not rocket science.
Heh, I still remember a time in the internet where apps had a dedicated "screenshots" page.
That was presumably a best practice when people were still on 56kbps dialup, and downloading images was expensive.
Many telcos in the world don't even support 3G anymore.
As a rule, if you, a non-UI designer, are bothered by it, then it doesn't take a UI designer to fix it.
Dunno how popular/successful/active it is, tho.
Many do make horrible UI, but would react poorly to criticism, hard to know before ..
Just look at the monstruosity that is the GUI version of wget, it's the epitome of programmers with no UX background trying to make a GUI application.
I've found OpenCam to be useful because of the various optional features ( onionskin, levelmeter, locking settings ). You can also set the bitrate/size/duration of videos, etc. Lots of useful stuff.
Did you switch to Camera2 API in settings>Camera Api ?
And the Long Exposure was the primary thing I wanted it to work for.
Quality looked amazing, but the pre-installed phone camera gets close enough and it's instant.
Source: I have a Samsung phone. Any software trying to take slow-motion video glitches out. The camera also tends to make the phone overheat.
I had a one-time purchase to Halide, but it somehow stopped working in early 2025 because Halide support claimed that the app's feature unlock (used to be one-time upfront purchase, now IAP) only works if I'm logged into the App Store account I purchased it from.
*Please note: Halide is not free. We do offer a 7-day free trial for annual memberships. Don't like subscriptions? You can also buy the app outright with a single in-app purchase.*
Is that what you did?
