THE WINNER FiLMiC Firstlight
Combines ease of use with raw shooting power
Essential tools are active in Firstlight, so you can easily achieve accurate exposure and focus
Jo says…
You can do so much with Adobe Lightroom but it’s costly in comparison to the others on test here, and I feel it has a steep learning curve. Firstlight is an excellent choice, although Camera+ 2 is also a really good alternative for £3.99.
Experienced photographers capture uncompressed Raw files for more info about colours and tones. They’ll tweak exposure, and develop their Raw file in a separate app such as Photoshop.
FiLMiC Firstlight lacks many of the bells and whistles featured in the other apps but it has the essential manual controls required to capture a well-exposed Raw shot, just like a DSLR. While more feature-packed camera apps require multiple screen taps to rummage around in sub-menus, these essential tools are active by default in Firstlight, so you can achieve accurate exposure and focus in a few swipes and not miss an opportunity. You can increase shutter speed from the main screen to capture fast moving subjects or switch between lenses in two taps. Firstlight’s burst mode behaves like a standard DSLR, saving a series of separate photos that you can easily access. If you want to get creative on a shoot, you can emulate a range of analogue film stocks to produce retro camera looks. Although a little pricier than the other one-off payment apps on test, Firstlight complements your iPhone’s default Camera app very nicely.