• Diyan
• On February 17, 2015

Review Overview

Our Rating

8.5

85%

Rating

The best camera app after Lumia Camera

Lumia Camera has been probably the best app to capture photos so far. It offers full manual settings, intuitive user interface and cool features like 4k video recording (for some high-end phones). Photo editing options are accessed by clicking on the ellipsis at the bottom and selecting ‘edit’ – then another app called Lumia Creative Studio lets you add effects and filters to the photo you have just taken.

There are many third party photo applications combining photo taking and editing functionalities, but not many of these apps are able to compare with Lumia Camera & Creative Studio in terms of quality and features. One of the very few exceptions in the Store is an application called Camera360 Sight which we will review here briefly, discussing main advantages and features.

Interface and Features

Camera360 Sight is in fact the improved Camera360 Pro Beta, but without the Beta tag. The re-named app officially launched in December. Since then, the app has been updated a number of times with features like HDR, more filters, improved picture quality, and more.

Camera360 Sight loads a bit faster than Lumia Camera on my Lumia 920, which is great. The interface is simple. You can set the shutter timer to 3s or 5 seconds, or tap on the microphone icon to use voice. After focusing and tapping on the main icon you will hear the familiar Cortana sound so you can make a group (or selfie) photo by saying “Cheese” – the app automatically snaps a photo. From the main window you can also switch between front and rear camera, and user filters. Nine Real Time Filters are included and you can see in real time how the photo will look like.

The app description says “Incredible Focus System” and this is true. Continuous Autofocus and Manual focus are both very fast and accurate. After tapping on the screen to focus you can tweak the exposure (+/-), and this is the only manual setting you will find. Photo taking and saving are fast too, in-line or even faster than the Lumia Camera Classic.

The photos are almost identical in quality to those coming from the Lumia Camera app in most lighting conditions. In extreme low-light scenes Lumia Camera outperforms Camera360 and the difference is even more noticeable if you manually adjust the settings.

Photo editing

Once you have captured a photo and opened it for editing you will be surprised how many options are available. You have a quick access to all photos and EXIF information (tap on ‘synopsis’).

You can crop, apply effects and filters, adjust image settings and decorate. The first icon at the bottom (unfortunately, you cannot rotate the image to landscape mode) opens a special window for cropping and rotating the photo. The second menu reveals a variety of effects you can apply – over 60 original filters can be used – they are grouped into categories like Lomo, HDR, Film Flex, Selfie, B&W and more. After selecting a filter you can manually tweak the intensity with a slider.

Another menu (Adjust) gives access to 12 adjustment tools – exposure, contrast, highlight, shadow, saturation, vividness, warmth, hue, blur, sharpness, central, and vignette.

After you have finished editing you can save the photo as a copy, share it over social networks or upload it to the Cloud.

Wrap-up

I found Camera360 Sight to be a really good app for taking and editing photos. It is fast, has an accurate autofocus, and comes with many filters and photo settings so you can enjoy great results. Of course, this app is far from perfect as it misses important features like manual control and ability to edit in landscape mode, but the start is quite promising. The company has announced that the app will be further improved and a Windows 10 version will launch later this year. For now, Camera360 Sight is free and you should definitely try it on your Windows Phone.

Camera360 Sight Download Link