NightCap Free is the free (or 'lite') version of NightCap, a powerful camera app designed for 24 hour use: it uses longer exposure times than other apps to let you shoot in low lightas well as daylight.
The differences between the Free and full versions of NightCap are:
The free version is ad supported
The free version is limited to 640x480 (0.3 megapixels). The full version supports the maximum quality of your device - up to 8 megapixels on the iPhone 4S
Photos taken with the free version are watermarked
Give NightCap a try, see what it's capable of. When you're ready, you can purchase the full version on the app store (there's an Upgrade button in the settings menu that will take you straight there).
The focus area is now movable - just tap where you want it.
An issue that prevented NightCap from using long exposure mode on iOS 5.0.1 has been fixed.
Auto-sleep is now disabled.
Lots of minor fixes and improvements!
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Tap to change Flash mode - Off (no flash), On (always use flash) or Auto (use flash automatically)
Tap to switch between Front and Rear cameras (not available on devices with only 1 camera)
This is the focus area. To move it, just tap where you want it to go. The camera will automatically adjust exposure and focus for the object inside this area. The color indicates current focus: Green means the camera is focused, Red means it's currently refocusing, White means focus is locked.
These numbers indicate exposure and ISO. Exposure is the shutter speed - in this case 1/20th of a second. ISO indicates the sensitivity of the camera - the camera increases ISO automatically in low light to increase brightness, but at high levels this produces grainy images.
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Opens the Photo Review screen. A thumbnail of the last photo will appear once you've taken one. |
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Opens the settings screen. Tap again to close. |
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Tap to lock whitebalance, tap again to unlock. Whitebalance determines how warm or cool the colours appear in the image, and is continuously monitored while not locked. |
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Tap to lock exposure, tap again to unlock. Exposure controls the brightness of the image. |
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Tap to lock focus, tap again to unlock. |
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The shutter button. Tap to shoot. This button will change to a timer button if you have self-timer mode active. |
'Help' opens this screen, 'Rate App' takes you to the app store to rate or review NightCap (please do!), 'Support' opens an email addressed to Interealtime. If you have any issues with the app or any suggestions or feature requests please get in touch!
Turns the 3x3 grid overlay on or off in the camera view. The grid is useful to aid composition.
Geo-tagging simply means attaching your location to the photo. This allows you to see the place it was taken on a map later. Turn it off if you don't want people to know where the photo was taken.
Volume shutter allows you to take photos using the Volume + button on the side of your device.
Manual exposure lets you set the exposure (or shutter speed) manually. It works best in low light.
Please note that the iPhone camera control system will automatically override this setting if the image is over-exposed. If you want to over-expose, you must first point the camera at a dark area (or cover the lens). Once the camera has returned to manual exposure (check the on-screen exposure indicator), lock exposure.
The manual exposure control. Slide to the right for longer exposures, left for shorter. The available range of exposure times will depend on the device and camera.
Enables self timer mode. Self timer adds a delay between pressing the shutter button and the photo being taken. Use it to avoid vibration when taking long exposure shots, or if you want to appear in your own photo.
This sets the duration of the self timer.
This lets you review your photos. Pinch to zoom in and out, and swipe left or right to view more photos. Tap the camera button to return to the camera.
NightCap requires Location Services access for two reasons:
1. iOS only allows access to your Camera Roll if you allow Location Services access. This is because your photos might be geo-tagged, and therefore contain information about your previous location.
Without Location Services access the Photo Review feature will therefore not work.
2. Geo-tagging photos naturally requires access to your current location.
These are the only things your location information is used for - the app does not perform any tracking, it does not report your location to anyone, and does not access any of your private data or location information except to perform these two tasks.
If you've denied access to Location Services for Nightcap the Photo Review feature and Geo-tagging will be disabled. You'll need to allow Location Services access to enable them again. To do so:
1. Close NightCap
2. Open the Settings app
3. Open the Location Services section
4. Scroll down to NightCap and set the switch to On