With ClearCam, your iPhone 4 Has 11 Megapixels
By: Hillel Fuld
So I finally made the switch from BlackBerry to iPhone. I had not done it before because each new version of the iPhone that was released was missing one important feature or another whether it was copy/paste, a decent camera (not that the BlackBerry had that), or a video camera, but when the iPhone 4 was announced, I knew it was time.
Orli's Photo- Taken with ClearCam
Of course I am loving the Retina display, the endless apps available for the phone, and the beautiful design of the iPhone 4 but the most amazing thing for me is most definitely the camera/video camera. The pictures and videos this 9.3mm device takes are simply unbelievable. It was clear to me the first time I saw the quality of the iPhone 4 pictures that it meant no more carrying around another camera. Having said that, the 5mp camera on the iPhone still cannot be compared to the professional DSLR or even some of the top Point n’ Shoot cameras on the market.
It is for this reason I was excited when I read a tweet of a friend of mine stating that there is an app called ClearCam that enhances the iPhone’s camera and brings it from 5 megapixels to a whopping 11. Now, I am no photography expert, but that did seem a little strange to me as I was under the impression that a camera’s physical lens is what determines the megapixels. I still do not know if that is accurate or not, but the one thing I do know is that ClearCam is one of the most amazing and magical apps I have ever used.
Here is how it works. ClearCam has two modes; Quick Mode and Enhanced Mode. The way Quick Mode works is that it takes four pictures instead of one and automatically saves the best result to your camera roll. This avoids the annoying phenomenon of taking a picture and only later discovering it was totally out of focus. The Quick Mode is nice but the Enhanced Mode is where the magic happens.
In Enhanced Mode, the app takes six pictures, then saves them all to the Local Queue. You can see all six and choose which one you like best. You can then enhance that picture using some pretty amazing image processing technology. Once you finish doing that, you can save the original and the enhanced photo to your camera roll to view the differences. You will quickly notice the huge improvements both in terms of size, noise, and overall quality produced by the app’s technology. The differences will blow your mind.
Again, I am no professional photographer but the enhanced photos produced by ClearCam looked as professional as any digital picture I have ever seen and clearly better than any picture I have personally taken with a phone, a Point n’ Shoot or even a DSLR. This app blew my mind.
In addition, ClearCam works on all Apple devices with a camera and according to what the developer told me, here are the specs for the different devices:
- iPhone 4: 5 megapixels->11.15 megapixels
- iPhone 3Gs: 3 megapixels-> 6.75 megapixels
- iPhone 3G: 2 megapixels-> 4 megapixels
- iPod Touch: 0.7 megapixels-> 1.4 megapixels
ClearCam is $1.99 in the App Store and in my opinion, it is worth a whole lot more than that. Full diclosure, I connected with the developer on Twitter and he did provide me with a promo code, but had he not, I definitely would have shelled out the $1.99 for this fantastic app.
Would love to hear what you think about ClearCam. Please share your take on it in the comments or reach out to me on Twitter.
