13 Best Free and Paid iPhone Camera Apps to Use (2023)

iPhone has established a name in the market, particularly for having one of the best quality cameras.

Many people are keen to purchase an iPhone solely for the camera benefits. While this may sound foolish, it’s not the worst decision for a person whose primary focus is having a phone that can take good-quality photos and videos.

A professional DSLR camera 📷 might provide way better camera results. Still, there’s no better feeling than having a phone with a good camera that fits inside your pocket, so you can take this high-quality iPhone camera wherever you go to capture beautiful moments.

The default camera app that comes with the iPhone is incredible already. However, if you wish to take things to the next level, you might want to check out these fantastic camera apps that you can install immediately.

It’ll allow you to harness your iPhone camera’s power and achieve a much better result. If that sounds interesting, let’s jump straight into it.

Halide Mark II – Pro Camera

I couldn’t wait until the middle of the list to mention this phenomenal camera app called Halide Mark II. It is a free app and offers the most comprehensive set of features and controls across all iPhone camera apps that are out there.

It has many powerful features that satisfy users of any level. Features like focus peaking, histogram, and depth mode make it one of the most desirable camera apps on the app store.

It has gesture-based controls that allow you to operate the app using only one hand. For example, a swipe-up or down gesture would adjust the picture’s exposure.

The layout and interface are very user-friendly, and most importantly, it is an app that is private by design. It has zero trackers and does not share or collect any of your information to prevent data misuse.

Adobe Lightroom

Any software released by Adobe has a reputation for being great, and it’s no different for Lightroom. It’s one of the leading editing tools for the computer, and it also has an app that you can download for free on your iPhone.

Depending upon your requirement, you can make swift edits, such as adjusting shadows, highlights, and contrast and adding filters.

Their camera function has extensive features like manual exposure, focus control, RAW capture, and many presets.

Camera+

Camera+ is a free app that lets you capture moments with UltraRes and enhance every detail. It’s great for personal and professional purposes because the features cater to all levels of users.

It has a camera function and a section for editing your photos to get the best of both worlds under one app. Their camera allows you to capture in RAW with a stabilizer and select shutter speed as needed.

VSCO

A popular camera app among Instagram users, VSCO is excellent for editing and photography. It has a vast collection of presets, including some of the most visually-aesthetic ones that attempt to look similar to styles like Kodak and Agfa.

Their camera gives you complete manual control over the exposure settings to capture beautiful shots. It also supports video recording, looping videos, and double exposure.

Darkroom

Users can enjoy a beginner-friendly layout on Darkroom and a wide range of post-capture editing capabilities.

The name might ring a bell because it seems like a product from Adobe, but it’s not. It supports a little cleaner interface compared to Lightroom, and everything is laid out in a very easy-to-understand manner.

The editing features of this free app are powered by AI and have options like batch editing, portrait mode adjustments, content-aware frame, etc.

You’re also allowed to create your own presets, which is a pretty cool feature if you are very specific about what you like.

RAW+

A very minimalistic camera app that pushes your iPhone camera to produce DSLR-like photos, RAW+ has to be on your list if you’re a professional photographer or planning to become one.

This free app supports RAW and ProRAW formats and has some fantastic features, such as:

• On-screen shutter and ISO controls
• Manual exposure settings
• Shooting in JPG (optional)
• 8 different white balance presets
• Overlays of grid and level

You can toggle each setting as per your liking right from the settings menu.

Focos

With a large aperture and a real bokeh effect, Focos is another brilliant free camera app you can use on your iPhone. This app’s capturing and editing possibilities are almost endless while remaining intuitive and easy to use.

Some of the many features of Focos include:

• Add multiple lights in the 3D space
• Automatic calculation of the depth of field by AI
• Import existing photos and customize the bokeh effects on them
• Use augmented reality (AR) to check the portrait picture in the real world

Additional features are more robust, such as the ability to accurately patch the depth map on an iPad using an Apple Pencil.

FiLMiC Firstlight

From the makers of the incredible FiLMiC pro cinema video camera, FiLMiC Firstlight offers an advanced front-end camera experience that is incredible to the eye. This was made possible by combining adaptive film grain, custom film simulations, and live analytics.

This app is designed only for serious photographers, so the features might not be as simple for people who’re not very much into professional photography.

It has a bunch of cool features that are hard to ignore, such as:

• Manual exposure
• Shutter and ISO priority
• Histograms
• Gridlines

A very impressive feature of Firstlight is that it uses ISO Adaptive mode instead of soft-light composite to ensure the photos appear much better by converting digital noise to variable-density grain.

ProCamera

You get a high degree of manual control on different settings with ProCamera. This app is excellent for anyone with a combined interest in photography + editing because it does both jobs well.

It has a whole editing suite that supports portrait mode as well, and for capturing, it supports ProRAW for the best possible outcome.

ProCamera integrates with Adobe, which allows you to send photos directly to your CreatiArtist’s storage.

Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder

Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder is a great camera accessory that allows you to visualize what you will shoot without setting up the camera.

It’s a photography tool that works as a viewfinder emulator to help videographers and cinematographers with various things, such as pre-visualizing shots, framing precisely, and scouting locations 📍 seamlessly.

It has an amazing collection of virtual cameras and lenses that you can choose from. It’s important to note that this app will give you the best results if your iPhone supports both standard and ultra-wide lenses.

Slow Shutter Cam

Slow Shutter Cam fulfills the purpose of capturing photos that are taken in slow shutter mode, and it’s always been a great photography trick. This app makes it easy to do it from your phone, and you can further enhance it by editing it and adding unique effects.

Motion blur, light trail, and low light are three major capabilities of a DSLR, and guess what? This app has all three of them; you can use it from your iPhone.

Among many other features, it allows you to set a self-timer and sync the app with your Apple Watch.

The Photographer’s Ephemeris

Like Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder, The Photographer’s Ephemeris work is similar. It helps you plan better for your next shoot by showing you accurately where the natural light source will come from, how to align your shots, the best locations, etc.

This camera app is a map-centric sun, moon, and milky way calculator that works for any geographic location on Earth.

The fact that it’s filled with so many features makes it a little hard to mention everything here, but here are some of the excellent capabilities of this app:

• Length of shadow displayed to scale
• Golden hour time and location
• Light pollution overlay
• Elevation above sea level
• Phase of the moon and its illumination percentage
• Number of celestial events to be aware of

Also, there are two different offline map 🗺️ types that you can use without having access to your internet connection.

Obscura 3

A camera app with incredible design and intuitive controls, Obscura 3 is the better version of its past rollouts, and this one covers a lot of grounds.

It has five camera modes you can select based on your requirement. Those are:

• Photo: For quick snaps when you want
• Pro Photo: For when you need extra controls to adjust according to the surrounding
• Depth: Suitable for portraits
• Live Photo: When you want to ditch the stills and capture live photos
• Video: Great for videography with pro controls

Obscura 3 allows you to adjust exposure, change the focus mode, add white balance, and select shutter speed. It supports many photo and video formats, and you can use presets/filters while editing.

Conclusion

As a customer of the iPhone, it’s ideal if you can test the real power of the app’s features and functionalities mentioned above on your phone to get good-quality photos and videos.

Next, learn how to manage your photos when you have many of them.