A couple of days ago, Twitter user and RF contributor @istopmotion was kind enough to give me a promo code for Takayuki Fukatsu’s QuadCamera. Following the theme of releasing photo filter applications, this release allows you to take four photos, as one ..

Overview
Takayuki Fukatsu is by no means new to the store, having 8 applications already published, including; Old Camera [App Store], Sepia Camera [App Store], Durer Grid [App Store], Random Pose [App Store], Toy Camera [App Store], Clock01 – Simple [App Store] and finally Liquid Pics [App Store] which we profiled back in late Oct 08 ..

So, How does the latest edition ‘Quad Camera’ from Fukatsu fair?
Well lets take a look .. Entering into the app, the main body of screen will be filled by the viewing window of your iPhone’s camera. QuadCamera is a simple yet polished app which allows you to take a ‘Quad’ shot of photos, and display them as one photo. There’s nothing much to the app, UI wise, but then again I could say that about all Fukatsu’s current published titles.

He or she seems to focus more on simplicity while delivering on functionality, rather than clogging the screen up with gazillions of buttons and switches, and having to read through a 16 page manual to understand what’s going on (and yes, I’m looking at you Kineo [App Store]). Altogether, the app takes about 10 seconds from hitting the capture button, to displaying the photo. After taking and viewing your photo, if you want to return to the app, touching the screen once will bring up the camera.

Ok, But where do all my photos go, once I’ve taken them? Well, each time you do take a photo, it’s stored automatically in Photos.app .. no action required by you.

One thing you are going to want to see is the quality of photo it produces, right? Well I’m impressed. Fukatsu has managed to upscale the photo output, keeping the quality loss to minimal/none. If you’d like to see it for yourself you can see a photo, in the full resolution (1201 x 801 px) that QuadCamera outputted here, and another example (1600 x 267 px) here ..

Settings
Entering the settings menu is easy, just hit the icon in the bottom right. In here you have a multitude of options available to you, including; setting a delay of a photo (if any), the layout and position of your resulting photos (2 x 2, 4 x 1, 4 x 2 or 8 x 1), whether you wish your photos to be colour or greyscale and if you want the app to display the resulting photo after taking them multiple shots, or if you want it to skip that part. once your done in settings, hitting the ‘Update’ will apply your changes.

There’s more .. hitting the little ‘i’ icon on the bottom left of the settings pop-up menu will bring up further options, including; Review This (links out to iTunes), Support site, Flickr Group (links out to Flickr Group for QuadCamera) and ‘Email Developers.

Overall
I found myself playing around with the app last night, and got some pretty cool results. It’s different to taking a picture in Camera.app. QuadCamera (as well as all of Fukatsu’s other camera titles) do something to the photo(s) to make them somehow look professional.

I think currently they add shadowing, raise the exposure and raise the contrast levels of each photo taken, but maybe a photographer could test it out and give us their opinion? I’ve tried A LOT of camera applications since the AppStore’s launch, and I have to say, compared to others I’ve tried before it, I like QuadCamera.

It costs £1.19, it’s polished, has the simplest of UI’s, and it provides medium resolution photos which are actually usable on importing them into something like iPhoto. You won’t get graininess with QuadCamera, that’s for sure.

Current Status: Highly recommended

Reviewed at: v1.10
Reviewed on Firmware: 2.2
Download size: 1.5MB
Released on: 23rd Jan 2009
Retails for: £1.19/$1.99

Compatible with: iPhone Classic / iPhone 3G