Toy Camera review

Mark Mackay

We review Toy Camera, a camera effects application for the iPhone

Published on Sep 21, 2009

ToyCamera is a camera effects app made by the people behind www.toycamera.com. This group of photography enthusiasts are of the opinion that photography isn’t about how many megapixels you have under the bonnet or how expensive your lens is, but rather about capturing an image. Pretty tough to argue with that one.

The website is about creating a photo using a ‘really, really crappy camera’. Queue the iPhone. ToyCamera brings a multitude of image filtering effects to the table all of which can be set either on or off prior to taking a photo. You can set effects such as vintage green or yellow hues and adjust the colour saturation levels of a photo. There is also a black and white filter which brings a more artistic quality to your photography. A cropping option adjusts the image resolution from 800 x 600 to a slightly smaller 600 x 600 pixels.

Rather than being a photo editing app, settings must be chosen prior to the snap being taken which means there is often some experimentation involved in getting the effect you’re after. At the bottom of the list of effects there’s a link to some sample pictures which give examples of effects such as ‘Toning Sepia’ which might seem less obvious to the uninitiated.

Sharing your photos is as much a part of the fun of the ToyCamera philosophy as taking them and the application accommodates this comprehensively. In the settings screen the app provides direct links to the ToyCamera group on photo sharing website Flickr where you can view some awesome work from other users. You can also upload your snaps directly to the ToyCamera website or Big Canvas PhotoShare.

When we first downloaded and started playing with toy camera we weren’t convinced that it was much good as a lot of the effects are pretty average. It wasn’t until a visit to the website and we found out that that’s kind of the point that we started to appreciate it.

Toy Camera is about taking a good photo with very limited technology, challenging you to exercise your eye for colour and composition. Visiting the website should also provide you with some inspiration and we’re confident that anyone interested in messing about with cameras will enjoy sharing their snaps there. At just over a quid it’s a cheap way to have some fun with the iPhone’s below par camera.