The Olympics kick off tomorrow with an opening ceremony that’s been put together by feted movie director Danny Boyle and will no doubt prove spectacular. Once that’s out of the way we can look forward to two weeks of top sporting action with the best athletes in the world competing head to head. To get you in the mood we’re running our Appylmpics – roundups of the best apps for making the most of the Olympics. Today we’re awarding medals for the best camera apps. Who makes the podium? Read on to find out.
Medal: Gold
Photosynth
Price: Free
Platforms iOS, Windows Phone
If you want to capture the really big picture, then Photosynth is for you. It’s a product of Microsoft’s Live Labs that allows you to take multiple pictures and then stitch them together into a panorama. That may not sound all that special – after all there are loads of panorama stitching apps around. However, the clever bit is that Photosynth doesn’t just allow you to shoot left to right, you can also shoot up and down. In fact, it allows you to create complete a panorama that actually captures a full sphere around you. Try it and we guarantee you’ll be sold on it.
Medal: Silver
Instagram
Price: Free
Platforms: iOS, Android
Up until earlier this year few would have believed that the path to riches lay in making new photographs look like old ones, but that’s exactly what Instagram proved when it was bought by Facebook for $1billion in a mixture of cash and stock. Instagram is very straight forward. You just use the app to snap your photo, then apply some cool vintage filters to it and upload it to the Instagram network for the world to ogle your handiwork. Still, there’s no doubting that the app and its associated photo sharing service are fun to use and allow you to produce some great looking photos.
Medal: Bronze
Camera ZOOM FX
Price: £1.79
Platforms: Android
If the stock camera app for your Android phone just isn’t cutting it for you, then you could do a lot worse than try out this alternative. It places a range of handy controls, including autofocus, night shot, stable shot and timer modes at your finger tips and also gives you live previews of the various built-in effects, so you can see how they look before committing to using them. Effects can also be combined in order to create more layered and interesting results. The user interface is also clean and fresh, which helps make the app very user friendly.
Tune in tomorrow for our pick of the best Olympics news and results apps.
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We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
