Spectre Camera ⇥ spectre.cam

Interesting new long exposure camera app from the team behind Halide. Sebastiaan de With:

A traditional shutter takes a single photo over a long period of time, collecting light to create a singular final image.

Spectre reimagines long exposures: its intelligent shutter takes hundreds of photos during the exposure time and merges the result. That means you don’t just get a final still image, but also a video of the entire exposure as it happened.

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Long exposures typically requires setting up a tripod and meticulously stabilizing your camera: but don’t fret, Spectre requires no extra equipment. Spectre’s AI stabilizes your shot for you, allowing up to 9-second long handheld long exposures.

I’ve been goofing around with Spectre all day today and, while some of my shots are blurry from camera shake, many have turned out rather well. I’ve had a lot of success simply bracing my phone flat against a vertical surface; if you’re particularly wary of scratching the back of your phone, this isn’t recommended.

The thing I like most about this app is how easy it makes long exposure photography. It has never been particularly difficult — I think it’s one of the first things people try their hand at when they discover how to change their camera’s shutter speed — but Spectre makes it far simpler. You can even do long exposures in bright daylight without mucking around with shutter speed and ISO.

This is one of those apps that, I think, is worth having around even if you use it rarely.