Halide Mark II - Pro Camera App Reviews

Ecstatically Updated Review!. Update: About a day after leaving my initially unhappy review, an update was released. More than that, though, is that I recurved a response to my review to personally let me know about the update. First: Brilliant customer service that they would reach out to let me know about the update. Second: The update fixed the issue I was experiencing; I now see what all the fuss is about with this app! I submitted my info for help via the app regarding errors I keep getting and got an undeliverable message back so at this point I’m incredibly disappointed with this purchase. The app gets great reviews but when I take a portrait photo, it can’t be recalled because of an error. I’m just gonna get the purchase refunded.

Warning: Major flaw - can lose your photos. This review pertains not to the features and benefits of Halide, which many others have covered. It is a warning about a serious problem. I downloaded the app a month or two ago and use it on an iPhone Xs using up to date software. Three times now I have used it to take photos of important events and at the end of the day discovered that none of the photos were saved to my phone. They just weren’t there and were permanently lost. To clarify - at other times, the app has worked fine. The problem seems to occur intermittently and without warning. The only way to avoid it is to constantly check my photo roll to make sure photos are being saved, which obviously is not practical. I like this app but cannot use it for this reason - It is a fatal flaw. I did contact support about this issue and they were aware that it has been a problem in beta versions of iOS. But I am not running a beta version.

Is it better than stock camera? Value wise… not even close. Is it worthy of 5 stars from anyone on earth? No… absolutely not. Nowhere near perfect. Not even remotely close. Does it have to be nearly perfect to charge what they are charging? No… I don’t believe. At first it was good. With Sandmarc lenses it’s just nice to not have issues and bugs with the constant auto correction and lens shifting irregardless of the settings. But this is just totally messed up at this point. I cannot focus on nearby objects ever when any instance of darkness comes to play. They do not employ good usage / I don’t even know if they employ at all… the best feature of the stock camera … which is night mode and night focus…. So they just got it all wrong. Horrifically wrong. And honestly what I once thought was a perfect camera on my old phone is horrendous on a newer iPhone… 14 and up. Both my fiance and I hate it

Tell me the price upfront.. EDIT: I’m increasing the stars, not because of the app, I never tried it. I still think the pricing is too high for what it is. However, I gave a poor rating because I thought they were hiding the price. Apparently there is a way to see the pricing in the app store that I was unaware of. I increased the stars because I didn’t want to leave a negative review with a false premise. I’m also guessing they have decent customer service. $50 for a lifetime purchase of this is ridiculous. If you just put the pricing out I could have saved the time trying to figure it out. Eventually I downloaded it to get the pricing and deleted immediately after seeing the price. This isn’t even the top rated camera app and the other’s are all under $10.

Why it’s not free??. I opened this app to discover no usability as the trial of whatever semi use settings were no longer available. That’s fine because ac a pro photographer I have many applications available many I pay for and some who have limited use. It’s good to have different user perspectives and other designs available. I will pay full price for any photography processor or camera application that truly enhancers my workflow and experience. This app does none of that and in true Ken Rockwell fashion we need to support daddies who are designers and their growing families. If the only reason you can give me to purchase your app is that your growing family had no other means of support and that this is really great because we have struggled for eight years making it an indispensable product. I’ve seen some very good apps that I bought and used for years and the support and updates slowly dissipated to nothing. Even if I would be willing to pay for this it’s simply too expensive. Now that’s for me others might see this different.

THE BEST PHOTO APP HANDS DOWN. Everything you need that gives you control over the camera that you wish you had, now you do. I’ve deleted all of my other paid and free photo apps. None have the functionality and control nor the display that this app gives you in such a neat and tidy display that just works 100% of the time. Plus the Devs are constantly working on making it better, how I don’t know, but an update comes around every once in a while and it just makes it a little bit sweeter to use. Thank you guys and gals. Even though my iPhone 6 Plus may be old at least my pictures look great. It’s lightweight, but it packs a hell of a punch! I’ve had this since version 1.0.1 and have loved it since day one. I love this app is my favorite photo app!

Customize feature, and more white balance flexibility. Has anyone else had the same problem I have on my iPad pro 11” when going into ‘customize’ on settings? I see how I can move the icons around in order to choose which are visible and which are hidden. The problem is that I cannot get out of that mode. The broken circles and icons keep dancing around. Even when somehow they stop, I can’t get back to the basic camera mode unless I shut down the device and start over. The other thing I wish I could do was have more flexibility with the white balance. My main purpose for using the camera on this device is to photograph my paintings. It seems that the red is off. And when I change white balance to cloudy day, the colors all look the same as in Automatic white bal. The subtle grayish purple hues in a distant mountain, for ex., are being captured as grayish or bluish gray, lacking warmth. Yes I can edit later, only with varying success so far though, on the Photos App. Well, maybe I’ll learn more about editing a raw photo, but I personally would prefer take an accurate picture rather than take a flawed one that needs to be edited later. Halide’s camera is far superior to the Camera App on this iPad, and I’m a brand new user to both. Working my way through the 10 day program and learning a lot, but thought I’d write a review while these things were on my mind. Thank you for reading. A reply would be great!

/respect. Okay, realistically, I’ll probably never use this app. I’m one of those old skool types who needs to see the world through a viewfinder. No screens will suffice (except for post prod). HOWEVER - these guys do it right, IMHO. They tell you right up front that Halide ain’t free, but give you a reasonable subscription cost and a week to see if it’s worth it. Hate subscriptions? (I do) Okay, you can buy it outright (though it IS a bit expensive to do so). Better yet - no data scavenging. Funny how so many people think everything should be free for them. Free healthcare, free education, free music, free movies, free apps. Folks, ain’t NOTHIN free. Somebody, somewhere is paying for it all, and eventually the tab will make its way back around to you in some fashion. Devs need to buy groceries too. When you find one that’s up front about it, offers a quality product and doesn’t try to soak you a week’s pay for it (oh, that’s right… you probably work for free too. My bad.) maybe crack your wallet open just a bit and show them some love.

Amazing!. I’m new to IPhone photography and I have an IPhone XR “yes I know the 12 is out “ but that’s not an option for me right now lol. I poured over review after review on which camera app was best for me as a beginner and was instantly drawn to Halide even though I was Nervous I wouldn’t understand how to use it. I went back-and-forth for about a week and all of a sudden the mark two announcement was made. I took that as a sign since Halide had already been out for a bit. With only a couple days using the app I have to say I feel like it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made on the App Store. The ability have the raw, JPEG and the mixed image is amazing Because it gives beginners the ability to actually see the difference side-by-side. The UI is very clean elegant and calm and very much appreciated by a noob like myself. I’m still in my Trial period but my photos look amazing and I cannot stop taking pictures lol. Super excited to edit some of my raw photos this evening. To all my newbies out there who may be in a position like I was where you want the best quality but you also need it to be cost effective and future proof you will not regret Halide . Ben, Sebastiaan,Rebecca, Thank you for a beautiful product and Cheers to you all.

Good Interface but Buggy. I am on Halide’s trial. I love the interface. I really think that the interface AND the macro mode are the biggest strengths of this app (I’m on an iPhone 14 Pro). I love being able to change formats, choose raw + jpeg right there on the main screen, and I also love to adjust exposure compensation with a swipe up or down. Unfortunately whenever ProRaw is used there’s a bigger delay than what we get on the native iPhone camera. It doesn’t matter if it’s 12 MP or 48 MP, the native camera allows you to shoot back-to-back shots faster, and that’s important for me (as I do a lot of street or documentary photography). Also. The volume up button is supposed to work as shutter release, but it’s buggy and sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. I’ve found auto-focus to be also a problem. It doesn’t auto-recognize faces as the native camera does and will often focus on objects that are closer instead. When in manual mode the controls are a bit confusing, it’s hard to change speed only without messing with ISO… I wish there was a shutter priority mode. Oh… and manual mode doesn’t work on 48 MP captures. I honestly would not mind paying for the subscription if what I mentioned here is fixed - the autofocus problems, the delay between proraw shots, the volume up shutter, a more intuitive manual mode or shutter priority mode. As it is now I think I’ll continue using the native camera.

Issue with Raw files was iOS 13.0. Issue with raw files not being handled properly was an system wide issue with iOS 13.0. It has been fixed on iOS 13.1. All in all I am happy with Halide. Now that I can save photos in both raw and jpeg formats, I have the flexibility of either playing with raw files or use jpeg as it is. Generally the results I get buy editing raw files are superior (better colors.) Darkroom integrates nicely with Halide, I with premium upgrade on darkroom was little cheaper than $10. Anyone with iPhone should have an option for capturing raw files. Until Apple integrates that in built in camera app, Halide is an excellent option. I like its smart raw capture more than other manual camera apps. It doesn’t offer lot of granular controls, but I like it for keeping it simple. ProCam 7 offers more manual camera controls, but it can get little overwhelming. Halide over any other manual camera apps any day.

Highlights completely blown out on iPhone 13. I want to start by saying this is my go-to camera app. I’ve used Halide almost exclusively ever since I first discovered it around two years ago, and have achieved great results with it thus far. However, I’m writing this review because I recently upgraded from an iPhone 11 to an iPhone 13 and haven’t been getting any detail in the highlights whatsoever ever since making the change to the 13. I mean the highlights are completely and literally white. If I were to take a picture of the same sunny scene, one with the Halide app and one with the native camera app, I’d still get good detail in the highlights using the native camera app as opposed to the same shot taken using Halide. I’m assuming it’s just a temporary issue due to the release of the new 13 and I’m also hoping an update can fix the problem soon. Just wanted to bring it to their attention by writing this, in case it hasn’t been brought up already. Otherwise love this camera app.

Macro is the best price is right. So i feel like i get better macro shots with this app than i do the native iPhone camera app and this is why i made the purchase. Many times more often than not i would try to take a photo of something really close to the lens and the native app would switch back and forth not m owing what to do and finally i would back away the subject and it would work. But sorry the manual macro mode on this app i can set the focus and then just place the subject within. The depth of field and boom perfect photo every time. So for me this app is worth the money as a straight 60 dollar purchase or as a subscription which honestly i hate subscription based apps but this one at least gives you a single purchase option and also bills the subscription as annually which i also like..

Really good, missing key feature.. Absolutely love this app. Especially the “process zero” mode. That shooting mode alone makes the price of entry worth. All that said, one really nice feature to have would be a way to filter down to just photos taken with Halide. Within the built-in photo library in Halide, if there was a way to only show me the photos taken using Halide, this would be instantly a 5/5 app. Maybe I’m alone, but i often go back and forth from using the stock camera app shooting in RAW and halide process zero. At the end of a long shooting session, when I go back to adjust the exposure for all my halide shots, it takes me longer to find those photos that need adjusting than it does to actually make the adjustments. Seems like a QoL feature that could easily be implemented and improve the user experience a ton. That said I’m not an app developer 🤷🏽‍♂️ This app is still worth the cost despite that gripe of mine.

Great App with a Few Caveats. I really like this app. The RAW quality is fantastic and the manual control is excellent as well. The portrait mode leaves something to be desired: the quality is excellent but as far as I can see there is no way to adjust the depth of field the way you can in portrait mode in Apple’s own camera app. The developer’s website claims you can load an image shot in portrait mode in Halide into Apple’s Photos app and adjust the lighting and depth of field from there. The lighting can be adjusted but unless I’m missing something the depth of field cannot. The macro mode is cool. It defaults to 2x zoom when you use this mode but I get the impression this is essentially just cropping the picture. I don’t see much of a difference vs. taking a closeup in Apple’s camera app. If these features were addressed and implemented this would be a five star app for me.

A five star app hobbled by one critical missing feature. I can’t say enough good things about Halide. By every measure it should be an amazing five star app. Alas, it’s missing one utterly basic feature that so many other iPhone camera apps have: exposure bracketing. The Halide interface is excellent and well thought out. It’s possible to create very high resolution images by shooting raw files in Halide and then stitching them together later on with software like PTGui Pro. But I recently had an experience where I lost a critical image simply because there’s no exposure bracketing. The sunlight was so bright I couldn’t see my screen well, and I therefore didn’t notice that Halide was overexposing the entire scene. I lost an image that could have been very good because all the critical highlights got totally blown out, even shooting raw. Simple exposure bracketing - which I use as a matter of course on my medium format camera (which, alas, I didn’t have with me) - would have saved the day. Add exposure bracketing, and Halide becomes not just a five star app but a ten star app. Without that features, it’s hobbled in a way it shouldn’t be.

Completely changed my opinion on mobile photography for the better. To start this review, I have for the most part hated mobile photography, and especially so in recent years with all the intense computational/AI blah blah blah. Phone have been producing photos that seem muddy and very obviously shot on a phone, which is great for a quick shot or whatever but terrible for anything actually good or pleasing to the eye. Process Zero on Halide has entirely changed the way I think about mobile photography. My phone is fully the camera I choose to use now. The ability to disable processing and just use the raw photo has produced some incredible, fully real-camera comparable photos that have ultimately lead me to stop grabbing a lot of my other cameras. It’s quicker, I have more control, more customizability, and more trust in my camera when using Halide. The focus loupe and zebra stripes are indispensable features to me, and the swiping up and down to change the exposure makes going back to my “real” cameras a bit clunky feeling. Obviously it’s just an app, your kit and how you choose to edit these photos play just as important of a role in everything, but Halide is a MUST on all of my phones from now on. This app kinda made me fall back in love with photography.

Very good, but.... I love this app, I’m new to photography and this is a little more than what I probably need to use for starting out but I don’t mind it gives me more time to get experience with a more advanced camera. My only major problem is that the depth feature is not made for people with glasses. When using portrait mode on the camera app installed from the get-go on my phone it works excellent. But when I try to use the depth feature on Halide It can't correctly focus on my face and blurs through part of my lenses on my glasses. Other than this the Halide app is amazing and works exactly as it is supposed to. Definitely, a five-star experience when the issue I have with the depth camera feature is corrected or when find the solution that doesn't involve taking my glasses off. Love it!!!

Four years on… (unusable, I guess)?. 10/22- Looks like I was quite negative about Halide 4 years ago. It seems a lot has changed. I probably had version 1.x.x then. I’m methodically examining apps especially cameras (why waste time w/bad photos?) and notes (love Apple Notes but it can crash every 30 seconds!) I appreciate the trial and outright purchase. Like everyone else I despise subscriptions but these are inexpensive enough annually I’d pay. ASAP I’ll try this (with iPhone 11 Pro Max and/or iPad Pro 12.9 5th Gen) and see what happens. Bumped up to 3⭐️ from 1🌟 for optimism, updates, cheap subscription(if you do them), chance to buy. ——————————————— 6/18 Even with a new 6+ with few apps installed it still crashes. I forgot it even exists until I was looking for something to filter out all reds to get a dog’s perspective on things. I suppose I’ll take my dog’s philosophical perspective on this app and just let go... ———————————————- Earlier...Constantly crashes on my 6 Plus so I'm unfamiliar with it; all I've experienced with it is like it's any other basic decent manual iOS camera app. There once was a manual but it’s obsolete. Maybe I'll delete other apps until it functions, pepper the devs with questions, or give up.

Great camera app, constant thoughtful updates, great support. Highly recommend.. Halide is just a good app, period. Does what it says—which is already a lot. It’s fantastic in opening up new ways to capture using the iPhone cameras. It’s accessible to amateur and more advanced photographers alike. It’d be 4-5 stars for that already. Maybe I have the occasional UI quibble. But what makes them stand head and shoulders above others is that they are constantly iterating and improving. They take advantage of new hardware and system software abilities quickly. Even better? They don’t wait for those to improve the app on an ongoing basis. Their support is great, and they take feedback into account. The whole app experience is just a pleasure.

Updated review to 5 stars. I was having difficulty with the manual settings. ISO and shutter speed weren't recording properly -- shots would come out with different values than the settings. It was my misunderstanding of the file formats that was the cause. Now that I'm shooting in the full "Process Zero" RAW, I'm getting great photos with the correct ISO and shutter speed. What a difference! I've tried other photo apps, but I like Halide's layout and controls. (Maybe one little feature request would be to have tactile response "sticking" to some common film speed values, like 100, 400, 800, etc.) One small challenge is that there is no way for the preview to truly capture what will be recorded. I understand that it's impossible to circumvent the underlying iOS image processing. But, hey, I still remember the days of film when you got what you got a week or two later…

Great app, but has issues... From a perspective of having almost every feature a photographer would need, this app does nail it. From complete control over focus mapping and shutter speed control, to 2 types of exposure levels (including automatic) and RAW capture, Halide’s got it. However, I have been Extremely disappointed in the depth (portrait) feature. With the app boasting amazing portrait photo capturing and support for my iPhone 11, I thought this app could outperform the standard iOS camera app - I was gravely mistaken. Portrait photos taken with this app come out with a clear outline of where the app tried to blur the background but before it even gets to that it often fails to even recognize the background of any object (including humans)! I feel I shouldn’t have to use the standard camera app after purchasing Halide for it other great features yet, I find myself opening iOS’s stock camera app Half of the time. Not a great situation for an app which I paid $7 for :(

It’s great, it just needs some extra stuff!. Process Zero rocks, the RAW photos you get are so stellar. The only issue is if you enable manual mode you have to enter a 12MP camera mode so if you quickly switch to Apple’s ProRAW format, you’re not instantly choosing the 48MP format from Process Zero if that’s how you last left it. Other than that, a manual digital zoom would be great. It’s such a simplistic intuitive app that I bought the full version immediately after trying it out. This app got me into the photography hobby because of the controls you get. It’s not some super manual app, but you’re getting incredibly good results thanks to this app. The value for the app punches above its weight. It deserves the highest praises.

The “App of the Day” description makes no mention that it’s subscription-based. Update: the developer’s attempt at a passive aggressive response to claim that I simply *missed* the info is lazy, given that they simply copied and pasted it from their boilerplate response to the other folks who were misled by the App of the Day description, which, again, doesn’t contain that info anywhere, anywhere, on the page. Presumably they hoped to simply leave that glove slap and move on, but they now just look silly. While the regular AppStore description does have a note at the very top that this app is not free to use & that it requires a subscription, a great many recent downloads of this app were a result of it being featured as App of the Day, and the description in the App of the Day entry doesn’t make any mention of it requiring a subscription. And since you can download directly from that place without ever going into the normal app page, you can bet a great many people were misled as a result.

Once Great App now hobbled by Subscription Issues.. I really want to give Halide Mark II a perfect score and previous versions of the app were absolutely worthy of that. This App is the most advanced Camera App for iPhone- period. I also use Filmic Firstlight which is a great App however Halide is better for some of the types of photography I do (Macro). However he current version has locked me out of the App twice now when I’m out in the field beyond the reach of WiFi and Cellular Service rendering the App useless. I get a pop up to start a trial version and it never gets beyond that screen. I had to ultimately reinstall the app to fix the issue but who knows for how long until it crops up again. If I’m out taking pictures I expect my hardware and software to perform. If it can’t do the job I’ll be forced to look elsewhere.

Missed when they offered it for $30. Update #3: Zero sale periods in sight, easily replicable with ProRAW in native camera app. Come on folks! Update #2: After being completely flabbergasted by me for following up on their request of showing them old marketing materials where they still listed the old price, they moved the goalposts and said they "kept true to their word". Best they could come up with, instead of honoring their old price. New Year's Resolution: list when your promotions end with a date? 🤔🤔🤔 Just a thought! You'll do well by your customers. $30 waiting for you on the next sale! 💸 Update: As requested, I took the developer up on their offer and linked an article by Ben Sendofsky where they list the old (launch) pric e. Apparently price since then increased to $36, and now $40. Ah, they did the subscription thing. Then they did the "raise price and show the lower price in marketing materials" thing. Ugh 🤦‍♂️. Worst of all it's Christmas and they raised the price, Merry Christmas folks!

Decent app for the right scenario only. Halide is a decent app with some nice features that give you more information about your photos and some customization options. I mostly used it for landscapes and scenery, with the occasional portrait. The standout feature for me is the amount of information available and the option to shoot without any machine learning add-ins—something that appeals to users who want more control. That said, Halide isn’t really a daily-use app for me. You do need to play around a bit to get comfortable, but overall it’s fairly user-friendly. My main frustration has been performance: after just a handful of photos the app lags, my device heats up, and the app sometimes crashes. Many sessions ended with “issues saving to photo library.” The “rescued photos” option is a lifesaver, but the reliability gap is still disappointing—especially on an iPhone 14 Pro Max. For the price, I don’t find it worth subscribing as an average user. I see the value for more professional photographers, or people wanting to move in that direction, especially in indoor or more controlled settings. But the stock iPhone camera app remains more reliable day-to-day, even if it lacks Halide’s extra info and customization.

A once amazing app.. I am a long time user of Halide. I don’t open it often because I’m not always trying to do everything in manual but as a professional photographer of 10 years it’s nice to have the option and Halide is the one company to just get it right. That said with updates freezing I feel like I’m left with an ultimatum of pay $60 and get updates for who knows how long (because there is no specification on how long they’ll honor it) or go monthly which as a hater of subscription services I hate to do. What I fear even more is what happens when I decide I don’t want to be monthly anymore…? do I lose the new widgets? Do I lose the app altogether that I paid for back in the beginning? I hope the company comes out and makes the wording more clear and maybe adjusts the pricing. $60 for a phone app is insanity unless I’m getting in writing promises updates and guaranteed in the pipeline future features for years to come.

Profesional app works well with Adobe work flows.. Halide is the first truly professional level camera control app (full manual control &c. easily accommodated) I have tried for iPhone. Given it has an accurate watch app for remote shooting and it has a very useful iOS 16 Lock Screen widget, this app is ahead of many competitors. Halide fits perfectly in my work flow. I have iOS set to send photos to Adobe Lightroom for post processing and cataloguing on both Mac and iOS. I laud the lack of editing tools in Halide as I do all my post processing in Lightroom. Non Lightroom users can post process in Apple Photos. There is clearly no reason to have a bloated program with redundant tools. Needless to say the ability to shoot RAW (DNG) is greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work. I look forward to the addition of time lapse shooting in Halide.

Best camera app that can be even better. I like the intuitive control of different parameters when taking photos. The app focuses on just taking photos without bloated features like filters and editing tools, which keeps the interface very simple and clean. I prefer editing my photos on Snapseed or Lightroom. The Smart RAW feature works quite nicely as well. However, it would be even better if exposure time feature can be fine tuned. First of all, when the shutter speed is low, the preview becomes so laggy. Second, the max exposure time can be further increased. Currently on iPhone XS, the max is 1 sec. But sometimes when taking photos for light painting or moving scenes like waterfall, it’s necessary to have even longer exposure time, possibly with a help of a ND filter for mobile phone lens. If such improvement is done, I would have no excuse not to give 5 stars.

Best camera app for iOS. iPhone 13 Pro user here. The native camera app is excellent, but Apple’s image processing really cranks the sharpness, contrast, and saturation to the point of being a little silly. The cameras on this phone are capable of taking amazing photos, but the over processing can really turn a detailed shot into a noisy one, especially where foliage or fabric textures are concerned. Halide does what Apple should’ve - they’ve taken Apple’s existing image pipeline and cut out some of the extra processing. Deep Fusion and Smart HDR still apply, there’s still excellent noise reduction, but the haloed edges and unnatural colors and lighting are gone. The result is a softer, more DSLR-like photograph. Halide isn’t as smoothly polished as the native app, and there are a few UX quirks and bugs that I hope get smoothed out over time, so it’s not my choice for most day-to-day shots. For art though, it’s Halide all the way. Totally worth the money.

Do not pay for this application until you read this. Phone being used: iPhone 11 Pro Length spent with application: 1.5 years I first started using this application on my iPhone X, over a year ago. It was probably my favorite camera go to app. It really used to feel like the company was thriving on a great idea that had never been seen on an iPhone before and they took the time to fine tune it. A lot has changed and here is its current state. It has now turned into a very hit or miss application. The app crashes from taking a depth photo and from that, the photo taken is never saved. Most of the features will crash the app as well. Even switching from different camera lenses will crash the thing. I feel like the company has realized they are at a loss for innovation. They are no longer spending resources on R&D let alone basic maintenance hours. I’m sure we will start to notice less and less updates, until it eventually gets lost among the rest. Please do not waste your money. Wait for them to prove me wrong and make the necessary bug fixes. FYI, A typical active company has two week sprints. At the end of each sprint, an update is pushed to insure continued application maintenance. Feature releases take a lot longer and are usually multiple sprints but bug fixes are not.

Cat Scan. Lux has the capabilities to create a brand new type of camera app. The shutter button (volume button?) would trigger a sound that captures the attention of cats and dogs. An instant AFTER grabbing the pet’s attention, the shutter snaps. The pet is therefore looking right into the camera when the portrait photo is taken. The next sound the pet hears from iPhone camera would be different from the first, as pets get bored easily. Literally, the same sound twice no longer captures their interest. A cutesy UI might appeal to general end users, but pro photographers need to take photos of pets too. Hence, RAW support and manual exposure and vignette and square aspect ratio are good ideas. Please make this dream a reality.

XR Camera Dream Come True. I’m a designer and DSLR photographer, so the camera features on my phone is a big deal to me. When I upgraded from a 6, I was torn between the XS and XR. I’d been gravitating toward the XR due to the colors, battery life, price, and better lowlight photos, but was devastated it only had portrait mode for people. I heard about Halide finding a solution to this problem, so I went with the XR and bought this app. I took a photo of my dog and I’m in love with its ability to pretty accurately map out data for bokeh shots. My photo went straight to the default apple photos app, and reads it as a portrait photo now so I can adjust the blur like I can on people portraits. The only setback is not seeing bokeh in live mode, but it’s no biggie and who knows what exciting features future updates will bring. Thank you Ben & Sebastiaan for using your intelligence, skills, and talent to make a camera like this for the iPhone XR. Buying this app finally made me 100% happy with my decision to get the phone I did.

Pretty good. I downloaded this app cause researching online showed it shoots in RAW and it’s a way around the Deep Fusion apple automatically puts on your photos that I rly don’t like. But you can’t zoom in much. I understand after researching online there’s no zoom because after 2x zoom it’s the same quality and you can just crop the photo. Right. But if I’m taking 50 photos I don’t want to have to go through and crop every one to see the end result…. Which is why the zoom exists past 2x on most other apps lol. Won’t be continuing to use this app because that’s a key feature missing and it makes it too time consuming and not worth it. Also the app functionality is very confusing, it just has icons with no explanation of what they do, and weird swiping you have to do to even find the settings or other features with no explanations on how to do it

Buyer beware!!!. I just added Halide II from the reviews to help take difficult dark room pictures with focused lighting. There is no way to get the ISO and the shutter speeds stable as you try to focus it. As soon as you use any kind of focusing help, the ISO and shutter speeds jump around and you have to reset them, then of course your focus is off again because you had to work the sliders in manual to get the ISO back low. The Apple default camera is taking way better pictures. Using Halide, “every” setting comes out unfocused and grainy. I left a msg for Sebastiaan, and the team, and got nothing but general help. I finally found something deep in IOS that says….. Limitations in Manual/Advanced Modes: While the 48MP sensor is capable of full resolution, certain manual settings and shooting modes will trigger the system to default back to 12MP. This includes scenarios like using manual exposure mode, burst mode, depth mode, Live Photo, or Triple Photo. If you're using third-party camera apps with advanced manual controls, altering settings like white balance, shutter speed, or ISO will also cause the resolution to drop to 12MP. Which means useless using as manual.

Top of the world!!! Nothing better!!!. First thing first; I have been a user from day one. I started taking pictures on my iPhone as a hobby, but I had no idea what I was doing. I took a photography class in college and someone told me about this app and it’s been magic and great times ever since!!!! It’s frustrating to see people get on her and bash these people about their own misunderstandings of what Mark 2 means for mark 1. As someone who purchased the app early I still get to enjoy the features of this new app for no extra charge!!!! Most devs try and force you into buying the new app because they drop support for the old on, not these Devs. Updates until Dec 21 is fair. The functionality and ease of shooting has allowed me to take some breath taking shots, I have even started making picture books for my friends. I love the tutorials within the app, would be cool to have a section were you offer classes on how to shot with a mobile camera, It would make the subscription model more appealing to those who may not want to go pay more than the original cost and help to bring in Mobile users who may feel intimidated by all the features or just want to learn mobile photography, you could even offer a subscription for the classes alone if advertised correctly(worked in sales for a few years now, I know how to sell a product especially one this cool). Anyway 5 stars!!!! Amazing app and I’m looking forward to your future. Keep killing!!!!

Best camera app I’ve ever used. This app has it ALL. It NAILS the user interface, allowing you not just manual control, but it makes that manual control intuitive and quick to use. This app has FOCUS PEAKING!! This is one of the best things anyone could add to an app like this. For those of us with not the sharpest eyes, this helps a LOT. My only gripe is how long it takes to process each shot before you can look at it. I’m not sure if it’s the app or iOS so we’ll see if it gets fixed soon. Still worth five stars. This app makes my phone feel more like my pro-level camera that’s laid out and designed for people to make quick decisions about their shots on the fly. Recommended for any serious photographer wanting their phone to do more.

Membership - Bummer. Now this means ads, locked features and updates/downloads to tools you can’t use. :( I wish you had created a completely new app and left version 1 alone for us who bought it. RESPONSE: *completely optional* subscription that takes you beyond the “core” features. Which you can only subscribe to within the app through ads you use to self promote. Or is it locked out features we have to bypass? Either way not upgrading. Subscriptions are dealbreakers. I already bought the app. I’m sticking with it and not upgrading just to be exposed to promoted features I can’t use unless I pay a monthly rental fee. 👎🏽 RESPONSE 2: I’m not asking for added features or continued updates. I’m fine with the app as it was. I paid for it and I’ll stick with it even without updates. I appreciate you taking efforts to keep yourselves employed. I was looking to purchase a product, not a service. No refund necessary and no membership needed thank you and good luck. If you create a new dramatically different ONE TIME PURCHASE APP I’d be happy to support you. Memberships are gross. Camera+ did it without memberships. So can you if you really wanted to. Changing from one time to membership without giving customers the option to choose any way you phrase it is shady. I see many apps going the membership route and I see myself purchasing less apps DIRECTLY because of it. Guess that’s just the way of things.

Desperately need priority modes with Process Zero. I am (or was) subscribed solely for Process Zero. It’s amazing, and everything i’ve been waiting for a camera to do. I’m obsessed with the fact that it’s not an emulation, it’s just anti-digitally-processed photography. BUT. The UX makes it hard to embrace and lean in to the natural grainy look due to how the app behaviors really prefer auto mode. If you change the lens, auto mode. If you tap the screen by accident, auto mode, if you tap the screen for focus, auto mode, every time i open the app, auto mode. I’m constantly fighting against auto mode when it’s already hard enough to get exposure right in manual due to the not-very-real-time rendering of the scene i’m trying to capture. If we had shutter and iso priority modes, or even an exposure locking mechanism, this wouldn’t be an issue. I’m somewhat surprised this app has been out for this long and still doesn’t have it, which lessens my hope. But it does seem like a small dev team, so I can’t expect everything. I guess given the price, I’d expect a little more? I’m not sure. I just want to use this as my main camera but the slowdown and hiccups of the UX for Process Zero cause too much friction for me right now, and i’ve already missed many shots trying to dial in a fully manual shot.

Great camera app. Doubles what I can do with my phone.. I actually bought this app by mistake. I had intended to use the free trial for a single project and then cancel it before being charged. I forgot, and figured whatever, at least I’m supporting independent developers, they can have my $20. I have used Halide more times than I can count since then. I do in person trade show events for work, and always need clean photos of my displays and products at events. That unintended $20 expense honestly saved me buying a camera to get around the overkill Apple AI image processing that makes my products (fine art products with many small details) look janky, oversaturated, and clownish. Having a totally unprocessed DNG option to edit even more cleanly on desktop when needed is great too. Great app, intuitive controls, customizable UI without being overwhelming, and runs very stably. Does one thing and does it perfectly, while giving you the option to quickly swap back to the Apple processing if you want it. I even replaced the iPhone camera app on my home screen widget with Halide. I’d love a lifetime license option, but the subscription is honestly quite fairly priced for an app I’ve ended up using daily. I don’t leave reviews but I’m happy to for this app.

My default camera app.. I am a professional photographer and usually have some very nice gear with me whenever I am out. But, whenever I am shooting with my LUMIX S1R, my iPhone 12 Pro Max with Halide is also right there as well. Surprisingly, the iPhone will more often than not get the shots that I keep most often as people let their guard down in a way they don’t when a large lens is looking. Halide gives the quality and control to let me match the color and tone of my other cameras with RAW shooting, combined with features missing on my other cameras like zebra bars, color meters, and a customizable UI so I can hide stuff I won’t use behind a collapsible menu. Very happy to have such a great camera app available, and this my replacement for the built-in camera.

THE BEST but…. Halide is easily the best pro camera app on iOS hands down. There’s a lot to like for enthusiasts and pros like myself. I subscribed in the past but didn’t feel I was getting enough to justify the sub. What I’d like to see is wireless tethering with iPad, better stability and faster operating speed. I’m on a 1TB iPhone 13 Pro (I upgrade yearly) and even with apples top iPhone the app is slow to launch. I’ve lost more images than I can count and often have to rely on the default camera app. I have a feeling iOS 15 is somewhat to blame here. If I could wirelessly tether, that alone would be worth the price of subscription. As one who’s helped major camera companies move into mirrorless I’ll tell you that the iPhone is good enough for pro shoots. I sold my pro gear a few years ago and have been fully on board with iPhone. Just need tethering to complete the what I need for pro studio shoots.

Too spoiled. This is definitely a nice app, and I love the manual controls to give me more control over what I'm doing. It makes a huge difference in helping me get the look I want. It's just that if I'm really taking this time to set things up I might just grab one of my camera bodies and do the same thing faster. There are two things I'd wish on this app: white balance off a color checker and to remember all my settings when I close and open the app. When I pick up any of my camera bodies, all the focus, exposure, and white balance settings are the same as they were when I last picked it up. This doesn't necessarily remember and I have to set it all up again after I quit the app.

What?. I don’t know if I’m an idiot or what but I can’t really figure out certain things about this app. For example, I was trying to open an image from camera roll. I had opened my camera roll, but only one option for photo selection is offered I can’t select a different album or anything like that and the most recent picture that I have is a screenshot, but it’s not showing up in the options. Also, I had the premium one time purchase thing a while ago like several years and years ago and haven’t used it much sense so I don’t know what happened, but it was supposed to be like a one time payment fee and then when I tried to use the feature in the app, it’s offering me to upgrade. I don’t understand why. I vividly remember having the premium access because it was the first ap for me to ever do so. However, I do not see any type of feature or menu or even settings button within the app to restore purchases. Honestly, at this point, the user interface is just so frustrating. I don’t even really want to use that app now especially after the money thing like what?

From Premium to Subscription. I'm so very fed up and very, very tired of greedy and unethical developers like these two. Who make all they can from selling an app as a premium, one-time purchase. Then they succumb to greed and avarice and change their initially premium app into another filthy subscription. It's truly unethical, immoral and abhorrent behavior and very fitting of the lowest of the low crooks. This type of scummy and low rent behavior is sadly quite commonplace now among App Store developers. Then they offer a new one-time purchase of $35 dollars! Gee, how very generous, thank you so very much... I already paid for this app as a premium program. But, sure, let me give you even more money or pay you forever via the subscription plan for an app I already owned and paid good money for, just so I can continue to receive updates. Developers like you two make the App Store such an unpleasant and shady place to do business. I don't care for your dishonest remarks about why you pulled such a massive bait-and-switch by changing this app from premium to another disgusting subscription plan. Because it's simply just lies and is just saying the exact same tired, pathetic line as all the other crooked developers and businesses that pull this underhanded scam on their once trusting and once loyal customers. You should be ashamed of your seriously unethical and immoral actions. I wouldn't give you the lint in my pockets now. I hope you two enjoy all your ill gotten gains.

Halide no option to buy it outright. The fact that this is a yearly subscription and they don’t have you an option to buy it outright is a shame. The app is great for people that want to get into photography with the manual controls however I’m going to compare it with the best videography app. Filmic pro, is one time purchase app and the developers have been working just as hard as these guys giving you manual controls, Vlog, different aspect ratios, you can even link your app to a gimple and control your phones camera manual controls from your gimbals devices button controls. You can remote control your device from another device like an iPad and see that your recording to see how you would look on frame when the iPhone camera is facing you. You can record with the front and back camera at once if your blogging and recording something I front of you want to show later in post. It has presets, you can you pro res videos you can do Timelapse with controls the list goes on and on. The best part is that you can ACTUALLY OWN THE APP.

Was a good app now selecting photos doesn’t work.. Despite the app telling me I can continue using the app I paid for, it seems the photo roll screen doesn’t even load a photo when you tap it it’s a black screen with stuck spinner. When you press to select photos in the roll, the app (which once again, I paid for) spams a pop-up trying to get me to subscribe to a camera app subscription… You can Force Touch and then export an individual photo, but that’s it. That’s not the functionality I paid for. I started using the app (that I PAID for) again after a long hiatus only to discover it’s been nerfed (?) unless I add another subscription. At least it can still go directly to your phone camera roll, but honestly can’t imagine subscribing when it’s partially functioning. I tried to make this my main photo taking app for a while, but eventually it just found itself in a folder with the built in app

Finally. Unlimited Potrait Mode on XR!. I am a Chef and Take pictures of my food constantly. When Apple released the iPhone XR, it wasn’t a well known fact that the Portrait Mode on this phones camera only worked on humans. I was not aware until after I upgraded. I felt that Apple was making a huge mistake. Now I had to scramble and find an App that would bring back the unlimited potential of Portrait Mode. Halide does just this and more. This App takes beautiful pictures. It is so far above Apples camera App that I hid that one and use Halide for all of my pictures. However, one note to everyone considering purchasing this App. Research the App before buying. Go on their website and read everything. If you buy it and start snapping away, chances are you won’t understand what this robust App is doing and your photos will NOT look like you want them to. So read up on it. Highly recommended App! Thanks!

Definitely the best camera app out there. Love the app and the thoughtful gesture based approach to adjustments. A couple of suggestions that would make this even more awesome. In landscape mode the slide up to adjust exposure compensation doesn’t work. Instead it took me a while to figure out that the gesture has to go left to right. The last image thumbnail from the camera roll is seriously distracting from the rest of the beautiful interface and also when I want to only ‘see’ the scene in front of me. Maybe a button to access my roll would be better. I don’t know about others but my thumb naturally sits at either corners of the screen irrespective of orientation or which hand I use (I am ambidextrous:) would be cool to allow customizing placement of the shutter release button like we can customize the quick bar. Just my wishful thinking!

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Family sharing does not work. Family sharing does not work for the one time purchase of this app and the developers put the blame back on Apple rather than fixing the fundamental problems with family sharing. The help system says to login with the same email that was used to purchase the app, but this misses the point that family sharing has family members that use different emails as Apple IDs. Very disappointing.

Finally my photos are AWESOME. Halide has been my go to camera since the first day it was released. I am a very ordinary photographer (not the fault of Halide) but with the new Macro Mode I can finally take the type of images that I love. My first image was fantastic and I have been striving for this type photo for years. It was a macro shot of a flower bud about to bloom taken on an iPhone Xs. I previously thought that I would only get this photo with an iPhone 13 Pro. Keep up the good work guys.

Great app, easy to use and focus peaking!!. Please add a video function so I can start using this instead of my default camera app, thank you!

Lobo. Awesome bit of kit! Use it like a serious SKR but download your files otherwise you’ll get file bloat particularly with the high quality video!

I live in hope. This is a great photo app, but without the ability to set for low res capture (like 1Mb file size), this does not work for me. Most my photos are for storing in notes, so I rarely want or need large storage sizes. I keep hoping this need will be addressed.

Price strategy change. I bought this app awhile ago with one-time purchase but then they change their price strategy to subscription-based and overpriced after some complements from social media channels, asked their old customers to follow in order to use the app. Worthless!

Shutter speed maxes out at 1 second. I bought this app hoping to try my hand in astrophotography with my phone. The app is quite intuitive but it misses out on shutter speed, one of the most important manual settings. Not sure if it’s a feature likely to be released soon.

Great app with great updates. Getting an issue when swiping to favourite a photo. Photos are stretched vertically and only goes away when swiping to another picture. Hope this bug gets ironed out soon. Might I suggest allowing us to choose which photo editor we can set as a shortcut instead of defaulting to darkroom?

Not just the best app, but the best support too!. Top-of-class app design and ongoing development. The app is responsive - and so are the support team. They speak photographer, so they know what you are talking about. It’s a breath of fresh air.

Awesome app and tutorial. A camera app that is easy to use, taps all the capabilities of the iphone and comes with helpful tutorial course by email. I have signed on a paid members - thanks team Lux!

Great app, fair pricing. An incredibly polished and reliable app. I bought the original version and got a handful of new features for free, even though the developers switched to a new subscription model. Fair. Much appreciated!

Kinda Average. Although I’m not a great photographer by any means so take my review with a grain of salt. Just found it a little to hard to learn/use. Apple Camera is easy and you can switch between cameras/videos (you can’t with this, which I really wish I knew before). Overall if u know photography and spend time with this it’d be good I think.

Brilliant. Photos taken through Halide are easily distinguishable. Controls will take time to get used to but it’s worth the extra minutes.

Very reliable camera. As someone with only one working arm a camera i can rely on to get the pic i want without needing two hands and half an hour setting things for the shot is very important. No other camera app comes close.

7 day trial requires pre pay before test. Was going to test for some friends and myself but I’m required to pay upfront or at least commit to paying. I don’t pay until I know it works and is suitable which I think is reasonable. How about 7 days free then disable the app if the purchase to continue is declined? Uninstalling it now.

Enable focus peek by default. Would be great to have focus peeking stay enabled on start/when switching lenses. It’s an amazing feature that can help get the exact focus since the screen is small and the subject is fiddly

One of my favourite cameras. Hands down the best camera on iOS, and one of my favourite cameras overall (including all my hardware cameras)

Unreliable. App is slow and often crashes. Missed shots and lost photos I took due to this unreliability. The “recovery” function rarely works. Halide once worked perfectly and was my go to camera app. Not anymore. I will give the developers a few more updates to fix the issues before I unsubscribe from premium and uninstalling.

Amazing App. Honestly the best camera app I have ever used, if only there was a feature to change where your photos are stored or if you could make photos save to a specific folder that would just make this an absolute 10/8 👌

To zoom or not that is the question.. Well zoom crash now fixed. So app seems good to go, but seriously apples now had multi years to fix its phone problems, and they seem to get worse. It is almost a trillion dollar company, so what are they doing with all the money. Paid in full for the original app, now expected to subsciribe, this is a scam.... Halide is a scam my lifetime app is not upgraded, now expected to pay once again, if they could give you a Venerial disease, they'd make you pay for it.

Update Release Description. Great to see an app that keeps in touch with their customers and describes updates fully and I, for one, really appreciate the comprehensive information. 😁

Wild boasts. Poor delivery.. What a surprise to find that a camera app claiming to be so advanced can’t even do something as basic as adjust the aspect ratio. I feel completely ripped off with an annual subscription that I find a few days after buying it the camera is really unusable for composing shots. I’d suggest you look at other camera apps that at least include such necessary features.

Doesn't do what it says it does. There are plenty of manual controls but the quality of the images is worse than what I get on the stock camera. 90% of the pictures I’ve taken look grainy in a fully lit room as well as outdoors and I’m using an XS Max so it’s not the phone that’s the issue. The stock camera actually takes great images. Editing raw photos on my phone is another issue. As soon as I transfer the image to either Lightroom or VSCO, it immediately loses all quality and looks like an overexposed, grainy mess. Am I doing something wrong?

Outstanding Attention to Detail. I first purchased Halide simply to record RAW images, but I’ve grown to appreciate the care that the developers have taken in the interface. This is about as professional as an iPhone camera app could get. I’m glad these guys are putting in the effort, and I was happy to subscribe, to make sure that they can keep developing this app that has become important to me.

Good but not super impressed. Been trying out Halide and comparing it to the iphone 14 pro camera. I do like the color of the photos produced by Halide, whereas the whites from the iphone camera often appear almost fluorescence. I also like the manual control of iso and shutter speed. However, the settings resets everytime I refocus which has been really annoying. It also would not allow me to adjust aperture even in post-processing, which is a feature that can be done on the iphone camera (in portrait mode). All in all, as much as I like some of the features of Halide, it would not be my go to camera. Especially when I have to switch to a different app for videos. I am yet to find a camera app that is as user friendly and are able to produce similar image qualities as the google camera.

Great App-quality & functionality ✔️. I've been installing and deleting this app for close to 2 years I guess,. I’ll try other apps in between and I always end up coming back here. The app does exactly what it’s meant to do, and it’s constantly improving. Main problem that I had & most likely any other I casual camera user is that you have to learn how to use it and it’s worth the time and effort as the photos are absolutely amazing compared to the stock camera in an iPhone. And I’ve got the iPhone 15 Pro Max, it literally has the capacity for greatness, but somehow Apple have not incorporated settings or instructions that into their own software - in my opinion. This app appears to be developed constantly, indicating that the creators are seeking to improve, rather than to profit from people. It’s worth paying for the app, as they deserve to be compensated for the hard work. Thanks guys

Excellent interface design. I started using cameras 35 years ago, and have never much liked the iPhone picture-making experience. But Halide has largely changed that - all the familiar camera tools are there, beautifully presented and intuitive to access. I never find myself fumbling for a setting: they just lie to hand, as they do on a good camera. One of the most pleasing apps on my phone.

Simply the best!. Halide Mark 2 is, quite simply, the best. Complemented with my iPhone 11 Plus, together with my own (less than perfect) artistic flair, my photos are now amongst the best I’ve taken - and that includes using my rather bulky DSLR gear. I’m mightily impressed. Thanks Halide!

Halide lots of potential but slow to load. I use Halide since iPhone 5s. It has lots of advanced Pro features. But with recent updates espexially iPhone with multiple lens, the loading time of the app is too slow to be camera app I would use everyday. 5 seconds for it to be ready on iPhone 15 Pro Max. compared to less than a second for stock iOS Camera app.

Photographers must have. If you were taught to shoot with film and know your way around a darkroom this is the app for you. Total control of exposure, focus and lots of other handy settings. Best raw photo tool available for iOS.

Truly The Best There Is. I’m a professional photographer by trade. There is simply no better camera app for iPhone. The results in Halide are exceptional, and far exceed the stock Camera app.

Beware. There are a ton of similar apps and I have a paid sub to another but wanted to see if something better out there. I clicked purchase to see the price and it clearly says ‘7 day free trial’. Clicked and purchased thinking I could cancel later if it was not what I wanted. When tried to cancel I noted the fine print says there’s no free trial, which is contrary to what it clearly says when I clicked through to see the plans. All very clever on their part but if the app is good enough this sort of thing shouldn’t be necessary.

JPGs don’t compare well. Yes there are benefits with being able to use RAW or choose settings not available through the delivered photo app, but there are a few negatives. Can’t use wheel to zoom. Won’t focus as close (I do a lot of close up photos). Some settings won’t save. This all with 11 Pro Max. Native app delivers very good JPGs, superior to Halide.

Simply the best third-party camera app. Really well done. Simple but powerful interface. Love the flexibility to quickly switch between file types and Auto/Manual modes. Slick histogram implementation comes in handy, too!

Amazing good & great customer service. Hallide 1 was amazing. Just found out about #2 and rushed to get it and found out it’s free for previous owners. Happy birthday to me!! Can’t wait to try it with iPhone 12 Pro Max

Amazing app. I love this app. So much better than the standard iPhone camera app. But I would love to be able to zoom in further that 2x. The iPhone camera app allows you to zoom but I would love that feature in this app.

Love using it!. A lot of needed controls, which the iPhone default camera app doesn’t offer. Being nit picky, but I would love the option to change the icon colour within the app which a lot of apps are now including. Thanks devs, love the latest update as well

Excellent camera app. Easy to use with full auto or can set manually. RAW files easy to export for desktop editing.

Great photo app.. I’ve been using Halide for two years and it’s a great photo app. The focus and close up abilities work very well, as do the processing options. I do wish there was better control on zoom. It jumps when you move the camera. If it could also go to a higher zoom 5x ? If you have any creative ability, this app will work for you. If you don’t, you will likely complain. To the complainers regarding payment, simply read before you click install ! Terrific app. Keep going…

Flash photography in Manual mode freezes. Flash in manual mode doesn’t switch off after taking the shot! I have to manually close the app to turn off the flash. Otherwise it will drain my phone’s battery. Flash photography while controlling shutter speed is important to me so I cancelled the subscription until it’s fixed.

Best Camera App by far. This is by far the best camera app for the iPhone. And yes… I do read the release notes for each update 🙂

Halide on iPhone 13 Pro Max 1TB. I have several filming & photography apps on my new iPhone and find HALIDE to be one of my main go-to apps for photos. I like the options available. The lifetime upgrade price is a little too expensive for my liking & should be halved.

Scam. Paid for the app, which was not cheap at the time, they the changed to a subscription plan where they have taken away all the features you previously had. They now want you to pay $79 each year to use the app which you had already paid for. NO THANKS. Can wait for government legal oversight on Apple’s App Store to put an end to this practice.

WORTH THE UPGRADE!. This app gives you total creative control. It has everything you need to take to the next level with just your phone. Gives you the option of shooting in RAW and developing them with its companion app Darkroom. ********

Good, could be better. I’d like an Exposure Bracket mode, especially because we can’t shoot RAW for more latitude using the Ultra Wide lens. I’d also like a Pitch Level, not just a Tilt Level. Seems a bit basic for this price. The Histogram is tiny and almost useless. The one in Darkroom is infinitely better and would be a welcome addition to Halide.

Useless app. What I mean by useless is that as soon as you open the app you have to pay for it you shouldn’t have to pay you should have features that u have to pay for not when you forst go In the app even through there is a option to have a free trail I still don’t think it’s a good idea and please respond or fix this then u will get 5 stars

More than RAW. I largely downloaded Halide a while back to use RAW. Even with Apple enabling ProRAW, I’ve stuck with Halide. More than creating the highest quality file, Halide is the closest experience to shooting on a camera. All the settings you need to shoot are available, without needing to dig through sub menus. On other apps I’ve tried, the clunky interface takes so long to go through that you can miss shots — not Halide. The Halide team update so consistently & are responsive over email and on social media. Well worth more than its price — wish the Halide team could have a crack at redesigning Sony’s camera menus!

Looks, feels, and is, super hi-tech.. Such a simple app, so beautifully thought through. Simple gestures, just the right amount of controls, and amazing technical features when you want them. The focus detector overlay (and the new depth detection feature) feel like science fiction. The level detection is another fantastic feature.

Deceptive advertising. I signed up for a 7 day trial with the option for a year. The warning from Lux did not clarify how difficult it would be to cancel the subscription after the trial. I’ll have to wait perhaps a few weeks to find out if I have been successful with a refund. At any rate Apple’s camera app is pretty good these days and for my purposes enough. Buyers beware.

Forced subscription. Already paid for the app, and barely a couple of years later I’ve been told I no longer get updates and that I need to pay again or sign up for yet another subscription. I can take solace in the fact that at least the developers are losing 30% of this to Apple, but I do wish it was more.

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Shady business practices. Don't even bother. If developers want to release a freemium app that's fine. But I paid for this product and the "upgrade" is just their attempt at gaslighting customers into believing they are doing you a favour by adding subscriptions to a product that has already been bought. This is a super shady practice and I personally cannot trust any people who engage in corporate double speak to manipulate their users. Again, I understand the need to have ongoing revenue streams but honestly camera as a service is just pointless. Seriously, you going to try and sell us the monthly calculator subscription next?

Do not subscribe for “free trial”. Like the many comments mentioned here do not subscribe for the free 7 day trial. They say it’s a free trial and you get billed afterwards but that’s not true you get billed the full amount right upfront. FYI this camera app is IDENTICAL to the default camera app you get with your iPhone. Waste of money!

What the stock camera app should've been. Fantastic app! Enough control over everything without over complicating things. Also, the blog posts by Lux group are super educational!

Bought it once already now they want 70$ to use it?. Make a new app, don’t make me pay again for what I already paid for. Or make the price on the AppStore 70$ so everyone avoids it.

Misleading. I had already purchased Halide and I’m being forced to pay 79.99 if I want to use it again.

Been onboard since v. 1.0. Love Halide. All the control; none of the hassle.

Aucune idée ça change quoi halide. Ça ou un autre lens ça change quoi? C’est du pareil au même! C jump ça te dit que c’est mieux que que ce que tu as de déjà et au final tes images sont pas si meilleures que si tu avais pas bourré ton iPhone d’application

Unable to use the app without free trial (With the latest update (mark II)). It’s misleading, after the latest update, we MUST take a subscription with a free trial to get into the app. This is misleading and a really dangerous way of doing things. There should be an option to not take the free trial.

Signed up for a 7 day trial but charged for a year after cancelling within 2 hours. Wanted to explore the app so I signed up for their 7 day trial that will turn into yearly subscription. Didn’t like it and ended up cancelling within 2 hours but ended up getting charged the subscription fee instead.

Great app but…. The camera is nice but does not support Tiff format and cannot add info in the Exif protocol.

Can’t manually adjust exposure or practically anything.. No more useful then regular camera app. Only it costs money. Plus it said 7 day free trial. So I decided to try that. Then it immediately charged me. Don’t have the money to be spending on apps like this especially when it’s a useless app

I feel ripped off. It seems that to get the 7 day free trial I had to sign up for a year. On day 2, realizing that the app is way over my head, I tried to cancel only to find out that I’ve been charged for a year’s subscription. I’ve been in touch with the developer who kicked the problem back to Apple and provided a link to get a refund from Apple, which I’ve tried many times but doesn’t work. I’m SOL I guess.

Disappointing. Let me start by saying that Halide does everything they say it will: it is a beautiful app and works smoothly with an easy to use interface and enough functionality that lets you set up the technical aspects of a shot. That being said I use it to capture in RAW format on an iPhone X. After HOURS on various forums, YouTube videos, websites etc I have consistently FAILED to extract/export/transfer (fill in your verb of choice HERE) my RAW images. There is no functionality or feature in the Halide app to allow you to export your raw images (and I am transferring to a Mac: therefore Apple to Apple product). Maybe Halide will say “we offer the camera app,... you figure out how to get it out of the camera.” Well Halide, I am neither a computer scientist nor do I want to be. If there is no easy way to export raw images, or way to at least explain how to do this, why offer a feature like RAW when it will not leave the camera? Don’t tell me it’s to take better Instagram photos, JPEGS easily cover that need. It’s like a car offering reverse gear, which you can shift into, but never actually use to get the car to go backwards. Why bother including it? I’ve tried Airdrop, LightRoom, etc etc etc. nothing works. So my phone is clogged up with large raw files that I can’t access outside the phone. I’ve decided that I will have to delete then as they’re dead space. Too bad. Disappointing indeed.

Halide keeps getting better!. With each update, Halide keeps getting better — retaining simplicity with accessible complexity. It’s my hallmark against which I compare other camera apps. And it’s always been at the top! Thanks, you three. Looking forward to what’s next!

Don’t buy the lifetime membership. I’d already bought the app but when it updated it replaced it with the new version and I can no longer use it without paying for this new version. I understand there are costs to developing but it would have been nice if there was a reduced upgrade price for those that bought the previous version. At the very least I should be able to use the older version I already paid for.

The “go to” Camera app for iPhone. This is by far the best camera app available on the App Store. On my iPhone 14 Pro Max, Halide runs silky smooth & I’ve yet to experience any bugs or stutters so kudos to the app’s developers for their great work

No, it is NOT free. Why do you advertise it as free when it is not. What a confusing time waste.

love it!. thank you, loving Halide so far! pretty intuitive, and I love the haptic feedback when locking into a level rotation :)

Not free. Why is it not free I don’t get it. I know it’s your family income but go get a jot like a normal family

Misleading. It’s misleading! You see paywall only after downloading-installing-opening-going through tutorial-there it is.

Bait and switch. This app was awesome and I used it all the time. It just updated and now asks me 13$ a year or 40$ to continue??? This is just super gross, I paid for a product and now I just get it taken away?

Confusing interface, inadequate docs. The app functions well but is remarkably awkward to use. Meaningless icons appear and disappear, and nowhere do the developers provide a translation into English of what the icons mean and a diagram of the control structure. Requests for this basic documentation have been ignored.

Misleading. Shown as a ‘free’ app...with in app purchases available. In reality, unless you purchase it won’t allow you to use. Free trials are useless an out the onus on the user to cancel....why bother, especially for just another camera app.

Total Rip Off Business Model. Halide has now switched to either a $1.25/month or an excessive $85 payout business model… There are much BETTER Camera Apps with MORE features and only pay ONCE business model… I highly recommend Camera+, Moment, ProCam, or ProCamera… Halide has now been permanently DELETED off of my phone!

My iPhone XR takes better macros… :(. I compared “identical” photos taken on Halide and on my regular phone camera (iPhone XR) and the phone could get significantly closer than the macro on Halide. And it’s nowhere near those lenses that you attach to your phone. That’s what I was hoping to find but I was at least expecting Halide would be a little better than my regular phone camera (since it’s just an XR) Disappointing. Also there’s no apparent tutorials (unless there’s one when you first start, I forget, in which case there’s no apparent way to get back to it)

iOS 16.2 huge bug and illegal money demand. DISGUSTING COMPANY NOW. WARNING, Paid app that won’t open any photo I take with it. I already paid to own this app. I’m not updating and being forced into renting something I already paid for. This is illegal! Class action law suit needed. Dead company

Super app. Truly a manual photo app perfectly integrated with the iPhone 15 pro, the action button and the PolarPro grip. But... it would need a screen saver mode, which is essential for battery survival when you're out for a long time taking photos.

Bought a lifetime Membership that expired?. I can understand making a profit. However don’t sell me a lifetime membership and then try to tell me it expired. That is Mickey Mouse in the extreme! I believe your lifetime was maybe 2 or 3 years. If it was for 3 years you should have been very clear about it. Until recently I stopped using Halide as the Apple camera app was better at zooming and had Apple Pro raw. Thought I would check it out to see if it was better and was informed of the above.

Asking for more money. Bought the app, now ask for more money down the line, dishonest

Disappointed to see the increasing cost of new features. Used and loved this app, but cannot accept the increasing cost even I as a developer understand how much work is needed to develop the software. Apple’s stock camera app is already doing a great job and a lot new features are added.

Love this app made with lots of ❤️. I also love reading the release notes. They’re awesome in telling how much work goes on under the hood to make this app better. Kudos, team! 🫶

Extortion. I used to own the app, paid for with real money. Today the app updated itself and removed all functionality completely unless I subscribe or pay more money. I used to rely on this tool. Don’t trust them not to remove the rug out from under you!

Can’t use without subscription?!. I bought Halide 1 and I’m supposed to get Halide 2 for free, it says. But I can’t get past the subscription page to use the camera!

Not Free!. Requires a subscription service or one time fee of 75$! Not what I was looking for from a “free” app :/ disappointed

Not a free app. Scam app that’s nothing but a royal waste of time. You can’t get past the intro screen unless you sign up for a crappy subscription. I often wonder how these scammy apps even get through apple’s screening for publishing apps on the AppStore. What a waste of time!

$84 for a camera app?!. Sure your app has a good reputation but this is ridiculous. Let me know when you release a good iPad camera app for $6, $10 max. Until then anyone who isn’t a professional will use just about anything else. And why the HECK would a professional use an iPad as their main photography device to warrant this?!

THE camera app. As a long-time hobbyist photographer who pretty much always has a camera on his person, I have to say that Halide is the only way to take a good looking photo on my phone. With the new Process Zero update it’s even better. Thank you!

Piece of Crap app. Read below.. It’s no better than the standard camera app that comes with the iPhone. I purchased by mistake hoping it was what I required. It claims that the depth of field will work on non people. Mine didn’t. I requested a refund and was denied. Funny, you can physically go to any store and request a refund with proof of receipt and will get your refund. At Apple, NOT THE CASE.

Not free. To even use the app you need to pay

Great RAW camera app. This is an updated review of my previous comments, wherein I lamented a couple key features that I thought weren’t there. I’m not sure if I had a “bad build”, or if I completely missed them (though I’m certain I spent a good 20 minutes trying to find them), but nevertheless after updating I now see them (I probably just didn’t find hem before). ANYWAYS. Great app. Easy to use. I’m looking forward to shooting with my 8+ a bit more when I’m in Europe next week, knowing I can use RAW and post process later without loss.

No trial. App is a free download, but you are immediately asked to subscribe to try the app. Not for me.

Disappointed. I subscribed for a year before discovering that the aspect ratio can't be changed to square (or 16:9). won't be renewing. having to crop is not saving me any time nor is it helpful. it's so uninspiring looking at a 4:3 ratio. i don't need to pretend im using a DSLR, just make it convenient! dumb and lame

Update forces subscription or 40 purchase!. I loved this app, but the new updates comes with force subscription or one time purchase for 40 dollars. I just want my app works as was before and I can’t see any option for it. Disabling an expensive app with an update is not honest.

Not as polished as I had hoped. Halide has an amazing reputation, so I was expecting something super clean, polished and perfected. But it’s not as I expected - it’s somewhat middle of the road in terms of camera apps I’ve tried. It comes down to little things, like small UI animation bugs, inconsistent icons, etc. Nothing catastrophic, but a bit surprising given is reputation, and I didn’t feel it offered enough to justify its unusually high price in comparison to other manual/RAW camera apps - many of which had nicer UIs and more features for a lot less money (ie. raw photo editing or video recording).

Very Good app. This apps is awsome and use full power from Lens the iPhone

Not a solution to Apple‘s forceful over processing. Bought the app to circumvent the default camera app consistently over sharpening my pictures. Now I’ve noticed that the pictures I take with Halide are even worse than the ones from the default app. I’m pretty sure something changed, I noticed the opposite before. At least the pictures taken with the front camera seem fine. Maybe saving raw files would fix it, but I don’t want to save a ton of raw pictures that take out so much space in my phone. (And I tried to test it, but can’t find the raw files anywhere…) Apart from that, the macro focus and switching between back cameras is finicky compared to the default app. I like that there’s a manual option and changing the exposure is easy.

Like. I want a refund because I apperently pourchasse something but I didn’t give me back my money like the hell !!!

Cameraman. Great addition to Apple-handled device!

No demo mode without opting into a sub. Yeah, hard pass on this rent-seeking garbage. Give people a timed demo, not a "free trial" where you're obviously hoping people forget to cancel.

This app violates apple rules. You cannot have a app that is useless unless you make an in app purchase..

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Outstanding app, except for a couple things…. I’ve been using this app for a few days now, and I love it. It gives a noticeable improvement from the default camera app, even with both running full auto. The macro mode is quite good considering the hat my iPhone SE does not have a macro camera. The UI is very clean and premium feeling. I just have two complaints about the app: 1. You can’t swipe left from the Lock Screen to use Halide. I didn’t take a star away for this because I don’t know if this is Apple’s or Halide’s fault. 2. You can’t zoom in. Or if you can, it’s too hidden and hard to access, as I haven’t found a way yet. This seems like a basic feature that is well implemented in the default camera app, and I don’t understand why Halide can’t use a simple touch gesture to zoom in. They have a digital zoom in macro mode, so it’s definitely possible. This is what kept my review from being 5 stars, and what’s stopping me from always using Halide. If these issues are resolved than this app will definitely be 5 stars for me.

The Best Camera App. I have tried all the top recommended camera apps and Halide is the best in my opinion. I use my iPhone (for ease sake and I am not that great with DSLRs) to take photos of my silver jewelry and the standard phone options just don't cut it. The Halide app allows me to create amazing crisp and clear photos of my jewelry and lifestyle/works in progress photos for social media with just the automatic mode. I plan to learn about the manual options soon but for now, the automatic option works great. The Halide app is perfect for beginners as well as professional photographers. Just get the app, you won't regret it!

The best RAW camera app. This app is definitely the one you want to use if you want to capture RAW photo data. Paid for this last year based on the reviews and I have never been disappointed. The UI is clean and easy to navigate. Anybody who has used the manual settings on a slr/ dslr will not be intimidated. The auto settings are perfect for anybody that just wants to point and shoot as well. There were a few little bugs during adoption, but the constant updates help keep this app running smoothly. If you want complete control of your images don’t use the stock camera app use this one. You won’t regret it.

It’s all about the light for me. Hi, firstly I am not a IPhone user. But I did buy the Haide full version for my iPad Pro 12” I love photography and I mostly shoot with my mirror less cameras. Though lately I have been drawn to how detailed and focused my Haide App works on my IPAD so much so my eyes light up because when I shoot raw in mirror less the camera does not have power to combine files Right off the bat Haide produces, of course I learned much and how to get the most outstanding pictures out of my small pixel camera and it comes down to high quality outdoor light with the IPAD PRO 12 for me. And if they ever added the📷to their platform that would be nice to.

Great app, but new $60 price tag/subscription is too much. This app is truly fantastic, it really is. It’s become necessary due to the iPhone 13s lack of manual camera controls (can’t ensure telephoto lens is used or macro photo mode, weird post processing that makes photos look like oil paintings). It’s easily the best camera app on the App Store for people who want more control over the photos they take. That said, I am not going to purchase the premium version a second time for $60 nor do subscription. Sorry developers, it’s a great app but $60 is simply too much. Maybe if it was cheaper.

Can’t use app once upgraded to mkII. Edit #2 changing to 5 star. Excellent camera app in the Mark II upgrade. I really love the exposure compensation interaction of sliding up and down the screen. It’s super easy to access that and makes it easy to adjust exposure on the fly. Can’t even use the functions I paid for in the Mark I version because the mark II upgrade puts a paywall infront of the app. Edit- apparently its a bug and existing users will have a subscription for a year free. Upgrading my review when i can try it.

Is It really any better than the iPhone camera app or just different. I have used halide on and off for 3 years. Every year as well with a new iteration of iPhone I get halide and try it out, comparing images from valide to the iPhone camera …. It’s not really any better . Yes I’ve seen the comparison reports when you blow an image up to billboard size, there’s a minute difference… And you have to get used to it’s way of doing things, which is a hassle for new users. I’ve taking 1000s of photos with both apps. It’s not a bad app, but not worth the subscription for general users or even pro-am users. Those with very specific needs may find halide useful.

Best photography app. By far!. So just wanted to say great app. Amazing! I’ve tested a lot of different apps, camera +, pro camera, pro camera 8, the native app, Reeflex and camera m to name a few. Something about the way your app processes the proraw takes and the 48mp heic files is so good, that it’s even better than apples native app. It’s manual focus is also a cut above the rest. My only complaint is that it doesn’t have a semi-manual mode and for some reason I can’t get the manual mode to work properly when I’m photographing in heic format. I understand proraw but why is heic having troubles? But if you add a semi manual mode or shutter priority mode, this app will be perfect. Love the app!

Not great for iPhone XR, don’t waste your money.. Got my XR today was beyond disappointed to find out I couldn’t take portrait pics of my pets. Of course that’s my fault for not researching, and I accept that. But after some research, and after reading glowing reviews, I discovered and purchased this app. I thought it would solve all my problems! Nope, not even a little. I watched the tutorial videos and it doesn’t scan the area to detect depth. Nothing seems to happen at all really, 90% of my photos look like I just snapped them with my iPhone 7. The phone vibrates but I’m not sure what that is trying to tell me. Even took a pic of my husband and the blur was so minuscule you could hardly tell. I’m annoyed I paid $6 for literally nothing. I wish I could get my $6 back. Hopefully Apple will put out some update so we can utilize the actual portrait mode for pets.

48MP HEIF. Changing zoom is really clunky, no video, it can be frustrating to use for these small reasons. I only use the app though for the 48MP HEIF capability. Apple really should have offered this as an option by default. Having the resolution but not the 10bit color fidelity is widely acceptable IMO for most people. But the 48MP difference over the 12MP is very noticeable. Please change your zoom controls! It should be a hidden slide that gets confusing based on the device orientation. Just use what apple does? A few buttons 1x 2x 3x? Also missing the 2x is a shame even knowing it will reduce my 48mp to 12. Sometimes i would rather have the DOF over the 48MP

Amazing Application!!!. I have purchased and used nearly every photographic app and camera available for the iPhone and have never been more satisfied than with Halide. From the user friendly and intuitive controls to the final digital raw results that have been more than gratifyingly pleasing and just plain amazing. Even focusing on my subjects is light years more solid than any digital camera I’ve ever used as my eyesight is not as sharp as it once was but the quality and sharpness of my Halide driven photos is substantially improved! I cannot say enough good about this app! Thank you!!

Great Camera App. Props to Halide, Sebastiaan and all! I am a non-professional user who first used the app for it’s elegant manual auto-focus on the iPhone. What strikes me about the application is how it simultaneously exposes fundamental tools like the rule-of-thirds grid and keeps less-used tools just a tap or swipe away. The layout is intuitive and the onboarding experience is well-crafted. I would appreciate the ability to edit EXIF data within the application. I am eager to see how WWDC21 may allow y’all to further integrate with the cameras. Have a great day!

Smart and (too) minimalist. Love this app. In comparison, Apple’s default Camera App is still a strong contender, but has gotten less straightforward and too often wants to ‘know better’. Two suggestions for Halide: give us square 1:1 format (and the option to make it ‘stick’: Camara App no longer allows to make square format the default; maybe that’s just an annoying bug). And please allow 10x zoom rather than the simple lens switcher. I know this sounds like heresy for the purist... but digital zoom has gotten more usable, is only getting better, and would make Halide perfect. In any case, thank you for this brilliant app.

Excellent app, but the zoom option needs to be improved. Hi all, I was using this app some days ago, and it is excellent if you need to shoot small pieces. It works great with good details in the photos. My unique problem is that the zoom can be improved like the Apple camera, where you can move the zoom without selecting a specific value. I hope they can add that option soon because I don't like how the zoom works here using particular values such as points five, one, two, three, or five. I prefer the way Apple designed its camera app.

They almost killed it. I bought it a year or so ago, and opened it this morning and saw that I couldn’t use it without a subscription. Almost flipped out. Then I saw that I needed another update, and it’s solid. I can use it just fine without subscribing. Sorry to all the peeps who are getting this now. It’s good, but not worth the $10 a year or $29 for life. I got it for $5, and that’s what it’s worth. Kinda a waste though, what with the new iPhones starting to take photos in raw. If you are getting an iPhone 12 pro, don’t get this app. Other than that, if the money isn’t an issue, it’s solid.

Some regressions from Halide mk I. Please please PLEASE add the ability to lock exposure on tap autofocus in manual mode, or at least some ability to not change the ISO. The original app had 'ISO' mode which would keep ISO constant when automatically adjusting exposure. On a small sensor like this it was amazing for squeezing professional-quality shots out of my phone and made Halide a deeply integrated part of my workflow. With the current app there are so many more steps to adjusting focus while keeping exposure parameters as desired that I don't bother with it nearly as often, which I find to be a great loss since no other app was as nice as the original. Thanks for your consideration and keep up the good work.

Loss of functionality after migration to subscription model. I bought Halide quite some time ago. It wasn’t my everyday go-to app for a few reasons (lack of quick access from a widget being one of these) but I kept it on my phone because some devs do change stuff over time. Once the ability to open Halide from a widget became an option, I embraced it. I get it. You need a stream of revenue, and it’s not like you can maintain that with one-time purchases. However, the app updating and losing access to this feature (and who knows what others) after telling us that we’ll continue to be able to access functionality we’ve had for some time now isn’t acceptable. I can’t recommend this app as an alternative to the stock camera app anymore.

Extremely buggy and annoying to use. Many of the controls don’t work, such as manual focusing. I tried manually focusing, it works for a second, then freezes and you can no longer interact with any of the controls. Almost every time I interact with the controls, the lower menu becomes completely unresponsive and I have restart the app. The manual controls for shutter speed is annoying and cumbersome. The UI is definitely built for form rather than function as setting up your shot will take at least 5 minutes between the crashing and unintuitive UI. I’m confused as to why this is recommended, perhaps for iPhone users to pretend to be professionals? iPhone 14 Pro Max running the latest stable iOS 16.

Halide is the best!. Any bad review you see for this app are nothing more than user error and stupidity. Learn how to use the app properly THEN write your review! They have a 10 day course (one educational email a day) that you can sign up for in the app. It’s fantastic! I’ve been using this app as well as every other app by Lux, since 2020. And have been continually impressed with the developers hard work they put into this. Because of that fact, I pay for the subscription instead of the one time purchase. Simply because I want to give them more money for making and upkeeping a great product for a reasonable price. That’s how great this app is! I do have one request: please make a lefty mode for me and my fellow left handed freaks. The same thing— just horizontally flipped. All that to say, my thanks and compliments to Benjamin and Sebastiaan for creating such a great product. I truly appreciate this app in the midst of all the poorly developed applications by greedy companies with absurdly priced subscriptions

Best iPhone camera app.. For a lot of situations, it’s easier to point and click with the native camera app. But if you want to get more artistic about lighting and focus, then this is it! I love the design and how it’s so easily usable even single handed. The controls are well thought out, and best of it all you get incredible RAW photos for editing in post. The flexibility of RAW with the convenience of natively working on top of your Photos library is awesome. Sometimes the image viewing is a little clunky, but otherwise this is :chefs-kiss:. Call me a fan forever.

Never Have I Ever. regretted paying to have this app forever. for some reason the camera inside this app works as a professional shooting camera. this is the only thing i use and i fell in love with it because it truly captured me. i want to thank the developers for coming through for people like me who shoot stuff on phones. like, seriously you guys are life savers. some people would say it's over priced but i always say u get what u pay for and this is so well worth it. not only is it portable and at your beckoning call just by clicking one button. you can change the icons you guys have very frequent updates and the updates are always towards fixing something or giving the users something new. i could go on from raw photos to the camera grid this app was built perfectly. thank you, thank you, thank you to this outrageous team, halide. you guys are freaking amazing!!! love you!!! you guys truly deserve that award. cheers to you. 🎉🎊🎁

Decent, needs updating. Decent camera app. Enjoyed the manual options to tweaking EVs, focus points, exposure, shutter speeds, aperture and even able to see focus peaking. I, like many, got the app to be able to use the iPhone XR depth editing on objects and animals. Since writing this review, I have come to realize that the depth detection and editing only really works with animals with a face, but not with much editing outcome as if you shot normal people. I had the slider to adjust the aperture in the photos, but it barely showed any impact of the background blur. Don’t even bother with inanimate objects. It won’t even give you the option to edit the background blur. I think in time this app will be better, but at its current state, it still needs work, especially the depth mode.

Basic raw camera app with nice features but also limitations. I love he fact that I can make use of the depth of field portrait mode even on the iPhone XR which has only one lens. And of course that I can take photos in raw format. Buttons and adjustments are intuitive and comfortable to handle. However, in a camera app that lets me set ISO and shutter speed manually, I’m really missing to see the automatically applied values in auto exposure mode. I want to see if the camera has chosen a shutter speed that will most likely result in a blurred photo, or an ISO value that might create too much noise. I need this information to decide if I should switch into manual mode before taking the shot, not just after. Also, the complete lack of video recording (I know your main focus is photography) makes it impossible to substitute the native camera app. There are many situations when an iPhone shooter wants to quickly switch between photo and video, preferably staying in the same app. These shortcomings considered, I’m a little on the edge if it’s worth the $9 I paid for it. I would have expected more. Update: I grew into using it as my go to camera app. Now after the latest update, and the redesign of the user interface, I’ve stopped using it. Way to ruin a good app by making it unnecessarily complicated. Bad move, imho.

Simply unreliable. The app refuses to save photos after I shoot them, i only have it set to save a proRAW, yet after I shoot an image and tap to view it, i get a constant loading screen, and after waiting at times 2-3 minutes, I get an error message and lost a photo I spent time adjusting settings, focus and composing. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled the app, assuming it’s a bug with my install, but even using this app occasionally, I am consistently running into this issue. So far I’ve deemed this to be an app issue, and I’m disappointed because I don’t remember halide being this unreliable previously. I feel cheated in supporting this app previously and will be looking for reliable alternatives, look for another app.

The BEST camera app for iPhone. I bought this app when I had my 7 Plus and it blew me away. Now, with the 12 Pro Max, this app is OUT OF CONTROL. RAW+ photos look amazing, the focus and exposure controls are easy to use, and portrait mode really makes this iPhone shine. I just saw the update for the 12 mini and Pro Max, so I’m excited to see what it can do now! One thing I love, not specifically app related, is the developers responding to questions on Reddit. I love that they engage with their users as well as breaking down the more technical aspects of how the app works. Keep up the great work devs!

As easy or as detailed as you’d like. Halide is one of the most beautifully designed, carefully crafted apps you can find on an iPhone. It’s built for ease of use, with controls arranged on the screen in such a way as to be easily reachable. You can go deep into its settings to produce carefully composed photos with manual focus and exposure-or you can just snap. There are lots of little details to surprise and delight. Your photography knowledge will definitely improve from reading the web tutorials and learning all of the features. The developers are accessible and keep adding more great features.

Beware—photos taken on iPhone 13 pro can’t be saved. This app purports to offer RAW shooting and some other cool features for a subscription. But right now the app is unable to save photos. Instead, it produces the following error message: “Error saving photo - an error occurred while saving your photo.” The developer claims that this error “is caused by a problem in Apple’s photos framework in iOS and is beyond our control.” Fair enough, but until the problem is fixed the app is worse than useless—better to take a compressed .HEIC photo with the built in Camera app than no photo at all. Don’t buy this app until the problem described above is fixed.

Good app, too pricey. This app is competing in a market segment between a phone and a real camera. Because the limit in phone camera performance is the form factor/lens size, this market is pretty narrow (and it would go away entirely if Apple integrated manual and RAW into their camera app). Nevertheless I like what the developers have created here- Apple’s simplicity based design philosophy is not universally beneficial and someone needed to finish the camera on the iPhone. The price is just too high for the utility it provides- in situations where I’d need this app’s functionality, I’d just use a real camera.

Great Until Recently. Been using this app almost since it was introduced and it’s been fantastic being able to shoot in raw.... until (it seems) the last update. The app crashes about 25% of the time, it’s always iffy if bringing up the library of my photos will work, and most concerning is that I’m getting “failure to communicate” errors after taking a shot. The thumbnail will show in the bottom left so it seems all is ok but when browsing to find it in the photos app or Lightroom app it’s nowhere to be found. This has caused me to lose a lot of photos that I assumed I had taken. Big disappointment. Makes me wish I never updated. iPhone 8s and latest iOS for reference.

Bought for RAW; Can’t use RAW. I pride myself on being one of those people who reads the entire description before I purchase a product. I have no idea how I missed it, but I was disappointed to discover after downloading that shooting in RAW is not available on the iPhone 6, only the 6S and later. I’m sure it’s somehow my fault for missing that information. Perhaps it should be more prominently displayed. But disappointing nonetheless. I was specifically looking for a camera app that supports shooting in RAW. I rarely spend money on apps. The rating was good. The reviews were good. Boo. I’m sure the rest of the app works great- I haven’t used it much- but without supporting RAW, I doubt I’ll explore many of the other features and stick with one of my other camera apps that already work perfectly fine for JPEG photos.

Great but lacking a few things. I’m going to keep this short and simple. This app DOES allow you to control your iPhone camera way more than the stock camera app. One thing I like is the fact that it will not switch out of different lenses automatically like the normal Camera app. I wanted more control over the shutter speed to take long exposures but the longest shutter time is only one second. Also, there should be a way to turn off the live view when adjusting the camera shutter speed. The stuttering view makes it hard to line up a shot with a longer shutter speed like that. There has been a couple of times the app has crashed when the shutter speed was set to 1 second. I payed for the annual membership to see if it unlocked extra features but it really doesn’t. Without the longer exposure times and the ability to disable the live view, I do not see myself continuing the membership. *Using a 13 Pro Max*

I’m a Pro Photographer and.... I had read several articles taunting this app. As a Pro Photographer and Cinematographer I found myself trying desperately to mimic the bokeh effects and other effects by combining several apps. When Apple came out with the depth of field bokeh effect I thought “ ok, close but no cigar.” Then I found Halide! Sure I can whip out my expensive Canon cameras and such but look how easy it is to use the iPhone. Granted, it’s not as good as my Professional set up but it does a good job for what it is. 5 stars ! All the way! Keep those updates impressing us Halide. Cheers!

One of the All-Time Great Apps. I have always been incredibly impressed with the design and operability of Halide, and its ability to communicate a lot of very complicated tools in an intuitive way. The new MK II update takes Halide from one of the great apps to maybe one of the best designed apps available today — this app will serve as a model for so many others in its design, personality, and ease of use. All while being extremely quick, snappy, and fluid at the speed required for time-sensitive photography. Thanks so much for all of the work on this app!

One Question. The app design itself is great, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to use portrait mode in this app. I click on depth but it does not enable the artificial blur. UPDATE: Thanks for the response, I watched the tutorial and I totally understand how the depth feature works now. I see that you have apply it afterwards in the photos app. It's a shame though that there is no live preview of the depth like the stock camera app though. It's like blindly taking a picture, and then you just have to hope it came out OK. Can you please make it so I can see the blur effect live on my screen in the app? Camera+ has this ability already but I really like Halide a lot more except for this one issue.

Good featureset, poor reliability. I purchased the yearly plan for Process Zero only. As a feature, it’s super interesting and the end-product is exactly what I want. As a piece of software, it’s extremely unreliable. I’ve lost about a dozen photos in a couple of weeks of trying Halide as my default camera-app, with no indication of why. Did I close the app too fast after capturing the photo? Is listening for the sound of the shutter or the visual of the photo being taken not enough time for the photo to save? Either way, the reliability of an app like this being a "default" is probably the most important thing, so to fumble that implementation is disappointing at best and incredibly frustrating at worst. I’ve requested a refund as this newest app version doesn’t even open on my fully up-to-date iPhone 15 Pro.

Camera+ 2 Pro is better! Just get Camera+!. I don’t know why people are so excited about this. Camera+ has been around foreve, is MUCH cheaper, and generally more capable. It’s like they’ve never seen Camera+ before. There are only a few things Halide does any better than Camera+ Pro and they’re no big deal, then Halide is missing a bunch of Camera+ features and they want either a yearly subscription or a massive one-time payout for the thing. Just get Camera+. The only thing I like better in Halide is some exposure gestures are a little slicker, and it will display an overlay for depth info, but it’s missing too much functionality that Camera+ has. And they want way too much money for Halide.

Halide is great, though Coverage is confusing. I have Halide years ago, and instantly felt in love with the experience and the features set. From big features such as RAW, Focus Peaking, etc, to small things such as the haptic, Halide will make you satisfied (though it’s pricey). I wish the developers would explain more about the Coverage features. I have a hard time understanding it, and what benefits does it have. For me, turning Coverage on doesn’t have significant results. Also, I didn’t see an option to change focus peaking color. The older version have it.

Perfect with iPhone 12 Pro. This takes advantage of every pixel and corner in the 12 pro screen and every ounce of innovation in the 12 pro. Apple ProRAW is taken full advantage of. There’s even a button that switches you easily right to Darkroom (if you’re using it) for fast edits on the fly. Controls are intuitively placed. You can even customize the app icon. It’s like they designed the app with this phone in mind. Hands down the best camera app I have (and I have several). The interface itself is beautiful and elegant. Really well done app.

Just a thought. I am just a learner/ beginner or a naive user, I just contributed to the app as I my self is a growing person in technology so support is a must. But with that said how about you guys install presets into the app which can be use while taking photos like apples photo style not to copy the feature but with your range of thoughts you guys can install a lot of pre photo shots which would be faster for a lot of people who can focus on the shots instead of settings some time. Other than that thanks for making world better I haven’t used it a lot of being an engineer it’s always fun. Keep going and happy snapping 😃

DO NOT BUY! Complete scam. This app is a complete scam. After watching and reading tons of positive reviews, I paid $60 for the full version of the app, only to find out that even the most basic features of the app don’t work. None of the manual exposure controls work at all. Manually setting shutter speed or ISO doesn’t work at all, whether I shoot HEIC, RAW, 12MP, 48MP, what have you - none of the manual adjustments work. When intentionally trying to under or overexpose an image with manual exposure controls, I always get an image that looks like it was shot in auto. To make matters worse, this app is literally worse than the default camera app - the image preview is super laggy, and there’s more noise and artifacts in the final image. This is a scam app that offers nothing more or better than what the default camera app does.

Just WOW!!. An independent camera app that supports positive causes, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Prior to the most recent update, this was already a Five-Star app! Now that the Depth feature has been updated it has just about all I need in a photo app. Keep up the AMAZING work and thank you for this incredible update! 2023 Edit: This app continues to remain the greatest Camera App on iPhone! The new Telephoto feature is such a wonderful addition, as I have missed this “Lens” since I upgraded to iPhone 12 from the 8 Plus. Many thanks for always taking care of us!!!

Confusing interface. The interface on Mark II is confusing — there are multiple options in the settings to control whether you get a RAW image by itself or a RAW image plus a processed image and they seem contradictory. Turning on “Coverage” says it will get you both a RAW and a JPG. But turning off “Coverage” and setting “Capture Format” to “RAW+” also gets you both RAW and JPG — so what’s the difference? What does “Coverage” actually do? And no matter how you set those options, you get JPG alone if the RAW icon on the main interface isn’t yellow; if it’s white, you only get JPG. If you turn “Coverage” on (which should produce RAW+JPG) but set “Capture Format” to “RAW” you only get a RAW file even if you set the RAW icon to yellow — which makes it appear that “Capture Format” overrides “Coverage.”

Ah well… 0 stars if I could.. Another one bites the dust. Seeing the app go from a paid premium app to a subscription model; OR an exorbitant single purchase price, I’m done. Yes; the developers have the right to do it; and yes they’re correct in saying that already paid users have gotten free upgrades for a time. The problem for me as a paid user is that this same process will inevitably occur again. I might pay the ridiculous “one time” fee for the app and sure it’ll be upgraded for a time, UNTIL it’s decided that it’s time to do it again. And we all know it WILL happen again. So; for me it’s a no. No subscription and definitely no payment of $35 or whatever for another “one time” purchase.

Only the best. This app is so well designed, it’s unreal. After getting my iPhone X, I started reading iPhone photography articles on Medium which is how I found about this app. Ever since installing it, I stop during my everyday routine so that I can capture a beautiful moment. The quick controls and RAW integration allow me to tweak the photo so I can really get the mood that the scene put me in. Previously, my phone camera was just not capable of doing that. Also the developers are very responsive and constantly pushing out major updates. Great work guys!

This app turns your phone into a professional camera. This is hands down the best camera app ever made I would recommend it to any iPhone user especially if you have the 12 pro max I shoot all of my pictures with this app the only thing I would change is something that apple would have to change it would be nice to launch to the app from the Lock Screen and take selfies and video from the app too just completely replace the stock app

Not impressed at all, no faster than iOS camera app. I’m a bit disappointed with this app, both in terms of its layout and ease of use, and that the portrait/depth mode doesn’t work any better/faster than the native iOS camera app. I bought this after reading a press release on dpreview where they claimed the portrait mode was a lot faster and didn’t take a few seconds like the native one. This doesn’t work any better for me and I’ve gone back to using the native camera app, or a tool like Focus which lets you easily adjust the amount of the simulated depth effect. All and all I just don’t think this app was nearly with the money and camera apps like Camera+ have better and easier to use interfaces for less money. Would return this one for a refund if I could.

App is great, focus not so much. I’ve had halide for a long time, I support the app yearly as well (that might change). The problem I have is with the focus brackets, they are just too big. If the focus area can be made smaller to provide spot focus or very selective focus, I would use it more. I don’t really care for the loupe magnifier. I know that manual focus is available and I’ve used it, however the other issue I have is that the focus peeking is way too broad. To much of the scene is covered in green & makes it difficult to get precision focus. I’m using the 15 pro max.

Use to be great. I have been a long time Halide user but sadly I need to move on. Lately I have been having serious issues where Halide is not saving photos I take using an iPhone 12 Pro. I will click the shutter and the picture is not saved. Clicking on the preview button will not bring up the photo. Does this happen all the time? No but enough times that it isn’t a fluke. I’ve missed some great shots because of this. Anytime I use Halide I would go to the Photos app to verify it actually saved the photo. This is something that I shouldn’t have to do. As I lost confidence in Halide saving my photos I take. It saddens me to have to write this. Maybe I’ll try Halide in a few months and hopefully they get their issues resolved.

The last iPhone camera app I’ll ever need.. I’m decent with my camera shots on the iPhone, but felt like I wasn’t able to justify the new iPhone XS photos for how expensive the phone was. Enter Halide. I’ve never tried shooting RAW and editing the photos from scratch because a DSLR is expensive and the editing software can also be kind of expensive. Not to mention, it’s not always fun lugging a camera around, and great shots are usually spur of the moment when you don’t have a camera with you. With Halide, it really does offer you everything that the stock apps offers for when you want photo and editing freedom. It uses the full capability of hardware, so it is truly an unlocked version of the camera. Pair this with Darkroom, the partner editing app to Halide, and you will be able to snap great shots on the fly and have relatively extensive editing ability right on your phone. You should buy this app in a heartbeat if you have an iPhone X or XS, and at least consider it if you have an iPhone 8 Plus.

Permits high fidelity control of light exposure, image focus, and shutter speed + more.. This application is a well-thought-out emulation of the fidelity of exposure, focus, speed and other controls that were once available on higher-end nondigital cameras and which are presently enjoyed on today's higher-end digital cameras. These precision controls plus moving the shutter to the volume button give the feel of using an actual camera instead of a cell phone. This is becoming one of my all-time favorite applications. I am using an iPhone 6+.