Thanks to Justin Timberlake’s blog, I discovered Hipstamatic, a cool new app for iPhone.  For just $1.99, this app lets you take vintage-looking photos with your phone.

The one big advantage? With the “standard equipment” loaded with the app, it lets you play around and mix and match lenses, film and flashes. And if you want even more features, you can easily buy them from the app itself. Most additional lenses, film and flashes are available for $0.99 USD.

Immediately after downloading this app, I started taking pictures.  As you can see, the pics have a unique feel to them. Here’s one I took of myself:

Please note: If I look tired in this pic, that’s because I was. I was busy finishing a paper the night before!

More sample photos and some minor disadvantages of the app after the jump!

A picture I took while riding the Skytrain. Taken with the following settings: Kaimal Mark II (lens), Kodot Verichrome (film), and off flash.

Another picture from the Skytrain. Taken with the following settings: John S (lens), Kodot Verichrome (film),with standard flash.

The app has a few short-comings. For instance, there is no zoom in functionality.  The window shown in the screen while you’re taking picture is also not indicative of what you’ll eventually see.  The window only shows a small portion of the final picture.  This means that you may need to try a few times before you capture the “perfect” picture.

Also, if you like taking self-portrait pictures – and I know a lot of people like doing that! – this app is also a bit difficult to use.  But this issue is common for a lot of iPhone apps because of the phone’s design, so it shouldn’t be a deal breaker.

By the way, Hipstamatic is not a photo-editing app. You can take pictures with it with different settings, but you can’t take a picture with the standard iPhone app then apply the settings through Hipstamatic. I think the best photo-editing app is still the free one created by  Photoshop.

Despite these short-comings, though, the app is worth the purchase. If you love unique photography, Hipstamatic is definitely for you.

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