8MM Vintage Camera App Brings You Awesome Retro Video Effects [Review]

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There is an interesting new video photography app called, 8mm Vintage Camera by Nexvio, Inc., that brings your iPhone and iPod Touch back in time to capture the beauty and magic of old school vintage movies.

It accomplishes this by mixing and matching different films and lenses and it does a good job of it. The total number of combinations allow you to get a glimpse into retro filming with 25 old school looks from bygone eras. It even comes complete with retro colors, flickering video, light leaks, dust and scratches (my favorite), and frame jitters. You can add any of these to your video with a flick of your finger.

What’s Good? The app is easy to use and the output is pretty much what you’d expect – crappy, grainy, noisy, etc., but that’s the intent. You shoot your video clips in real-time using the built-in effects: 70s, Sakura, XPro, Siena, or 1920. You can manually throw in some jittery frame jumps, use the iPhone 4 flash, front or rear cameras, and select between a few lens to modify the apps effects even further.

Once you are finished your creative works can be saved to your Camera Roll, e-mailed, or uploaded to YouTube.

What’s Bad? I’ve only experimented with the app for a few hours after purchasing it today and I haven’t found anything wrong with it so far. I noted on startup that the app recommended rebooting if there were problems with video recording due to low memory issues. I did not encounter this problem and did not see it mentioned by any of the commenters in iTunes.

Conclusion If you are interested in photography and special effects then you cannot go wrong with this app. It is certainly entertaining if you can remember using devices that produce these kinds of video formats or you’ve seen video produced by such devices. It will definitely be a trip down memory lane.

[xrr rating=4/5]


Company: Nexvio, Inc.
Compatibility: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and iPod touch (4th generation). Requires iOS 4.1 or later.
List Price: $1.99
Buy Now: The 8MM Vintage Camera app is available from the iTunes App Store.

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