These Cameras all have a cool Toy Camera interface and are loaded with toy camera effects. They all let you either swap lenses, flashes and/or films. Some have in-app purchases for more lens packages. If you are at all into iPhone photography they are really fun to play around with and you can get some great pictures pretty easily. A lot of these cameras also have Flickr groups that you can check out to see what kind of pictures you might be able to get. I find the Flickr groups very helpful when deciding whether or not to purchase a new camera app.
There is a reason why Hipstamatic is one of the most popular toy camera apps in the appstore. It's got a great user interface, some really cool effects and I find it really fun to swap out lenses, flashes and films. The app comes with a basic lens/flash/film pack and offers other packs as in-app purchases. I bought all of them and think the extra cost was worth it. This is definitely my most used camera app on my iPhone.
So far the Pinhole Camera is pretty simple. Like the Hipstamatic camera, you get a little viewfinder to frame your pictures. The graphics and interface look pretty good and the pictures come out great. There are only three "film type" options so far but they are good. What I really like about this camera is the double exposure option that enables you to take some pretty cool, textured photographs. You can share your photos to Facebook or Email from within the app and turn the iPhone 4 flash on or off. The only problem at the moment is that it outputs at a low-resolution, but I'm sure they will be able to fix that quickly.
Retro Camera Plus is a free toy camera that is supported by ads. Although I'm not a fan of ugly ads cluttering up my screen, the app is decent so I don't really mind that much. There are five different vintage cameras, complete with descriptions and a color/b&w option. The app doesn't support full iPhone 4 resolution yet, which is disappointing but I'm glad to see another plastic toy camera app emerge. Plus it is free, so why not give it a shot?
All of the Classic series of cameras come from the same developer. They all have a variety of film types to swap out. My primary problem with this method is that there is no way to preview your film type selection to see what it may look like and I can't remember what they would all look like if I were to use them. With that said, the ClassicTOY camera takes some pretty cool pictures and has a nice and simple interface. It comes with a couple of lenses and film types and you have to purchase the rest inside the app. The addition lenses include a pin-hole simulator, a weird color wash lens, a four and six picture lens and a fish eye. I don't use this camera as much as Hipstamatic but still enjoy busting it out once in a while.
ClassicPAN does one thing, it takes pictures with the top and bottom cut off to create a panorama. Its got some cool film types that you can swap out and a nice vignetting effect. I like using this camera for quick panoramic shots because its easy and fast. They pictures come out nice like all the other Classic camera but if I want to take a real panoramic picture, I use the app Pano.
I'm not really a fan of the "mulit-lens" camera. They all take a series of pictures and just stack them next to or on top of each other. If you are into that sort of thing this app is simple and does it well, with some nice photo effects. I prefer to take my pictures separately and put them together in an app like Diptic. ClassicSAMP is more suited to action shots, where you want to take 4 pictures pretty close together and place them next to each other.
ClassicINSTA is another easy to use and quick toy camera with a variety of film types and three user interfaces that you can choose from. Its good for speed, when you don't want to take the time to swap out lenses on another more complex camera app but if you already have Hipstamatic or ClassicTOY then you probably don't need this one.
These Cameras don't have a toy camera interface but they are free and simulate various toy camera effects. The other toy camera apps listed above can do the same thing that these apps do (except the Vint Shift camera) so if you get any of them, you won't need any of these free apps. If you don't have the money to spend and want to mess around with some vintage effects, try these out. All these apps do one thing and do them quickly. I think the Vint Shift is a pretty good free app but you can't really adjust the line of focus. Once you take the photos, you can't make any changes in any of these apps, what you get is what you get.
