Welcome back to our series on how to decide which photo app is the best for you. This time, we’re comparing Photon and VSCO. These two are a lot more different than Photon and Halide. VSCO includes an editor as well as a space to share your work, and while these are valuable tools, they’re outside the scope of what Photon Camera itself covers. So this article will focus mostly on the camera.
Standard disclaimer applies: We make Photon Camera.
Basic Camera and Manual Controls
VSCO’s camera includes some basic controls like flash, front facing camera, grid, and level. In comparison, Photon has all of these and a lot more control over your shot with manual controls. VSCO can somewhat control the brightness of the shot with an EV slider, but doesn’t come close to the precision of Photon’s control over Shutter Speed, ISO, and White Balance. VSCO’s only focusing mechanisms are tap to focus/expose and auto focus. Whereas Photon gives you independent control over focus and exposure. VSCO seems to be missing some basic tools like timer, focus peaking, and clipping indications. Additionally unlike Photon, you can’t seem to use the grid and level at the same time.
Bracketing
Both apps also include a mechanism to create bracketed shots. However they achieve this in fundamentally different ways. VSCO has you take a photo, adjust the brightness, and then take a second photo. This is totally fine, if you’re using a tripod, which if you’re bracketing images, you probably should be. Within this feature also lives the ability to take a grid of shots at the same time. Photon simplifies the bracketing processes by taking 3 images when it’s turned on. A normal image, one darker, and one brighter. Any compositing after that is up to you to do in your favorite editor. This also cuts down on the need for a tripod, as all three shots are taken in very quick succession.
Video
What Photon doesn’t have is the ability to record video. In VSCO camera you can create “DSCO” shots, which are short looping videos, as well as long form videos. For your video needs, if you’d like another option, feel free to check out our video app, REC. We’ll leave it at that because comparing the two video modes would be another entire article!
Effects
VSCO includes several effects that can be applied while taking photos, including a trippy prism effect, light leaks, and “aurora” which seems to add a blur to the top and bottom of the shot with some color effects that vary based on the colors in the photo. In our testing these worked as we assumed they were intended to, but are not something we intend to pursue with Photon.
File Sizes and Formats
VSCO seems to only support one size of image – either the standard size of your device or whatever size photo you import into it. However it’s important to note that VSCO specifies that they always compress your photos, which can under certain circumstances result in artifacts and/or loss of data. It’s possible that they use a lossless compression format, but the articles we checked didn’t specify that that was the case. Additionally VSCO cannot capture in RAW. While it used to have that capability, it appears to have been removed. With Photon it’s easy to change the format and resolution of your photos by tapping the format on the top left corner of the toolbar. If you don’t see the format you’d like, you can tap and hold to specify any format (or combination of formats) that Photon supports. These include JPEG, HEIF, True RAW and ProRAW. For more information see the “Choosing a Format” article. Additionally at the other side of the toolbar you can swap resolutions between 12 and 48 megapixels if your device, format, and camera support it.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for some neat effects and a home to make a profile and share your photography, VSCO might be right for you! However if you’re in the camp that wants total control over each and every aspect of the shot from focus to white balance to export format, Photon may be a better choice. One downside to VSCO is that when you start it up the first time, it prompts you to create an account. While this is all well and good for their social features, it may be a little much if you’re just looking for a camera. Hopefully this article helped you figure out which of these apps might work best for you. If you’re still on the fence, check out our other article comparing Photon to Halide, or send us a note at support@latenitesoft.com with your questions, and we’ll be happy to chat with you