Camera1 vs Lucent Camera
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Camera1
This app offers a dedicated manual camera experience for black and white photography. It provides full creative control over contrast and exposure in real-time, allowing users to develop their vision before capturing the shot. Users can also manually adjust focus and exposure for professional-quality monochrome images.
- Black and white photography only
- Manual focus and exposure control
- Real-time contrast and exposure adjustments
- Live histogram and over-exposure warning
- Support for RAW, ProRAW, TIFF, and JPEG formats
- Zen mode for distraction-free shooting
- Multiple crop formats and grid views
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Camera1 is the dedicated Black & White manual camera for iPhone. No colour, no compromise — just pure monochrome photography with full creative control. DEVELOP YOUR CREATIVITY Learn to "see" in Black & White through Camera1 unique simultaneous contrast and exposure adjustments. Explore the infinite black and white image possibilities in real-time, such as high-key/low-key right in the viewfinder, before taking the shot. Use the Zen mode to focus all your creative attention on the picture, and not the camera or technique. TAKE CONTROL Take control of the camera, with manual overrides of exposure and focus. Super easy access to focus lock using the manual focusing slider, for ultra-fast shooting - as the camera won’t need to re-focus between shots. PROFESSIONAL OUTPUT Camera1 takes full advantage of your camera hardware and saves in a variety of different file formats, including JPEG, TIFF, RAW & ProRAW / DNG, allowing for maximum editing flexibility in applications like Photoshop and Lightroom later in your workflow. Advanced iOS image processing such as Deep Fusion and Smart HDR is used on supported devices. Live histograms, flash, grid views and a range of manual controls allow you to get the perfect shot, every time. Features • Black & white photography only: commit to Black and White at shooting time. • High-quality image processing engine. Take full advantage of your device camera hardware. • Manual focus (with magnification of the center focusing area), focus lock, spot focus, auto-focus • Manual exposure compensation, or use Auto exposure • Live histogram, when adjusting exposure, optional over-exposure warning indicator (zebras) • 6 contrast/color filters for Black & White: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, infrared (simulated) • Manual contrast control • High-resolution capture (48MP) (*) • Support for multi-lens devices - standard, telephoto and ultra wide-angle (*) • ProRAW, RAW, JPEG, HEIC, TIFF file formats. DNG files contain colour information, allowing later editing. A full-resolution JPEG, processed to Black and White by Camera1 is saved alongside the DNG file, to the camera roll • Support for iOS Deep Fusion and Smart HDR (*) • Tap on the picture to take the shot • 5 crop formats: 3:2, 4:3 (native), 1:1, 16:9, 2.35:1 (panorama) • Zen mode: all controls disappear, leaving only the viewfinder on the screen for the ultimate picture-taking experience • 3 flash modes: On, Off, Torch • 2 framing grid types: Rule of Thirds and Golden Triangles • Live view of all controls above • iOS Widget - quickly launch the app from your lock or home screen • Camera Control: use hardware camera control to launch Camera1, or to take shots (iPhone 16 Pro & Pro Max) • Black and White camera roll, image viewer at full resolution "The most brilliant Camera App in recent years" -- Keisuke Takahashi "I like the results-a bit like film (Tri-X) with a slight grain pattern. Lots of latitude" -- Eric Mencher @emencher Don't forget to tag your pictures with #camera1app ! Privacy-first • Camera1 does not embed any tracking / third-party SDKs (*) Compatibility Notes Camera1 features depend on the capabilities of your iOS device: • High-resolution (48MP) capture: iPhone 14 Pro and later Pro models • ProRAW capture: iPhone 12 Pro and later Pro models • RAW capture: iPhone 6S and later, iPad Pro • Smart HDR & Deep Fusion: iPhone 11 and later • Multi-lens support (standard, telephoto, ultra wide): devices with multiple rear cameras • Ultra Wide lens may not support RAW or manual focus/exposure on some devices
Lucent Camera
This app offers a classic black and white photography experience with granular control over lighting and composition. Manually adjust focus, ISO, exposure, contrast, and brightness to master your shots. Its simple interface provides gentle haptic feedback and optional grid lines for precise framing.
- Manual focus control
- Adjustable ISO and exposure
- Contrast and brightness settings
- Tap to auto focus
- Pinch to zoom
- Simple interface with haptic feedback
- Optional grid lines
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Lucent Camera is a classic black and white camera. It's interface lets you control every detail of the lighting and composition of your photographs. Features include: • Ability to manually focus the lens. • Ability to manually adjust iso and exposure settings. • Ability to set the contrast and brightness levels. • Tap to auto focus. • Pinch to zoom. • Simple interface with gentle haptic feedback. • Optional grid lines to line up your shots. • Totally private. Shooting in black and white can take your photography to the next level and Lucent Camera lets you control every detail to achieve mastery with the camera in your pocket.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Lucent Camera at Free against Camera1's $4.99. Lucent Camera also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 76%). Camera1's advantage is ratings volume (128 vs 5). On rating, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Lucent Camera is free to download; Camera1 costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Camera1 against 4.6 for Lucent Camera. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Camera1 has 128 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 76% of Camera1's written reviews are positive against 100% of Lucent Camera's.
Camera1 ships an update every 4 months, Lucent Camera every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and July 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Camera1 | Lucent Camera |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (128 ratings) — better | 4.6 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 75.8% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 128 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 27 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sebastien Ardon | Benjamin Lucas |
Customer experience
Camera1
Lucent Camera
In-app purchases
Camera1
No in-app purchases
Lucent Camera
No in-app purchases









