Technical Camera vs Search Photos
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Technical Camera
This app offers advanced controls for still photography, allowing users to customize image quality, color space, and geotagging per album. It features unique tools like a framing preview, highlight/shadow alerts, and manual exposure settings for precise image capture.
- Album-specific image quality and settings
- Selectable image sizes including RAW
- Framing Previsor for telephoto simulation
- Highlight and shadow alerts
- Manual ISO, shutter speed, and focus
- Color managed capture to display
Read full descriptionHide full description
The ultimate still photo app for the conscious image maker - works equally well for serious photography as for organized visual note taking. With a handful of unique features you'll not find anywhere else. Photos are saved to individual albums created with a specific purpose in mind. Such as different photo shoots or projects, visual shopping lists, recipes from the grandmother's cookbook, things for sale, monthly gas and electricity meter readings - the list is endless. These uses need different image qualities and sizes (you'll seldom make a large print of a meter reading, for example), so the app has: • Album specific image quality, color space (wide color capable devices only) and geotagging settings. • Selectable image quality with full, half, quarter, high color fidelity quarter HQ sizes and a super tiny 0.48 megapixel 800x600 JPG, as well as RAW and RAW+JPG on devices supporting RAW capture. The 800x600 JPG is up to 20 times smaller than a regular JPG, making it extremely gentle with your mobile plan's data allowance. • Color space can be set to Display P3, Adobe RGB or sRGB for JPG files and Adobe RGB or sRGB for RAW previews. • Home screen Quick Actions for selecting the last recently used three albums. Unique features include: • Framing Previsor for showing on the wide angle camera's image what the telephoto camera would see.* Also works with wide converters. • Highlight and shadow alerts. • Protective exposure metering. • Auto ISO with minimum, maximum and minimum shutter speed settings. • Real time distortion correction for wide angle converters via correction profiles, as well as a custom converter for other lenses.* • Selectable screen frame rate to balance between fluid experience and power saving, and to avoid flicker with lighting running on 50Hz mains frequency. • TIFF/EP compliant DNG files with support for wide color and full resolution embedded previews. * Utilizes the time-tested precise simulation and distortion correction engines of our Mark II Artist's Viewfinder app. Other notable features: • Manual control for ISO and shutter speed in 1/3 stop increments. • Manual focus with focus peaking. Selectable peaking color. • Exposure compensation up to +/-5 stops. • Exposure and focus lock. • Continuous and single AF modes. • Grid display with 2x2, 3x3 and 8x6 choices. • Luminance only Black & White mode. • Artist and copyright metadata. The copyright template supports tokens for the current year (so it's always up-to-date), artist name and the copyright symbol. • Four user-assignable Smart Function Keys to bring most-used functions to a single tap distance, with 7 functions to choose from. • Completely neutral viewing to avoid interfering with your color vision during composition. • Fully color managed, from capture to display, including color-correct display of wide color RAW images. Technical Camera only supports the back camera(s) in still photography mode. No videos or selfies. No fancy filters. The Framing Previsor requires a dual-camera device or a wide converter lens. The complete list of supported wide converter lenses can be found on the Tech Specs page: https://www.direstudio.com/technical-camera/tech-specs/ For more information we recommend to check out our Technical Camera How To's: https://www.direstudio.com/technical-camera/how-tos/
Search Photos
Instantly find specific photos in your library by searching for text within them. This app uses advanced text recognition to extract and copy text, detect links, and even identify calendar events from your images. It also integrates with Maps to show photo locations.
- Search text within photos
- Extract and copy text from images
- Detect links and phone numbers
- Integrates with Maps for photo location
- Supports multiple languages
- Mark photos as favorites
Read full descriptionHide full description
Search Photos can image process (or scan) the photos in your photos library for the purpose of finding a specific (lost) photo by using your search text. It uses Text Recognition software to find text in a photo. You can then search for text in your photos. You can also use Spotlight to search through your photos. You can scan a selected time period (7 days, 30 days, 6 months etc.) or scan all your photos. Once a photo has been processed, you will not have to scan it again, so after a while you will have processed your complete photos library and it will be ready to be searched instantaneously. Search Photos can extract the text from any photo and will allow you to copy the text. It will also detect links, phone numbers, calendar events etc. You can mark the found photo as a favourite, if you wish. An extensive User Guide is included. Most languages are supported : English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian. New languages that are supported : Thai, Vietnamese and Arabic. Search Photos integrates with Maps to show you the physical location where the photo has been taken. You can also use Search Photos to scan an individual photo, a photo of a paper document or a screen shot. The free edition is limited to five search results. After the In-App Purchase you will receive unlimited search results.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Search Photos at Free against Technical Camera's $19.99. Search Photos also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.6). Technical Camera's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (17 vs 4). On rating, review sentiment, update cadence and ads 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
Search Photos is free to download; Technical Camera costs $19.99 up front. Search Photos sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Technical Camera asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Technical Camera against 5.0 for Search Photos. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 17 and 4 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Technical Camera ships an update every 4 months, Search Photos every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Technical Camera | Search Photos |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $19.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.9 (17 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 17 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | DIRE Studio | Alco Blom |
Customer experience
Technical Camera
Search Photos
In-app purchases
Technical Camera
No in-app purchases
Search Photos
- Unlimited Search$4.99
Questions
Is Technical Camera free?
Is Search Photos free?
Which has better reviews, Technical Camera or Search Photos?
Do Technical Camera or Search Photos have ads?
Which is updated more often, Technical Camera or Search Photos?
Other comparisons















