Aquarium Camera vs DWARFLAB
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Aquarium Camera
Capture your aquarium's true colors with this app designed to overcome the challenges of LED lighting. It offers real-time color correction and professional-grade filters to make your fish, plants, and corals look vibrant and accurate in photos and videos.
- Real-time lens filter mode
- 32 custom professional-grade lens filters
- Real-time tint, temperature, RGB, and exposure adjustment
- Full-resolution photo capture
- 4K video recording
- Save and share presets
- Side-by-side color balance preview
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Aquarium Camera is built specifically for aquarium owners who are tired of their tank looking incredible in person and disappointing on their phone. LED aquarium lights are brilliant, but blue actinic lighting interferes with camera sensors, shifting the colors of your fish, plants, and corals into something far less accurate. Standard camera apps were not made for this. Aquarium Camera was. Designed for reef tanks, planted tanks, freshwater aquariums, and fish-only setups, Aquarium Camera helps you capture photos and videos that better reflect what your tank actually looks like. “The Aquarium Camera app is an essential tool for reef tank photography.” – ReefBuilders.com You can stop buying pro camera rigs, shooting in RAW, using clip-on filters or gels, and turning off your blue lights just to get a decent shot. You do not need to spend hours in editing apps adjusting hue, tint, and exposure after the fact. Aquarium Camera helps you color-correct aquarium lighting in real time on your iPhone or iPad, using the device you already carry every day. Version 4.0.0 is a complete re-architecture built to maximize the performance of your iPhone and iPad. Features: • Real-time lens filter mode that dynamically helps balance your shot • 32 custom professional-grade lens filters in manual mode • Real-time tint, temperature, RGB, and exposure adjustment • Full-resolution photo capture • 4K video recording • Syncs with iCloud • Support for your device’s available camera lenses, including wide, standard, and telephoto • Save and share presets once you dial in your tank • Side-by-side preview to help fine-tune color balance • Portrait and landscape support • Touch to focus • Flash toggle • Grid toggle • Quick access to your aquarium gallery with export or autosave to library • Share photos and videos right from the library • Volume button shutter support • Haptic feedback • No subscription: buy it once and unlock everything on iPhone and iPad “So easy to use… Love it!!! And the color changing is realtime so you can see the screen and the real thing side by side to ensure you get the right balance.” – Carlos Chacon, CoralVue I created Aquarium Camera because I was tired of seeing brilliant aquariums online that did not truly represent the health, color, and beauty of the fish, plants, and corals inside. As LED lighting took over the hobby, aquarium photography became harder. Aquarium Camera is my answer to that problem. Spend less time correcting aquarium photos and videos, and more time enjoying your tank... oh and doing water changes.
DWARFLAB
This app connects wirelessly to a smart telescope, offering intuitive control for capturing stunning images of the night sky and dynamic terrestrial scenes. It features automatic tracking, in-app image processing, and panorama creation for both astrophotography and everyday use.
- Wireless telescope connection
- In-built star atlas for astrophotography
- Automatic celestial and motion tracking
- In-app image stacking and post-processing
- Gigapixel panorama creation
- Time-lapse photography
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DWARFLAB smart telescope, empowered by advanced technology, opens up a world of diverse perspectives for users, capturing the wonders of life. No guidance or experience needed, it's ready to use out of the box. Wireless Connection Use the App to connect wirelessly with DWARFLAB smart telescope, enabling not only precise control but also making the shooting process more flexible and efficient. Astrophotography The App features an in-built star atlas, allowing you to simply tap on the celestial you desire to proceed with automatic star tracking and enjoy real-time image stacking. You can also adjust the astro curves and personalize the color grading to create your own 4K astronomical images. In-App Post Processing Capture, select, stack, and enhance — all in one seamless workflow for astrophotography. Supports both onboard stacking and cloud-based processing, with multi-format export options to make every astro image crisp and brilliant. Motion Tracking You can freely select the target to track on the shooting interface, enjoying the flexibility of manual selection; or you can use the telescope's automatic recognition function, which intelligently identifies tracks, and starts recordings, easily capturing dynamic scenes such as bird predation, flights, and sports close-ups. Gigapixel Panorama Simply set the shooting range and tap to start — with one-click stitching, you can create extremely detailed and vast panoramic images, supporting deep zoom and experiencing an unprecedented level of detail richness. Time-Lapse Photography Capture the flow and changes of time, recording the hustle and bustle of traffic, the blooming and wilting of flowers. Combined with astronomical tracking functions, it can also record the trajectory of the sun, solar/lunar eclipses, and the star trails.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: DWARFLAB at Free against Aquarium Camera's $4.99. DWARFLAB also leads on iOS requirement (15 vs 17.0). Aquarium Camera's advantage is rating (4.2 vs 3.5) and ratings volume (759 vs 143). On review sentiment, 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
DWARFLAB is free to download; Aquarium Camera costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Aquarium Camera holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Aquarium Camera has 759 ratings behind it against 143, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 34% of Aquarium Camera's written reviews are positive against 36% of DWARFLAB's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Aquarium Camera ships an update monthly, DWARFLAB every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Aquarium Camera | DWARFLAB |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.2 (759 ratings) — better | 3.5 (143 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 33.6% of reviews | 36.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 759 — better | 143 |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 209 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | John Ostler | Tinyphoton (Wuhan) Technology. Co., Ltd. |
Customer experience
Aquarium Camera
DWARFLAB
User reviews
Aquarium Camera
From 759 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- ⭐ Excellent picture quality
- 🎨 Effective color correction
- 👍 Easy to use
- 💰 Good value for money
Room to improve
- 🔍 Poor image resolution
- 🤯 Crashes and bugs
- 📱 Lacks support for newer devices
- 🔄 Inconsistent performance
DWARFLAB
From 143 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 📸 High-quality astrophotography results
- 💰 Excellent value for price
- 🎯 Intuitive sky atlas and target selection
- 🔄 Frequent app updates and improvements
- ⚡ Responsive developer team
Room to improve
- 🔌 Persistent WiFi connectivity issues
- ⏱️ Slow connection establishment (15-30 minutes)
- 🐛 Frequent app crashes and freezes
- 📉 Tracking frame drops (25% loss reported)
- 🔄 Connection drops after minutes
Bugs and requests
Aquarium Camera
Reported bugs
3 issues- Constant black screen issue
- Photos not saving correctly
- Freezing on certain settings
Requested features
4 requests- Integrate with native camera app features
- Add support for RAW image capture
- Improve image stabilization
- Expand color temperature correction range
DWARFLAB
Reported bugs
21 issues- WiFi connection fails repeatedly or drops within seconds
- App crashes on iOS 18 and older iOS versions
- Account creation security verification fails
- Full-screen mode freezes with no escape option
- Autofocus produces inconsistent or blurry results
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- Manual focus unresponsive
- Tracking takes excessive time to initiate
- Dark frame calibration lines appear and ruin images
- Temperature-related calibration failures
- Settings reset to defaults after stacking
- IR Cut/Pass filter constantly resets to Pass mode
- Photo saving to album is inconsistent (hit or miss)
- App freezes when changing camera systems
- Inverted controls and flipped image display
- Battery icon obscures capacity readout on iPhone
- STA mode connectivity broken
- Firmware update errors prevent connection
- Image preview not displaying in app
- Joystick controls unresponsive intermittently
- Wide and telephoto lens menu settings reversed
- App incompatible with iOS versions below 15
Requested features
13 requests- One-tap return to home and power off function
- Panorama/mosaic image merging capability
- Comet-aligned tracking mode
- Dew control for iOS (available on Android)
- iPad-optimized app version
Show 8 moreShow fewer
- Histogram display in app
- Burst mode functionality
- External Barlow lens support
- Mac M-series silicon compatibility
- Ability to skip firmware updates until convenient time
- Milky Way capture documentation for Dwarf Mini
- Photo album integration improvements
- STA mode WiFi connectivity fix
In-app purchases
Aquarium Camera
No in-app purchases
DWARFLAB
No in-app purchases









