Comparison

Recolla vs Ancient Light

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Recolla

Transform your photos with vintage effects inspired by historical photographic processes. Easily apply era-specific filters to images from your library or captured directly within the app. Share your creations instantly with friends and family.

Highlights
  • 12 vintage filters
  • Simple user interface
  • Capture new photos
  • Import from photo library
  • Built-in sharing
Read full description

We analysed an impressive number of old photos from the 1800s to the 1900s and packed the photographic processes into this easy to use mobile app. * 12 Superbly crafted filters - Give your photos dramatic vintage effects * Extremely simple UI - All you have to do is to apply which era you will apply. * Capture images or import from your photo library * Share your photos via built-in iOS sharing support Tag your photos on Instagram with #RecollaApp Got questions or comments? Email at support@mocadeco.com Your feedback helps us to constantly improve our apps.

About

Ancient Light

Features
Read full description

Ancient Light transforms your iPhone into a camera of the nineteenth century. Twelve authentic historic photographic processes - each faithfully simulated through the physics of tone, silver chemistry, grain, paper, emulsion, and light. Not filters. Processes. -- THE TWELVE PROCESSES -- Daguerreotype (1839) - The first successful photograph. A mirror-like silver surface with luminous shadow detail and seven scanned frame choices, plus No Frame. Tintype (1853) - The photograph of the working class. Robust, immediate, metallic, with regular or square format options and optional worn plate borders. Albumen (1850s) - Warm egg-white paper prints mounted as cabinet cards, with soft sepia-brown toning, aged cream stock, rounded corners, and a ruled inner border. Sepia - The warm brown tone of silver sulphide that preserved Victorian portraits through a century and a half. Cyanotype (1842) - Sir John Herschel's iron-based process. Deep Prussian blue. The print that gave photography the word "blueprint." Anthotype (1839) - Made from crushed plant pigments. Delicate, fugitive, botanical. The most poetic photographic process ever devised. Platinum (1873) - The process of fine art portraiture. Cool, shadow-rich, with a tonal range silver could never match. Autochrome (1907) - The Lumiere brothers' starch-grain colour process. Dreamy, pointillist, the first practical colour photography. Emulsion - A damaged instant-emulsion look with faded color, warm highlights, scorched edges, amber leaks, scratches, and oxidized surface wear. Bromoil (1907) - Oil-based ink on bleached gelatin. Painterly and stippled, with inky shadows and pale milky highlights. Lippmann (1891) - Gabriel Lippmann's Nobel Prize-winning interferential process. Warm amber ageing, long-exposure softness, and glass plate scratches from a century of handling. Infrared (1930s) - Light beyond the visible spectrum. Luminous white foliage, darkened skies, ethereal skin tones. The spectral world captured on heat-sensitive emulsion. -- WHAT ANCIENT LIGHT CAN DO -- * All four optical lenses - ultrawide (0.5x), wide (1x), 2x, and telephoto (5x) - selectable from the viewfinder * Shoot once, save many - save multiple historic versions from a single capture * On iPhone Pro: saves both a filtered JPEG and the original 48MP ProRAW DNG as a paired asset * Emulsion process with faded instant-film color, warmer highlights, lighter grain, and scanned edge damage * Albumen cabinet-card output with warm paper tone, aged stock texture, rounded card corners, and ruled border * Infrared process with glowing foliage, dark skies, and spectral black-and-white tonality * Tintype options - choose regular or square format, with period borders or no borders * Seven Daguerreotype frame styles plus No Frame, selectable directly from the viewfinder * Higher-resolution Daguerreotype frame output, scaled to the photo instead of the source frame artwork * Adjustments apply to the photograph while preserving Daguerreotype frame artwork * Full adjustment suite - exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, black point, saturation, vibrance, warmth, sharpness, and vignette * Auto enhancement with one tap * Precision crop tool with inset handles and rule-of-thirds grid * Landscape side-panel layout keeps the image large while all controls stay accessible * Photographer credit field - your name travels with every saved file in the IPTC metadata * Process, frame, and Tintype options stored between sessions * iPhone and iPad, all orientations * No subscription. No ads. No account required. Ancient Light is a single purchase. Everything in it is yours.

Screenshots

Recolla4 screens
Ancient Light4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Ancient Light at every 5 days against Recolla's every 7 months. Ancient Light also leads on price ($0.99 vs $1.99). On ads, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Recolla costs $1.99 and Ancient Light $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Recolla ships an update every 7 months, Ancient Light every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 9, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Recolla versus Ancient Light: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterRecollaAncient Light
Price$1.99$0.99 — better
Rating4.0 (8 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings8 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 7 monthsEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS17.016.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size23 MB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSeohyeon LeeGreg Anderson

In-app purchases

None

Recolla

No in-app purchases

None

Ancient Light

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Recolla free?
Recolla costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Ancient Light free?
Ancient Light costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Recolla or Ancient Light have ads?
Neither Recolla nor Ancient Light shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Recolla or Ancient Light?
Recolla ships an update every 7 months, and Ancient Light every 5 days. Most recently, Recolla was updated on October 9, 2026 and Ancient Light on October 17, 2026.

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