Spectre Camera vs HSB Light
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Spectre Camera
This app uses AI to create stunning long exposure photographs, making it easy to capture professional-quality shots. Remove crowds, create light trails, and achieve silky smooth water effects effortlessly.
- AI-powered long exposures
- Crowd removal
- Light trail creation
- Silky water effects
- Live Photos and video support
- Automatic scene detection
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Apple iPhone App of the Year, 2019 Introducing Spectre, from the makers of Halide, one of the top camera apps in the App Store. Spectre uses AI to help you make amazing long exposure photographs. Spectre can remove crowds, turn city streets into rivers of light, make waterfalls look like paintings, and much more. Until now, it was difficult to take long exposures: from keeping the camera steady to guessing the amount of light you need. Spectre takes care of all of that! WHAT YOU CAN DO • MAKE CROWDS DISAPPEAR: Spectre helps take photos of crowded, touristy places. Simply set a medium or long duration and take a shot to erase the crowd from a location. Capture the those special moments like you remember them. • RIVERS OF LIGHT: At night, AI scene detection automatically switches modes to draw beautiful light trails, for stunning nighttime city photography or light painting. • GORGEOUS WATER: Capture waterfalls, ocean waves, fountains and more with beautiful ghostly water. LIVE PHOTOS AND VIDEO Spectre’s intelligent computational shutter takes hundreds of shots over the span of a few seconds, and saves them in an accompanying live photo. That means you can pick a different frame as your photo, apply live-photo effects, and even use the long exposure as a live-wallpaper! ENDLESS SMARTS Spectre is a packed with powerful technology from by the team that brought you Halide. From machine learning-based scene detection to computer vision aided image stabilization, Spectre is jammed full of impressive technologies to get the best possible image. DESIGNED FOR HUMANS Spectre is meticulously designed. Its dark UI is gentle on the eyes when you shoot at night. Gorgeous glowing highlights infuse it with a unique style. Custom typefaces and iconography combined with unique, smooth controls make it as tactile and delightful as an actual physical camera. Like its sister app Halide, the app is easily usable with one hand, even on the largest iPhones. HIGH-TECH SHOWCASE Build with the latest tech, Spectre isn't just a long exposure camera — it’s the cutting edge technology showcase of one of the App Store’s foremost camera apps, Halide. Here’s just a few of the latest technologies that we use in Spectre: - DCI-P3 Wide Color Pipeline - Live Photos - Metal Graphics Acceleration - Tripod Detection - Siri & Shortcuts - AI Stabilization - Machine Learning & CoreML - Computer Vision COMPATIBILITY: Spectre’s smart Automatic Scene Detection requires iOS 12. AI-based stabilization features are available on iPhone 6S and later.* For the best experience, we recommend iPhone 8 or later. On iPhone 6, Spectre captures in lower resolution. ABOUT US We’re Ben and Sebastiaan, two friends living in the San Francisco Bay Area that love building fantastic apps for photography. We hope you love Spectre! We’d love your feedback to make it even better or any reports of bugs you run into. You can always contact us directly via email: support@halide.cam, on our Twitter: @halidecamera or Instagram: @halideapp Don’t forget to share your amazing results by tagging them with #SpectreShot so we can share them on our growing social media accounts!
HSB Light
This app generates custom light colors for photography and videography. Users can select colors via sliders or a pre-set library to create specific lighting effects and reflections.
- Customizable light colors
- Slider controls
- Color swatch library
- Photography lighting
- Reflection effects
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HSB Light creates light of any given color for photography purposes, creating reflexes, for example. You can use sliders or choose from a swatch library.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: HSB Light at 5.0 against Spectre Camera's 4.3. HSB Light also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and device support (3 vs 1). Spectre Camera's advantage is update cadence (every 3 months vs every 32 months) and ratings volume (2.4K vs 4). On price, review sentiment, ads 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
Both are free to download. Spectre Camera sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. HSB Light asks for nothing beyond the download.
HSB Light holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Spectre Camera has 2.4K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 46% of Spectre Camera's written reviews are positive against 50% of HSB Light's.
Spectre Camera ships an update every 3 months, HSB Light every 32 months. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Spectre Camera | HSB Light |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (2.4K ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 45.8% of reviews | 50.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2.4K — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months — better | Every 32 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 12 MB | 0 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Lux Optics Incorporated | Veniamin Gribkov |
Customer experience
Spectre Camera
HSB Light
Bugs and requests
Spectre Camera
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes and freezes on some devices
- Compatibility issues with older iPhones
- Focusing and stabilization problems
Requested features
5 requests- Longer exposure time options
- More manual control over settings
- Raw image format support
- Apple Watch remote support
- Improved low-light performance
HSB Light
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Spectre Camera
- Spectre Pro$4.99
HSB Light
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Spectre Camera free?
Is HSB Light free?
Which has better reviews, Spectre Camera or HSB Light?
Do Spectre Camera or HSB Light have ads?
Which is updated more often, Spectre Camera or HSB Light?
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