Comparison

Spectre Camera vs BlackSight

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • AI-powered long exposures
  • Crowd removal
  • Light trail creation
  • Silky water effects
  • Live Photos and video support
  • Automatic scene detection
Read full description

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!

About

BlackSight

Capture brighter, less noisy photos in low light conditions with advanced long exposure algorithms. This app processes images locally on your device for enhanced privacy, offering manual focus, a timer, and a soft torch for dark scenes. It's compatible with various cameras and supports HEIC/JPEG formats.

Highlights
  • Low light photography
  • Long exposure algorithms
  • Local image processing
  • Manual focus
  • Soft torch
  • HEIC/JPEG format
Features
Read full description

BlackSight is a computational photography app designed to take brighter and images with little amount of noise in low light conditions. Using sophisticated long exposure algorithms, it can capture high quality photos in dark environments without requiring any internet connection. Your photos are processed locally on your device , hence protecting your privacy. Tripod is not required but using one will result in sharper images. Features: - Compatible with all cameras (front, ultra-wide, wide, telephoto) - Manual focus - Timer - Soft torch for illuminating super dark scenes - Photo format (HEIC/JPEG) - Shoot lower resolution image for faster processing - Grid - Mirrored selfies - Front flash - Smart white balance correction to reduce yellowish tint - Tripod mode for taking brighter and noise free images for very dark scenes Supported devices: - iPhone 6s and above - Front camera is not supported for iPhone 6s/6s+ Tips for better photos: - Choose a moderate/dim scene with uniform lighting (avoid harsh light source like lamps/street lights) - Use a tripod or rest your hands/phone on a surface for maximum sharpness - Always tap to focus before taking each photo and wait for focus to stabilises (Focussing can take 1-3 seconds to lock in dark scenes) - Hold your phone using two hands as it reduces hand motion - Hold your breath if you are doing handheld shot (Yes, this helps!!) - For selfies, do not blink your eyes and try to stay still with minimal head motion - For human portraits, make sure your subjects hold very still for up to 5 seconds - Avoid scenes having any kind of motion like cars, persons, crowds, pets, windy trees Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Spectre Camera4 screens
BlackSight4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Spectre Camera at 4.3 against BlackSight's 3.8. Spectre Camera also leads on ratings volume (2.4K vs 44). BlackSight's advantage is review sentiment (73% vs 46%) and monetization model (free with in-app purchases vs paid). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

Both are free to download. Spectre Camera sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and BlackSight sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Spectre Camera holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 3.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Spectre Camera has 2.4K ratings behind it against 44, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 46% of Spectre Camera's written reviews are positive against 73% of BlackSight's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Spectre Camera ships an update every 3 months, BlackSight every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Spectre Camera versus BlackSight: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSpectre CameraBlackSight
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (2.4K ratings) — better3.8 (44 ratings)
Positive reviews45.8% of reviews72.8% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.4K — better44
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 5 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS16.016.0
Further details — not scored
Size12 MB54 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLux Optics IncorporatedFoxfortMobile

Customer experience

Spectre Camera

All ratings2,408 ratings
Positive83.5%
Neutral3.7%
Negative12.7%
Written reviews437 reviews
Positive45.8%
Neutral10.8%
Negative43.5%

BlackSight

All ratings44 ratings
Positive68.2%
Neutral2.3%
Negative29.5%
Written reviews92 reviews
Positive72.8%
Neutral6.5%
Negative20.7%

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

BlackSight

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Spectre Camera

One-time1
  • Spectre Pro$4.99
3 purchases

BlackSight

Subscriptions1
  • BlackSight Pro Weekly$1.997 Days
One-time2
  • Remove watermark 2$6.99
  • Remove watermark$9.99

Questions

Is Spectre Camera free?
Spectre Camera is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is BlackSight free?
BlackSight is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Spectre Camera or BlackSight?
Spectre Camera is rated higher. Spectre Camera averages 4.3 out of 5 from 2.4K ratings, while BlackSight averages 3.8 from 44 ratings.
Do Spectre Camera or BlackSight have ads?
Neither Spectre Camera nor BlackSight shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Spectre Camera or BlackSight?
Spectre Camera ships an update every 3 months, and BlackSight every 5 weeks. Most recently, Spectre Camera was updated on October 16, 2026 and BlackSight on October 14, 2026.

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