Comparison

Spectre Camera vs Shutter Speed

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

Shutter Speed

Features
Read full description

Shutter Speed is the all-in-one planning tool for outdoor photographers and videographers. Whether you're shooting majestic landscapes, doing street photography, chasing the aurora, or heading out under a dark sky for astrophotography, Shutter Speed puts everything you need to plan your shoot in one place, so you spend less time guessing and more time shooting. PLAN YOUR SHOOTS Save and organize photo locations on a map Build lists of locations by trip, style, or project Attach reference images and notes to every location so you remember exactly what you had in mind Available on web and mobile, so your saved locations sync everywhere TRACK SHOOT CONDITIONS Golden hour, blue hour and twilight times for any location Sun position tracking throughout the day Aurora and Milky Way visibility forecasts Comet tracker, so you never miss a rare sighting Moon phases: see the current phase of the moon using real imagery provided by NASA Solar and lunar eclipse tracking Tide times: always know when high and low tide hit Barometric pressure readings, for gauging incoming weather changes Real-time weather, so you know if it's a clear night for astrophotography or a sunny day for landscapes GET THE SHOT RIGHT Built-in exposure calculators for astrophotography, so you can dial in your settings before you even arrive Shutter Speed is built for photographers of every kind who want one app to handle the planning, so they can focus on the shot.

Screenshots

Spectre Camera4 screens
Shutter Speed4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Shutter Speed at none against Spectre Camera's 1. Shutter Speed also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 3 months). On price, ads, 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

Both are free to download. Spectre Camera sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Shutter Speed asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Spectre Camera ships an update every 3 months, Shutter Speed every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 5, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Spectre Camera versus Shutter Speed: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSpectre CameraShutter Speed
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (2.4K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews45.8% of reviews—
Number of ratings2.4K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS16.0 — better16.4
Further details — not scored
Size12 MB74 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLux Optics IncorporatedShutter Speed Platforms LLC

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

Shutter Speed

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Spectre Camera

One-time1
  • Spectre Pro$4.99
None

Shutter Speed

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Spectre Camera free?
Spectre Camera is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Shutter Speed free?
Shutter Speed is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Spectre Camera or Shutter Speed have ads?
Neither Spectre Camera nor Shutter Speed shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Spectre Camera or Shutter Speed?
Spectre Camera ships an update every 3 months, and Shutter Speed every 3 days. Most recently, Spectre Camera was updated on October 14, 2026 and Shutter Speed on October 5, 2026.

Other comparisons