Comparison

Halide Mark III vs Pro Cam

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

Head to head
About

Halide Mark III

This professional camera app offers advanced manual controls and powerful tools for deliberate photography. Capture stunning RAW images, utilize Neural Macro for close-ups on any iPhone, and access features like focus peaking and histograms. Learn photography with included lessons and customize your shooting experience.

Highlights
  • Manual exposure and focus controls
  • Neural Macro for close-up shots
  • 14-bit RAW and ProRAW capture
  • Exposure tools: histograms, waveform, zebras
  • Focus peaking and loupe
  • Gesture-based interface
  • Included photography lessons
Features
Read full description

Halide unleashes your iPhone’s camera. Disable iPhone processing for natural photos, apply powerful film situations, access manual controls, and more. Halide has over 24,000 5-star ratings and is an App Store Editors’ Choice and Apple Design Award winner. Halide’s Looks are built into the camera itself, changing how your photo is captured and processed - not just a color filter applied after the fact. These are the best photos you can get out of an iPhone. Start with Process Zero for natural, film-like results, without any AI or computational photography. Explore our rich set of creative Looks developed with Hollywood colorist Cullen Kelly, and powered by sophisticated film simulation. For nine years, Halide has set the standard for professional iPhone camera control. Nail your manual focus with Focus Peaking and the Focus Loupe. Compose your shots with intention using sophisticated framing guides, from a basic grid and rule of thirds, to the golden ratio and rabatment of the rectangle. Get perfect macro shots with Halide's dedicated Macro Mode. Hate editing? Halide gives you amazing results straight out of the camera. But when you need to fine-tune, Photo Lab makes it fast and intuitive. Try dramatically different Looks, adjust framing and exposure, experiment with film simulation, or rescue details in highlights and shadows with Tone Fusion. You can even import and load RAWs from other apps, such as Apple’s own camera app, or standalone cameras by Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica, Fujifilm, and Hasselblad. Specific formats are listed below. *Halide is a paid app. Try it free for 7 days with an annual membership, or buy it outright with a one-time purchase — no subscription required.* Features: - Shoot without Apple’s computational photography for stronger contrast and more natural results. - Photographic Looks developed in collaboration with esteemed Hollywood colorist Cullen Kelly. - Rescue details in shadows and highlights with a Tone Fusion slider inspired by darkroom dodging and burning. - Try any Look on existing ProRAW files - including photos shot in Apple’s camera app. - Become a better photographer by signing up for our 10-day tutorial directly from the app. - Full manual exposure controls including shutter speed, ISO and white balance. - Technical Readout to view all details of your iPhone camera hardware. - Also runs on iPad, for an amazing Photo Lab experience. RAW File Support: - DNG (iPhone, Leica) - CR2 (Canon) - CR3 (Canon) - NEF (Nikon) - RAF (Fujifilm) - ARW (Sony) - FFF (Hasselblad) Terms of Use can be found here: https://halide.cam/terms Privacy: https://www.lux.camera/privacy/

About

Pro Cam

Capture professional-quality photos with advanced controls for brightness, exposure, and zoom. Choose from various formats including RAW for maximum image quality. Ideal for both aspiring and seasoned photographers.

Highlights
  • Custom brightness and exposure controls
  • Support for JPG, PRO, RAW, and HEIF formats
  • Multiple zoom options
  • Timer for up to 200 shots
  • ProRaw format capture
  • Time lapse functionality
Read full description

Pro Cam is a camera for people who want the negative, not the filter. It shoots true sensor RAW, gives you real manual control, and develops every photo on the phone with a full RAW editor. Nothing is ever baked into your original. SHOOT • One button per real lens, labelled with its true equivalent focal length (ultra wide, wide, telephoto), plus a classic 50 mm framing. No digital zoom, ever: what you frame is what the sensor records. • Bayer RAW and Apple ProRAW as DNG, or HEIF, JPEG and TIFF. • Manual focus with a focus-distance and depth-of-field readout. The control is violet in auto and turns blue the moment you take over; tap to hand it back. • Shutter priority with a live ISO readout. Tap the ISO to lock it. • Press and hold the shutter to lock exposure, recompose, release to shoot, like the half-press on a camera. • Live histogram with highlight protection in auto, and an exposure gain preference if you like your negatives a little under. • Daylight and tungsten white balance, self-timer, interval shooting for time lapses, flash only when you ask for it. • A subject mask is saved next to every photo (LiDAR or on-device machine learning), ready for selective edits. • Open the camera from Camera Control, the Lock Screen, Control Center or the Action button, and shoot with the phone still locked. DEVELOP • Auto Development: pick a preset and every shot is developed with it the moment it is taken. Star the preset you want as default. • After each shot the frame freezes and the developed photo fades in, so you judge the picture, not the preview. • A complete RAW editor on the phone: exposure and tone, tone curve, film simulations and LUTs, colour grading wheels with a vectorscope, hue and saturation curves, denoise, lens corrections, crop, straighten and rotate, with per-control reset and a full edit history. • Everything is non-destructive. Edits live in Adobe-compatible XMP sidecars next to the DNG, so Lightroom, Camera Raw and Bridge read them, and your RAW file is never modified. KEEP • A fast gallery of your shots, newest first, with search, sorting and the last six frames always one tap away from the viewfinder. • Optional iCloud library: your gallery, edits and masks sync to Lighthouse on Mac and iPad, where you can keep working on the same negatives. • Share the whole gallery privately with another iCloud account, read-only or read-write. • Save to Files, share, copy and paste development settings between photos. Your photos stay yours: analysis, masks and search run on the device. Privacy Policy: https://www.iubenda.com/terms-and-conditions/81015424 Terms of Service: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Halide Mark III4 screens
Pro Cam4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ratings volume: Halide Mark III at 13K against Pro Cam's 170. Halide Mark III also leads on rating (4.4 vs 4.2) and chart position (#150 vs unranked). On price, review sentiment, update cadence and ads 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. Halide Mark III sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Pro Cam sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Halide Mark III holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Halide Mark III has 13K ratings behind it against 170, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 41% of Halide Mark III's written reviews are positive against 48% of Pro Cam's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Halide Mark III ships an update every 11 days, Pro Cam every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 26, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 8 level
Halide Mark III versus Pro Cam: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHalide Mark IIIPro Cam
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (13K ratings) — better4.2 (170 ratings)
Positive reviews40.9% of reviews48.4% of reviews — better
Number of ratings13K — better170
Update frequencyEvery 11 days — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#150 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.0 — better18.6
Further details — not scored
Size84 MB50 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLux Optics IncorporatedRainbowFactory LTD

Customer experience

Halide Mark III

All ratings13,365 ratings
Positive86.4%
Neutral2.5%
Negative11.1%
Written reviews859 reviews
Positive40.9%
Neutral8.0%
Negative51.1%

Pro Cam

All ratings170 ratings
Positive80.0%
Neutral5.3%
Negative14.7%
Written reviews31 reviews
Positive48.4%
Neutral6.5%
Negative45.2%

User reviews

Halide Mark III

From 13K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Powerful manual controls
  • 👍 Intuitive and clean interface
  • 🔍 Excellent RAW capture and editing
  • 📷 Macro and depth features
  • 🎨 Great image quality and color

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes and bugs
  • 🔍 Depth/portrait mode limitations
  • 🕰️ Slow performance on older devices
  • 💰 Expensive subscription model
  • 🔒 Lack of free trial or demo

Pro Cam

From 170 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 📸 Takes good photos of TV screens
  • 👍 Easy and intuitive to use
  • 🌟 High quality pictures
  • 💡 Captures memories effectively
  • 📸 Good for selfies

Room to improve

  • 💰 Requires subscription/payment
  • 👎 App is not free as expected
  • 💸 Paid to use after initial period
  • 🔒 Requires full photo library access
  • 🚫 Cannot use without paying for pro

Bugs and requests

Halide Mark III

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Photos not saving properly
  • Zoom functionality issues
  • Landscape mode UI problems

Requested features

5 requests
  • Shutter speed adjustment
  • Live depth/bokeh preview
  • Custom white balance
  • Time-lapse and video recording
  • Ability to save settings/presets

Pro Cam

Reported bugs

9 issues
  • App crashes when pressing the shutter button
  • App requires subscription to use
  • App requires full photo library access
  • App shows 'Unable to capture depth' error
  • No camera image displayed
Show 4 more
  • No viewfinder or image on iPhone 12 mini
  • Automatic facial enhancements applied unnecessarily
  • Slow motion feature lacks reverse capability
  • App crashes frequently

Requested features

6 requests
  • Allow use without paying for pro
  • Add reverse capability to slow motion
  • Include 0.5x feature on SE models
  • Improve handling of full phone storage
  • Allow selected photo access only
Show 1 more
  • Update to allow flipping screen and taking video

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Halide Mark III

Subscriptions2
  • Pro Camera, Editor, and Lessons$9.991 Month
  • Pro Camera, Editor, and Lessons7 Days trial$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • One Time Purchase$69.99
2 purchases

Pro Cam

Subscriptions2
  • Camera Pro$9.997 Days
  • Camera Pro Yearly$49.991 Year

Questions

Is Halide Mark III free?
Halide Mark III is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Pro Cam free?
Pro Cam is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Halide Mark III or Pro Cam?
Halide Mark III is rated higher. Halide Mark III averages 4.4 out of 5 from 13K ratings, while Pro Cam averages 4.2 from 170 ratings.
Do Halide Mark III or Pro Cam have ads?
Neither Halide Mark III nor Pro Cam shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Halide Mark III or Pro Cam?
Halide Mark III ships an update every 11 days, and Pro Cam every 3 weeks. Most recently, Halide Mark III was updated on September 26, 2026 and Pro Cam on September 21, 2026.

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