OSnap! Ultimate Time-Lapse Review

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

OSnap! Ultimate Time-Lapse Review

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OSnap! Ultimate Time-Lapse Review

By Chris Nitz on September 20th, 2011
Our Rating:

:: EFFORTLESS TIME-LAPSES
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad

OSnap! streamlines the pain of time-lapse video creation. Despite some hefty nuances necessary to properly utilize this app, it might inspire some new movie makers to get off the couch and into the field.

Developer: Justin Cegnar
Price: $2.99
Version: 1.1
App Reviewed on: iPhone 4

iPhone Integration Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Re-use/Replay Value Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.83 out of 5 stars

Time-lapse movies are extremely popular in the world of photography, yet the iPhone is just now starting to see quality apps in this genre. OSnap! hopes to take what is currently on the AppStore and perfect it, thus making it the defacto app for anyone looking to use their iPhone for creating time-lapses while out on the town.

Using OSnap! is relatively easy, and that is because the user interface is extremely intuitive. Once a new project is created, items such as orientation, what camera to use, interval to take shots, delayed timer before the shooting begins, and many other options become available for the project. These can all be set as defaults as well so every new project will use the same settings.

Junk photos can be deleted out of the photo stack, individual photos may be shared to common social media outlets, or sent to the camera roll. Finally, exporting the images to a time-lapse comes with niceties such as being able to add music to the finished product and setting how many frames are played in one second. When the video rendering is done, it may be saved to the iPhone, or shared on Facebook/Twitter/YouTube. This app is packed full of features that make creating time-lapses painless.

Not all is perfect, however. During my testing, I found that I had to reboot the phone before setting up for a time-lapse longer than ten minutes. The app would then crash while processing my 600 – 1200 photos. The biggest hitch, for many users, will come with the fact that the phone cannot take calls, SMS notifications, or updates from various apps as these will end the video export process. The best results come from enabling Airplane mode while shooting photos or rendering the finished video. This can lead to not having a phone for 60 minutes or longer while this app does its job. Don’t forget to reboot after this process is completed, as the phone just ran a marathon to kick that video out.

Despite all the nuances that go into making this app work, it is still a high recommendation for anyone who seriously wants to dive into the world of time-lapse movies. The interface is intuitive, the phone does most the hard work, and all the user has to do is be patient while the work is getting done. There is a free version that is recommended to check out before purchasing the full app.