both © catherine buca 2010

I really love the hipstamatic iphone app, especially the new 150 version with extra flash and film types. My (current) favourite combo is the Helga Viking lens, Ina’s 1969 film and Dreampop flash. I’ve noticed different combos look better in different conditions, but I always forget which is best when, so I tend to stick to the above combo now – it’s a pretty good all-rounder.

One niggle about hipstamatic though: while they’ve added a great new feature that lets you select a picture you like and apply whatever combo you used for it to the camera ready for the next shot, they’ve seemingly neglected the atrociously lengthy loading times. It takes an age for the app to warm up when you first open it, and then when you’ve taken the photo it takes what seems like a lifetime for the picture to ‘develop’ and the camera be ready to take the next. This, sadly, makes hipstamatic a bit useless for those sneaky, on-the-go pictures, or for anything more fast-paced than the most leisurely of strolls in a place where nothing ever happens.