This isn’t due to a lack of options, Android offers a wide range of camera apps at our disposal. GCam, both official and modified, is one of our favorites. But what if you don’t want to search for and install Google Camera APK files? Open Camera is a great alternative.And on Google Play.

Every mobile phone has its own camera application, but not all of them can take advantage of the shooting possibilities offered by smartphones. Google Camera or GCam, App adapted from PixelIt usually gives very good results, but it is often difficult to find the version and configuration that best suits our Android. There is also a popular app worth installing: Open Camera. If you haven’t tried it yet, we recommend it.

Open Camera: Improving the Android camera since 2013

It seems incredible that an Open Source development can stay at the top of Google Play for almost eleven yearsbut here it is: Open Camera is a demonstration that software that has been carefully and carefully developed always remains up to date. And with some updates that gradually improve the application.

Open Camera is available on Google Play and also on the usual open source repositories, such as F-Droid and SourceForge. In contrast to GCam, it is a very small application in terms of space, taking up almost no storage space. It uses the Camera API to introduce manual controls. Moreover, it can both take photos and record videos.

The application is complete, functional and versatile. It gives very good results, but of course These depend on the hardware included in the smartphone.It offers a wealth of manual settings for taking photos, includes autofocus, lets you configure image quality, and even has bracketing controls for optimizing HDR shots.

It has endless possibilities but also disadvantages. One of them is the interface: a bit rough and dullbut functional. Another disadvantage is that the possibilities of Open Camera can vary greatly from one mobile phone to another; everything will depend on the compatibility of the mobile phone with the camera API, even if it is not your fault. It can also create difficulties when saving photos.

Open Camera doesn’t have the tone and image processing of GCam or the excellent portrait mode. But in return, it’s a very lightweight, open source, and super configurable app. It’s also openly available on Google Play, No need to fight with APKs nor with versions adapted to the different Androids on the market.

To download Open Camera, simply go to Google Play. And not just here: As we reviewed, the camera app is also available in open source repositories. It would be useful to have it as an alternative.

Cover image | Ivan Linares

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