BrilliantVision OneShot (for Windows Phone) Review

Windows phones rock some of the best cameras found on any smartphone, so why not have powerful image-capture and editing software to go along with that? The slick OneShot (free), from BrilliantVision, not only gives you a multitude of manual shooting controls, but post-shooting editing and effect filters, too. In short, OneShot is one of the most powerful Windows phone apps for photography, but a couple of shortcomings hold it back from true greatness.

Get Going With OneShot
You get the free app from the Windows Store, where it's a svelte 2MB download. I installed it on both a Lumia Icon and a Lumia 1020 ($199.99 at Amazon) so that I could try the app out with the 1020's 41-megapixel camera images. You need to allow access to your location, but the info isn't tied to your identity, according to the installation info. But I don't really get why a photo app absolutely needs this. After all, what if you know you won't it to geotag your pictures or append the location to your metadata?

When you first run OneShot, a message tells you that the app could make your phone hotter than normal. (Take this to heart: After leaving the app running for an hour and a half my battery died.) Next, after a little tour of the rest of the features and compatibilities, you're dropped into shooting mode—no account creation or sign-in is required.

Shooting With OneShot
OneShot's shooting-mode screen can be extremely uncluttered or as full of controls as you like. When you start, you just see one mode button at the top left, and a row of four option buttons along the bottom.

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Tapping the Mode button lets you switch among Manual, Program, Portrait, Macro, Scenic, and custom shooting modes. The grid button at the bottom opens a right panel of options such as ISO, focus, zoom, and FX. Yes, you can shoot with nifty Instagram-like filters working. In fact, there are two FX sets: FX and FX Fun. The first uses many of the Instagram names for effects, such as Amaro and Hudson, while the Fun FX include more Photoshop-style tricks like Mirror, Sketch, and Cartoon.

When you choose Manual mode, you get all kinds of control over your shot. You can adjust the white balance, ISO, shutter speed, exposure, and choose the resolution. One shooting option I've seen in a lot of camera apps is missing, however—it doesn't offer separate focus and exposure points. But that capability isn't incredibly useful, and you can still adjust those factors separately with sliders in OneShot.

Manual focusing is achieved through a large slider. It works just fine, but I prefer the Lumia Camera app's wheel control for this. Other focus options include Macro, Infinity, and Hyperfocal. If you don't use Manual, you can touch the screen not only to set the focus and exposure, but to actually snap the picture. Alternatively you can use a more standard manual shutter button, or the phone's hardware camera shutter button.

Another interesting way to snap a photo is by using your voice. Set up the option, say "Take Picture," and, after focusing, the shutter will snap. This is handy for taking selfies with the better rear-facing camera.

With so many options, I'm thankful that the app lets you set a Favorite button for quick access to your most frequently needed tool. Macro mode befuddled me for a little while, since it didn't switch to macro focusing immediately, but tapping the screen to shoot did yield those very close-up images.

Editing
After you've taken some pictures, the app isn't finished: You can apply the same adjustments and effects to existing photos, and even more, including cropping and rotation. The assortment of effects can't compare with PicsArt Photo Studio's though. Swiping to the left from the shooting mode opens the last photo you shot, and more swiping takes you through your whole camera roll, on any of which you can make the edits. This view helpfully shows image metadata, including resolution, F-stop, shutter speed, and flash status.

Sharing
OneShot's share icon opens the list of apps that can accept images, including mail, Facebook, OneNote, and various messenger apps. There's a dedicated Instagram button, but, instead of opening the official Instagram app, this open's 6tag (actually a more-capable third-party Instagram client). You can choose the official app from the share menu.

I noticed a couple of performance issues testing the app on my Lumia 1020: The screen occasionally flickered, and sometimes I'd have to wait too long for processing and saving after shooting. 30-plus megapixel images do present a lot to process, but even with lower resolutions, I didn't get the kind of fast burst shooting possible with i4software's Fast Camera app.

Give It Your Best Shot
For shooting control and options, OneShot is hard to beat, though the Lumia Camera app gives it a good run for its money, even surpassing it in some ways. But it needs to get faster and more efficient with phone power before I can award it a higher score. For fancy photo effects, you can't beat our Editors' Choice Windows Phone Photography app, PicsArt Studio.