StopMotion Recorder Review
iPhone App
$0.99 Buy now!

StopMotion Recorder Review

Our Review by Elizabeth Fish on July 29th, 2010
Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar :: SUPER FUN
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StopMotion Recorder had bought stop motion filming to the iPhone, and has done it almost perfectly. Easy to do and hours of fun, if only the camera quality was better.

Developer: graf
Price: $0.99
Version: 1.0.2
App Reviewed on: iPhone 3GS
iPhone Integration Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar
User Interface Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: starstarstarstarblankstar

Overall Rating: starstarstarstarhalfstar

The art of stop motion is a filming technique that's been around since the late 1800s and popularized in the swinging 1960s. It's created by photographing every movement a character or prop makes, then stitching them together in rapid succession. Although, it's quite complicated and therefore mainly left to the pros. Now, you can make your own stop motion film easily with just your iPhone and StopMotion Recorder.

The app is basic; just point and click. When you first go into the app, the camera will be deployed. The principal is easy - pose your characters and touch the screen to take pictures. A nifty feature to make sure you line up each shot from one to another is a shadow of the previous picture (aka onion skin), so there will be no unwanted differences once you put the frames together.

Once finished, you get a chance to review all the frames, cut ones you don't want and set the speed of your movie (how many frames you want to play per second) and that's it! A stop motion movie in minutes. The list of your finished movies can be accessed any time from within the app.

There are lots of options to chose from for sharing for creations; send to Twitter using YFrog or TwitVid, mail it or upload it to Flickr or YouTube. Interestingly, if you want it in your camera roll, you have to export it from the app first. It would be much better if the movie was automatically added to the camera roll, like many other picture and movie apps do. There is a settings menu, but nothing there is too complicated and instead just invites you to try different effects on your pictures.

The photo quality of the movie is also only as good as the iPhone camera. Don't expect to have a very high quality movie unless you are in natural sunlight. Though the app does try to focus each frame as you take it, giving each frame a much crisper look. Due to the quality restrictions of the camera, StopMotion Recorder might be a little too irritating for those without patience or a steady hand.

One very strange detail is the lack of auto-rotation when taking the photos. If you hold the iphone on its side to make the most of the screen, then you might end up with an upside down or sideways movie that needs editing once uploaded to a computer, defeating the object slightly.

Anyone looking for a bit of fun should give StopMotion Recorder a go, as it's bound to bring hours of entertainment to an individual or a group. The creativity is pretty much boundless, only tampered slightly by the lack of rotation and camera quality. For just $0.99, this is an absolute steal.

iPhone Screenshots

(click to enlarge)

StopMotion Recorder screenshot 1 StopMotion Recorder screenshot 2 StopMotion Recorder screenshot 3 StopMotion Recorder screenshot 4 StopMotion Recorder screenshot 5
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