Obscura 4

Introducing Obscura 4, a premium camera app built for pros and designed for everyone.

It’s been redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up to create a gorgeous, intuitive and delightful experience every time you take a photo.

Refined Design
Obscura combines pro camera features with responsive controls to create a beautiful camera interface that doesn’t get in the way of taking photos.

Haptics and gestures make the controls feel like using a physical camera, with all flexibility of being a digital interface: when you don’t need them, they’re out of the way, so you can focus on your subject.

Obscura 4 refines the camera controls even further, they all follow the same pattern: tap for more deal, drag to quickly adjust, and long press to reset back to defaults. It’s fast, intuitive, and a delight to use.

Packing so much functionality into such a small amount of screen real estate while making things clear and understandable is a real challenge, and I think Obscura 4 strikes a far better balance than ever before. Exposure, Focus, White Balance, Filters, and Zoom can all be adjusted without breaking context, and they’re all within reach of your thumb. No awkwardly fumbling with your phone for out of reach controls. I’ve spent 9 years thinking about optimising camera controls for small screens, and I’m incredibly proud of the result. As good as it looks in screenshots, it feels even better in the hand.

Photo Library
Obscura’s not just a camera, it’s also a great way to browse, edit, and sort your photos.

Obscura 4’s library interface has been simplified to show more of your recent photos, while still letting you easily change to any other album, with quick access to favourites and photos shot with Obscura.

Whether you like applying filters, sorting your library with star ratings, or checking out the nitty-gritty EXIF details, Obscura’s library interface has a bunch of features to help you enjoy the photos you’ve taken the time to capture.

Customisation
Obscura has a whole lot of settings to let you customise it to fit your needs. Whether you want to set a custom app icon, or set a specific exposure bias on launch, you can make Obscura your own. There’s a wealth of options in Obscura’s settings so it’s well worth your time to explore.

Pricing
With Obscura 4, the app is moving to a subscription pricing model, called Obscura Ultra. Not because I’m a greedy jerk who hates their customers, but because I want this app to be sustainable, and the paid-up-front model hasn’t been a good fit for the App Store in a very long time.

Not being able to offer free trials has limited Obscura’s ability to grow, and the lack of paid upgrades leaves advertising and subscriptions as the only pricing models that work long term. And no one wants ads in their camera app.

Here’s the pricing

For New Customers (before September 11th):
$7.99 for the first year → $9.99 annually

For New Customers:
1 Week Free Trial → $9.99 annually

For Obscura 3 Customers (who want new features):
$4.99 for the first year → $9.99 annually

If you’ve already paid for Obscura 3, you’ll still have access to all the features you already paid for.

Obscura 3 customers have a special plan called Obscura Extra. This includes all the features available since launch, but won’t included any new features going forward. That means if you’re happy with the app as it is now, there’s no need to subscribe. If you want to support me, and have access to new features as they’re added, then you can upgrade to Ultra, but there’s no pressure to do so.

My top priority in the move to subscriptions has been making sure existing customers don’t feel like they’ve been misled, or getting a worse deal than new customers. I think I’ve arrived at something fair for everyone, and I hope the result is a more sustainable future for Obscura, and to provide me with a more stable income. My mental health and my accountant will both appreciate this greatly.

Whether you’re an existing customer, new to Obscura, or haven’t tried it in a while, I hope you like the result. I’ve spent over a year working on Obscura 4, and over nine years in total to create a camera experience that is unique, intuitive, and fun to use. Most importantly, I hope that it motivates you to get out and take some photos, because that’s really what this is all about.

All the best,
Ben