Hydra 2 › AI Camera: RAW + HDR

I’m not sure how it can be this bad. The default camera app is 100x better. lo-light might as well be no light. It has zero effect. Hi-res looks blurry

I bought this app based on the fact that it was recommended and I thought an AI based camera for iOS would be great. The one use case I have most for my phone camera is low light photography. For that I can just say, when it works, it works well; but it hardly works. Despite my best efforts, the app keeps giving the error of ‘excessive camera or subject motion’ and refuses to take a shot. I have no such problem with the default iOS camera. This is a software issue and I hope the developers fix that soon.

The app becomes all black or crashes whenever I take a picture no matter what mode it’s in.

Used to be a great app (V1) then I upgraded (and paid) for V2. One week after use, the app started saving only JPGs and no RAWs, no matter what changes I make in the app settings. Not impressed! Update: Even though I am using an iPhone 13 Pro Max with the right settings and the latest OS, still useless as it only saves JPG. Will be canceling my upgrade and dispute the purchase with Apple as the app does NOT perform as advertised.

Hydra was the single most insightful camera app on iOS since it’s launch, and I have followed it ever since. With the expertise of the developer, Dr. Sebbe, in computational imaging, it tackled the topics of HDR, lowlight and even pixel shift super resolution that very few other app dared to tackle and no other app has succeeded at, even beating the camera app the phone comes with at resolving power, even in iPhone 13 era. Throughout the years, I have always been hoping for them to incorporate the advancements in sensor hardware, computation power and AI algorithms into a new version of Hydra. Hydra 2 is that dream come true. It uses RAW processing instead of just YUV, retaining as much information as possible. Then it leverages the powerful neural engines, and runs arguably state of the art deep learning based processing and merging pipelines on these RAWs. I tried using Hydra 2, and I don’t understand how apps are even allowed to be this good. I have heard about Hydra since it’s launch, and I have kept it in my iPhones for the past 5 years, during which years I graduated and started to research into deep learning and computer vision on top of being just an enthusiast in computational photography, all of which made me appreciate more the effort and ingenuity put into Hydra 2. To me, Hydra and Hydra 2 are as much technical feats as they are materializations of passion and endeavour. Thank you, and I can’t wait for the next 5 years together!

I never would’ve bought this app if I knew they were going to add on a subscription to the app and reset one time purchases to not work anymore so you have to buy the app again. I tried to restore my purchase and it wouldn’t restore I’m guessing because I bought it before this version of the app. I should get a redeem code along with everyone else who previously bought the app for the one time purchase to restore full functionality. I would appreciate that and then I can update my review. Otherwise, I’ll have to delete the app and never use it again.

I purchased The Pro Pack . First was fine then I uninstalled the app for some reason then installed again. But my purchase has been gone no restoring purchase i kept clicking on that restore purchase button nothing happened. They are asking for payment. But in app store page ots showing I can’t by the pro pack anymore because its allready purchased and button is greyed out.

Without a free trial- it’s fairly useless to test to see if it is worth cost, So it’s been deleted without ever thinking about it again Phones have been pretty good without it. If you really need a higher quality image I doubt this would help and I have full blown Canons to do the job. Time to move away from this pointless app

Just want to be fair, I updated the app and tried low-light again. Failed as usual, the UI is still waste of screen space, I hope a professional photographer could be included in the design team to rescue this app. You need a clear aim for this app’s potential users and offer the simple but customizable UI that convincing paid subscribers. Sorry to so harsh, in my last comment I’ve made suggestions on how to improve the design, I wish someone will truly listen to your users instead saying “this is the free version … the Pro version… “ No! this app need a major overhaul.

HDR mode does not work correctly after the more recent updates.