With the arrival of Apple's Game Center (as well as OpenFeint and Plus+ before it), in-game achievements are now part and parcel of the experience for iOS gamers.  A new photography app called 100 Cameras in 1, however, has decided to bring the same virtual incentive platform to folks who like to use their iPhones for snapping creative pictures.

Created by Trey Ratcliff, who runs photography blog Stuck in Customs, the app integrates Game Center in a similar way to games: the more you use it, the more likely you'll stumble upon the 31 "pieces of chocolate" that will then be added to your account, with titles like People Person, Repo Man, Worldly and Cat Head.  Each one is tied to a specific way of using, reusing and mixing up the 100 different filters that the program provides to alter your photographed images.

The best part: 100 Cameras in 1 is a solid photography app even without the Game Center tie-in.  With 100 different visual filters at your disposal, each of which can combined to rather fascinating effects, it can produce some downright impressive images.  These aren't your run-of-the-mill filters that can be found in ten other apps.  Instead, it's from a personal collection of over 1,000 textures that he's compiled over the years, with the 100 he deemed the most striking making the cut.

And the app is fast.  Moving through the complex filters, I imagined torturous waits; yet results were turned out snappily.  Very, very impressive.

If you take a lot of photos on your iPhone and fancy yourself some fancy amateur lensman, then 100 Cameras in 1 is likely an app you'll be well served to download.  It’s cheap enough at $1.99.  For those uninterested in another camera app, the innovation Trey applied here will likely be the impetus for a whole other host of apps that will take advantage of Game Center.  Expect that to be the norm soon enough.

[StuckinCustoms]

Want to shoot a time lapse video from your iPhone? While you can edit a slew of regularly-taken photographs into a time lapse movie just fine, it does get difficult to capture action shots in such a manner. The iTimeLapse Pro app makes the process easy, providing an easy way to both shoot and string together images without fiddling with extra tools.

The UI is clean and easy enough to understand. First thing you do is start a time lapse project, filling in the capture settings, such as shooting method, number of pictures, resolution and other details. You can keep multiple time lapse projects going on, each of which you can go back to at any time.

iTimeLapse Pro offers three methods of capture - Timer, Manual and Sound. The first lets you set an interval for shooting videos, which can be anywhere from a few seconds to an entire day. If you're shooting action sequences, this should prove to be your best bet, as it allows you to just prop your iPhone on a stand and let it work on its own.

Manual requires you to tap on the screen for each shot, while Sound allows you to activate the shutter by simply making a sound. The latter is kind of a manual hands-free mode, although it can be prone to mistakes (someone can shout near you and trigger the capture). Fortunately, the app allows you to edit the project, so you can simply delete bad shots and add in new ones.

Rendering a project to video is a matter of tapping the Render icon and filling out the various settings (frames per second, file name and video resolution), with a choice to set it to a soundtrack. There are options for posting the resulting videos online (YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook), sending it via email (only if less than 10MB) or exporting it to your camera roll as a QuickTime movie (there are limitations here too, which sucks). Updates have ironed out kinks in the export options and they're promising a direct transfer feature soon as well (no more need for DiskAid).

Available for $2.99, iTimeLapse Pro is another great tool to have in your iPhone's photography arsenal. Once the direct transfer update is available and they cut out limitations for the export, it's probably as good a time lapse app as you can find.

[iTimelapse Pro]

So, you own a DSLR camera.  A lot of people I know do.  What's funny, though, is almost all of them use it in Auto mode anyway.  Same as I do.  Cause we're all stupid when it comes to this photography stuff.

That doesn't mean we're incapable of learning.  It's just that it's going to have to be some pretty dumbed down lessons to teach us how to work all those concepts like ISO, apertures and f-stops, since we're not as "passionate" about this as many people seem to be.  Everyone in the same boat as I am should go out and get Nikon Learn & Explore, a free iPhone app designed for novice and intermediate photographers.

As you would expect, the app comes with tutorials on fundamentals of the art, apart from teaching ideal shooting techniques for most common situations.  It's a nice reference to bring up when you're in an outdoor sporting event and suddenly decide to shoot some stuff - launch the app and get tips right on the spot.  Apart from the basics and shooting techniques, there are also plenty of tutorials about image editing, a lot of sample shots and a good list of how-to videos.

Two extra features round out the app.  First is a library of images, each with an accompanying discussion of shot composition, equipment used, lighting employed and other factors that you may want to brush up on.  Second is a Nikon World section, which provides articles and features from the popular photography magazine.

Simply put, Nikon Learn & Explore is a very useful app for unskilled photographers.  Even better, it's something even pros can probably enjoy.  There's no point in not getting it, either, since the whole thing is free.

[Photo Credit: Nikon]

If you're shooting self-portraits, kids or various events, having a remote shutter trigger would prove immensely useful.  The DSLR Camera Remote for the iPhone, currently on version 1.1, offers the functionality for your Canon EOS and Nikon DSLRs, allowing you to control your camera from afar for both personal and semi-professional uses.

First off, it doesn't interface directly with your camera.  As such, you'll need a PC for the whole thing to work - a cumbersome proposition if you're planning to shoot outdoor events with a remote trigger.  If you can get past that extra requirement, though, the app gets the job done - albeit, with a few caveats.

There are two versions of DSLR Camera Remote currently available - a Lite version, whose sole function is tripping the shutter, and a Premium one with a few more talents thrown in.  In both cases, you'll need to connect your camera to a computer (either Windows or Mac) that's running the DSLR Camera Remote Server, a desktop companion to the iPhone software.

Once that is set up, you can simply launch the app on your handset, which starts you off directly at the main screen.  From there, you can immediately see the scene in the camera's viewing range by simply switching on Live View.  You can change various settings directly from the app, including the picture format, white balance, exposure, ISO settings, shutter speed and aperture, among others.  You can tap the image feed to trigger the focus, but you can't set which particular item to focus on (it will use the default camera settings).

Everything is very responsive, with the time between hitting the trigger and the photo appearing on your handset taking a mere few seconds.  You can zoom in on the image, but can't drag it while in this mode, and there aren't all that many things you can do at that point.

Overall, DSLR Camera Remote for the iPhone seems like a useful app.  It's not completely polished and there are many features we'd still like to see, but if you absolutely need one, it could prove a good purchase even at the $19.99 price point ($2 for the Lite version).  Probably not for professionals, as developer On One Software claims, though.

Photo Credit: On One Software

Even though iPhone comes with some amount of photo filtering, it is decidedly inadequate, especially for those of us who enjoy dressing our images in interesting manners. For the most part, I don't find it that much of an issue since I can fashion photos in a myriad of ways once I put them on my PC. However, I sure would appreciate being able to do fancy modifications right on the phone as well.

The 99-cent app 101 PhotoFilters fits the requirement nicely, offering 102 (yes, missed the mark by one) different alterations to images stored on your phone. It comes with a nice set of options that include traditional filters (like grayscale and overburn), creative new modifications and some inanities. Quite a few of the filters do border on the frivolous, though I count at least 30 or so that I'll probably be using regularly.

Using the app is not the most intuitive process, though it's usable enough once you get the hang of the controls. The opening sequence is particularly dumbfounding, basically going against your natural navigation instincts.

Filtering is pretty fast, with a progress bar showing you the status of the update. Changes are not automatically committed so you can easily try a different filter or revert to the original photo in case you choose one that's not to your liking. You can also layer multiple filters on a single photo, which can lead to pretty impressive results.

With 102 filter options, 101 PhotoFilters is a pretty good use of your app dollar. It's a very worthwhile tool that I wouldn't mind keeping on my iPhone for the long haul.