How To Have Even More Fun Photographing Cars With Your iPhone

As our own Mr. Smith has explained, the camera in the iPhone 3GS is pretty damn good for taking photos of cars. For even better photos, spend an extra 99¢ on pseudo-Polaroid app ShakeItPhoto.

Ahem, that word, better. It's a tough point to argue that a photo taken with a microscopic lens and put through destructive testing with weird filters can have any relation to better, but trust me on this.

What Nick Campbell's silly little program does is make fake Polaroids. You can even shake the iPhone to make them develop faster! But it creates those fakes with such a cunning algorithm that it borders on proper magic. The result? Point your tricorder at things and you will get pleasing images all the time. All the time. All you need to do is find pretty cars, like, say, a Ferrari 250 GT short-wheelbase, and you're set. Or plastic ladies in storefronts.

You may be wondering if living in Europe means you can walk out of your house and photograph a Ferrari 250 GT SWB in rosso corsa just like that and the answer is, of course, no. But please excuse my deceit in creating the photo above: it is there to show that ShakeItPhoto also works with your existing images, turning crisp and boring digitals into pseudo-analog pseudo-squares of vignetting fun.

As for the actual vehicle situation in my little slice of Europe, I'm afraid it's all motorcycles this morning. Just a boring Moto Guzzi and a boring Ducati. Don't tell your inner Wes Siler.

And to shred any illusion that this is just a 99¢ fart app you will discard after fifteen seconds, consider that David Guttenfelder—the chief Asia photographer of The Associated Press—is also a user. So if you're bored of cars, go and take photos of badass U.S. Marines in Afghanistan and feel like a pro.

Or badass U.S. Marines in Ferraris. Or badass U.S. Marines in Ferraris with M242 Bushmaster autocannons mounted on strut braces. You get the idea.

Photo Credit: David Guttenfelder (badass U.S. Marine) and the author

Update: Jalopnik reader Mike Bahurinsky has suggested another app called Hipstamatic, which also does the magic for 2 bucks. His photos from a recent VW/Audi meet: