now for some camera whimsy apps

It’s really not enough any more to just point and shoot? It’s a bit, “is that ALL you know about iphone apps?” If this IS all you know, then this little rundown of apptastic iphone appendages will delight you. Play with them over the weekend.

I came across this great post on THE BEST CAMERA APPS from one of my favourite NYT writers David Pogue. Here’s the bits you want:

Try TiltShift(from $1). It’s a photographic trick that, by using selective angles and blurring, makes the real world seem to be made of tiny toys.
Time Lapse ($1) lets you create a high-definition time-lapse movie automatically while you’re away. Watch a building go up, watch a flower bloom or just see what’s been going on at home while you’re away.
Panorama apps are plentiful and joyous; they combine multiple photos into one much larger, infinitely wide-angle whole, automatically and without a computer. For example, you can shoot a bunch of photos fairly sloppily using whatever camera app you prefer, and then feed them into AutoStitch Panorama ($2). It magically analyzes the resulting shots and combines them, beautifully. This app doesn’t require you to line the left edge of each new photo with the right edge of the previous one, and it stitches photos both vertically and horizontally.
Try microsoft’s PhotoSynth (free). You can shoot all around you, capturing entire interiors, for example, including floor and ceiling, one slice at a time. Each time you move the camera to a new view, there’s a beep (hold it!) and then PhotoSynth snaps the shot by itself. The app uses the iphone’s gyroscope and motion sensor to figure out how you’re holding the phone. It creates a seamless panorama that you can navigate with your finger, or post to facebook – either as frozen images, os as fully interactive, zoomable, pannable panoramas. Two words: download this.
Download Camera+ or ProCamera, too. You’ll get a little bit of everything — better shooting, cropping and editing, filters and effects, and direct posting to the popular online networks — an all-in-one option that gives you a good taste of the possibilities.