ProShot

Review by eFreeware

The most distinctive thing about ProShot is how far it pushes the idea of a phone camera toward a DSLR. Rather than a stripped-down shutter button with a few filters, it is built around the camera2 API and hands you the exposure triangle directly: ISO, shutter speed, white balance, focus and more, with Auto, Program, Manual and two Custom modes sitting alongside each other. The developer, Rise Up Games, has been selling this app since 2015, and it now sits at a 4.5 average from nearly 20,000 ratings with more than 500,000 installs.

That combination tells you who it is for. ProShot is aimed at people who already understand, or want to learn, why a photo came out the way it did and who are willing to pay $7.99 once for that control. If you mostly want to point, tap and share, the default camera on your phone will get you there with far less to think about. If you have ever wanted to lock shutter speed for a moving subject, pull a RAW file into an editor, or shoot a timelapse without extra gear, this is the kind of tool that earns its price.

The price tag is worth stating plainly up front: $7.99, no ads, and no in-app purchases. That is a straightforward model, and it means the app's value rests entirely on whether its controls match the way you shoot.

DSLR-style control, phone-sized

The core of ProShot is its shooting modes. Exposure, flash, focus, ISO, shutter speed and white balance are all adjustable, so you can decide how much the camera handles and how much you do.

The developer's answer to the fiddliness of phone controls is a Dual Dial system, which is meant to let you move through settings quickly instead of digging into nested menus. I would expect that to be the make-or-break detail for most people: manual shooting on a phone lives or dies by how fast you can change two values without looking away from the frame. Remappable controls, histograms and focus peaking round out the toolkit, and the histogram offers three modes while focus peaking lets you choose its color.

Capture formats are handled seriously. You can shoot RAW as DNG, JPEG, or both at once, and HEIC is supported on devices that can handle it. Bracket exposure runs up to plus or minus three stops with zero lag, which is the sort of feature that matters when a scene's dynamic range is wider than a single frame can hold. On compatible hardware, vendor extensions open up modes like Bokeh and HDR.

Aspect ratios are unusually flexible. Besides the standard 4:3, 16:9 and 1:1, Photo mode lets you define your own, so 21:9 or 5:4 are both possible. Zoom goes up to 10X with a single finger, and the camera roll sits inside the viewfinder rather than in a separate screen.

Long exposures, timelapse and video

Light painting is where ProShot gets more interesting than a typical manual camera. Dedicated modes handle water and star trails, and Bulb mode is built into that same light painting section, which is exactly the arrangement you want if you are standing in the dark waiting on a long exposure. Timelapse is covered twice over: an intervalometer for stills and a separate video timelapse mode that can reach 4K, with full camera control available in both.

Video inherits everything from Photo mode, which is a bigger deal than it sounds. You get the same manual exposure, focus and white balance control while recording, plus frame rates from 24 FPS up to 240 FPS. Resolution reaches 8K with high bitrate options, and the developer notes support for beyond-4K capture on devices that allow it. LOG and FLAT color profiles are available for more dynamic range in post, with H.264 and H.265 encoding.

There are smaller video conveniences that suggest the app was built by people who actually shoot. You can pause and resume a recording rather than starting a new clip, monitor audio levels and file size as you record, use an external microphone, and keep audio playing from another source while you film. A video light and the industry-standard 180 degree rule options are there too. The recent update added an External option for audio routing to force external mic use, zoom support for gimbals, a zoom remap for the volume buttons, and a 0.5 second interval in timelapse video mode.

Customization runs through the whole app. There is a customization panel for startup mode, volume button remapping and filename format, plus a choice of accent color, adjustable JPEG quality and noise reduction, storage location, and shortcuts for GPS, screen brightness and the shutter. If you like your camera to behave a specific way every time you open it, there is a lot here to shape.

What it asks of your phone, and of you

ProShot leans on the camera2 API, and that is the main practical caveat. The developer's own answer is an Evaluator app, offered separately, that shows which features your particular phone supports before you commit. If you are considering ProShot for an older or budget handset, that step is worth taking first, because the app's headline capabilities are not uniformly available across Android hardware.

At $7.99 with no ads and no in-app purchases, there is nothing to unlock later and nothing to sit through.

Then there is the learning curve. Modes named Program, Shutter priority and ISO priority assume you know what those mean, and the Dual Dial system rewards muscle memory. Someone coming from a phone's default camera will need time before the controls feel natural. That is the trade: the app gives you precision, and precision takes practice.

On privacy, the developer states that ProShot does no data harvesting and that images and information stay on your device. That is a claim rather than something a review can verify, but it is a reasonable thing to weigh if you shoot personal or client material.

How I would approach it

If you are new to manual shooting, I would start in Auto or Program and change one variable at a time, rather than jumping straight into full manual. Lock the shutter speed for a moving subject one day, take over white balance the next, and let the mode dial do the rest until each control feels familiar. The two Custom modes are useful once you know your habits: one for the settings you reach for most often, another for a specific situation you shoot repeatedly.

RAW is worth trying early if you edit your photos at all. Shooting RAW plus JPEG gives you a file you can share immediately and a negative to work from later, and the bracket exposure option covers the cases where one frame is not enough. For night work, the light painting modes and Bulb are the natural place to experiment, since that is where the app departs most from what a stock camera offers.

On the video side, I would decide on resolution and frame rate before anything else, because 8K and 240 FPS pull in different directions. LOG and FLAT profiles are for footage you plan to grade; if you are uploading straight from the phone, they will look flat until you treat them. The pause and resume option is easy to overlook and genuinely useful for anything scripted or staged.

Finally, spend a few minutes in the customization panel. The recent additions around external audio routing and gimbal zoom suggest the developer keeps tending to these details.

A paid camera for people who want the controls

ProShot is a serious, well-established manual camera app with a clear audience. It has been around since 2015, carries a 4.5 rating from nearly 20,000 ratings, and has passed 500,000 installs, which for a paid photography app is a strong signal that the feature set holds up for the people who buy it. The recent update, which fixed a blank-screen bug on relaunch and added external mic routing and gimbal zoom, suggests it is still being worked on rather than left to sit.

The case for buying it rests on what you intend to do. If you mostly shoot in auto and share straight from the camera roll, the price and the learning curve will not pay you back.

My advice is to check the Evaluator first, confirm your device supports the features you care about, and then decide. For photographers who already think in stops and shutter speeds, or who want to start, ProShot is the sort of app that replaces a bag of dedicated gear for a lot of everyday shooting.

What's new in version 8.34

• Added "External" option to Audio Routing to force external mic use • Added zoom support for gimbals • Added zoom remap option for volume buttons • Added 0.5s interval to Timelapse Video mode • Fixed a bug that sometimes caused a blank screen to appear when relaunching the app (apologies it took so long to track this down!)