AI camera with HDR, low light, and more (RAW)

Hydra 2.4.2 - October 23th 2024

• Fixes a crash affecting older OS (iOS 15 / iOS 16)

Hydra 2.4.1 - October 21st 2024

NEW FEATURES

• Camera Control button (iPhone 16 + Pro): Hydra now provides full support for the new Camera Control button. Shooting (click) and settings menus (light press twice) are new offered for the following options: exposure control, grid display, timer, orientation lock, and color rendition.
• Improved camera selection (lenses) and zoom scale reporting for iPhone 16/16 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max.
• Improved neural engine post-shoot animation.
• Added compare button in photo editor: unprocessed RAW vs. AI enhancement.

Hydra 2.4 - September 12nd 2024

NEW FEATURES & ENHANCEMENTS

• Optimized for latest iOS
• App icons update (standard / dark / tinted)
• Control Button: action button, lock screen, and control center (open hydra with specific mode)
• Widget update (dark / tinted)
• Screen mirroring on Mac: Keyboard shortcuts (think photo studio for iPhone camera with control from the Mac)
• Screen mirroring on Mac: drag & drop of last shot picture from thumbnail directly on Mac
• Apple Intelligence (camera domain)
• Enhanced CoreML performance

Hydra 2.3.2 - April 5th 2024

This release brings compatibility and optimizations for latest OS.

Hydra 2.3.1 - January 8th 2024

Fixed a photo corruption bug (HDR mode) occurring on certain devices with 17.2 or later OS.

Hydra 2.3 - October 24th 2023

Hydra 2.3 brings iOS 17 enhancements including a new Shortcuts action and improved Home Screen / Lock Screen widgets.

NEW FEATURES & ENHANCEMENTS

• New Shortcuts action to automate Hydra launch & shooting. The programmable action lets you launch Hydra in any specific shooting mode, with automatic or manual control, and lets you optionally shoot immediately or after a delay.
• iPhone 15 Pro action button: Hydra can now be launched with the physical button using the new action. Also lets you define a workflow with other actions / apps interactions.
• Spotlight: Hydra can be launched from Spotlight search results in any particular shooting mode (iOS 17).
• Home Screen / Lock Screen widgets: camera control (auto/manual) can be specified, enhanced compatibility with iPad and Mac (Sonoma), iOS 17 now required.

Hydra 2.2.2 - September 8th 2023

Fixed false-color AI artefacts when processing noisy inputs with the 'smooth' neural variant in Hydra (all AI modes). This affects iPhone 14 Pro with telephoto shooting, but also other phones in extremely low light environments.

Hydra 2.2.1 - August 10th 2023

ENHANCEMENTS

• Photo Editor: better compatibility for latest OS versions
• Interface elements adjustments in presented sheets

Hydra 2.2 - October 18th 2022

NEW FEATURES & ENHANCEMENTS

Hydra 2.1.1 - September 23rd 2022

• Fixed a viewfinder crash
• Volume button shutter trigger (and Bluetooth clicker) is back on iOS 16
• Device orientation related bug fix

Hydra 2.1 - September 15th 2022

Hydra 2.1 brings specific new features for iOS 16 as well as photo capture stability improvements for all devices & OS versions.

NEW FEATURES & ENHANCEMENTS

• iOS 16 lock screen widget: you can now launch Hydra directly from your lock screen, optionally enabling a specific shooting mode.
• iOS 16 home screen widgets: the new Photographer's Dashboard widget lets you display upcoming photography-related hours (sunset, sunrise, golden hours) on your home screen, and configure launch buttons with user-chosen mode presets. The smaller Photography Hours widget lets you display just the upcoming hours without launch buttons.
• Other iOS 16 compatibility improvements & fixes.

PHOTOGRAPHIC SUBSYSTEM UPDATE

• Important stability improvement of the shooting core. Photo capture has been rewritten to address memory issues affecting a number of devices, limiting the number of in-flight photos independently of the total amount of taken pictures. Will improve shooting in all modes and in particular Hi-res, on all devices including iPhone 6s, XR, 12 mini.
• A GPU-related drawing corruption has been identified & addressed, which resolves a number of output photo artefacts as well as incorrectly reported excessive motion errors while shooting.

APPLE WATCH UPDATE

• Apple Watch: the Apple Watch app for remote shooting has been rewritten to offer an improved & modern edge-to-edge design.

Hydra 2.0.7 - August 22nd 2022

BUG FIXES

• Fixed problems/crashes linked to photo sharing (editor, gallery)
• Fixed a crash linked to manual mode activation

Hydra 2.0.6 - July 11th 2022

NEW FEATURES & ENHANCEMENTS

• Handling of devices with older cameras. A number of iPad devices don't support RAW shooting which is a required feature for Hydra AI modes (HDR, Lo-light, Hi-res, Zoom, Macro). On these devices, only the Normal shooting mode is enabled within Hydra.
• Fix for a crash that could occur while loading a large photo library on older devices
• Fix for DNG (unprocessed) output in AI modes which now correctly include geotagging when requested.
• Increased speed and memory usage stability when shooting with devices equipped with Apple Neural Engine (Core ML).

Hydra 2.0.5 - May 03rd 2022

Fix for a crash that could occur while loading a large photo library on older devices

Hydra 2.0.4 - April 15th 2022

NEW FEATURES

• Portugese localisation

ENHANCEMENTS

• Better memory stability for Hi-res / zoom shooting modes, especially for memory-constrained devices & devices without Apple Neural Engine.
• Improved speed for devices without Apple Neural Engine (pre- iPhone XR/XS).
• Fix for crash occurring with iPhone 13 / iOS 15.4 combo.
• Fix for launch crash occurring on older devices with large photo libraries.
• Fix for a crash that could occur when deleting multiple photos from the album.
• Improved handling of photo authorisation (Selected Photos).

Hydra 2.0.3 - April 2nd 2022

Hydra 2.0.3 brings the following new features and enhancements.

Shooting

• Enabled additional iPhone 12 / 12 Pro cameras (Ultra-wide and front cameras)
• Enabled Ultra-wide camera for Hi-res mode (starting on iPhone 12, iPhone 11 and earlier can't shoot in RAW with UW, required)
• Improves stability when shooting on devices with less memory.

Gallery

• Faster photo browsing (swipe left/right) in the gallery, especially for large photo collections.
• Display of file format in the gallery.
• Fixes for the Peek & Pop tooling.
• Improved performance of gallery editing operations
• Improved gallery memory usage and app startup delay.

Debug Tools

• Added sensor layout reporting (Bayer configuration) for each camera capable of RAW shooting.
• If your iPad (or iPhone) reports sensor layouts in the Debug Tools for cameras not handled in Hydra, please let us know (we'll add them) as we don't have access to every device model.

Hydra 2.0.2 - March 25th 2022

Hydra 2.0.2 provides the following enhancements / bug fixes:

• Faster shooting. Initial capture delays of up to 3 seconds were removed for a smoother experience.
• In previous versions, Hydra could skip photo output generation for specific mode / destination configurations. As of 2.0.2, Hydra will always output a fallback file for each destination (File and/or Album) even if the user's format preference can't be honoured for the particular mode / destination combo.
• Before/after comparison tiles (choice when sharing from Photo Editor) were incorrectly rendered in Zoom and Macro modes. This has been addressed in this release.
• Hi-res shooting has been enabled for the ultra-wide lens (iOS 15 required, and an iPhone with UW camera).
• Bluetooth and volume button trigger were failing after the app was brought back from background. Fixed.
• Improvement for iPhone XR memory management to avoid crashes while shooting.
• UI fixes: cropped text labels fixed (thank you Tom).

Hydra 2.0.1 - March 22nd 2022

• now lets you save RAW (DNG) together with the processed file when shooting in a Hydra AI mode.
• a debugging tool is added to record a photo sequence archive that you can send us (if requested) to let us reproduce and hopefully fix the problem.
• other minor enhancements.

Hydra 2.0 - March 22nd 2022

Seven years after the release of Hydra back in January 2015, the best-selling photo app that pioneered computational photography on iPhone & iPad, Creaceed releases a major upgrade to their flagship. Hydra 2’s new AI-powered RAW fusion offers to overcome the physical limits of small sensors, with capabilities such as over 20-stop extreme HDR to capture both highlights and shadows, detail-enhancing demosaicing and denoising in low light, macro shooting, crisp 6/8x digital zooming, and a whopping 110-megapixel resolution from the device's built-in 12-megapixel sensors. Moreover, Hydra now features a new manual operation for photo enthusiasts, a faster shooting for reduced artifacts, and the addition of a normal mode for everyday photos that hosts iPhone's integrated camera capabilities. It also comes with a number of presets for customizing the user's style as well as a completely new high-fidelity degradation-free photo editor.
New features in 2.0

• Refined, designed-with-care camera experience for iPhone & iPad.
• Computational photography with on-device artificial intelligence (AI).
• Modes: new normal camera mode, extreme HDR (> 20-stop range), superior detail-enhancement and denoising for low-light & macro, up-to-6/8x zooming, and 110-megapixel resolution.
• Viewfinder: approachable ergonomics, tactile input & sensory feedback. “Zebra” previewing.
• Manual operation: focus, ISO, shutter speed, white balance. Priority modes.
• Capture options: Apple Watch remote, timer, flash & selfie, geotagging, grid overlay.
• Photo style presets: tonal intent, color rendition, and more
• Photo editor for 32-bit non-degrading edits with tone mapping, detail boosting, precise colorimetry, and Apple ProRAW editing.
• Side-by-side comparison with RAW input.
• Output options with varied file formats, including pro options for later reprocessing (JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, TIFF-32, OpenEXR, Radiance, DNG, Apple ProRAW, and next-gen JPEG XL) & color spaces (sRGB, Display P3, ROMM ProPhoto).
• Saving to Files (iCloud & 3rd-party apps) + shared folders.
• Photo gallery.
• Optimized for latest iOS, Metal, Core ML, and Apple Neural Engine (ANE).
• Privacy first: on-device processing, filter for social sharing.

Hydra 1.8.4 - November 3rd 2021

• Maintenance release with minor enhancements & bug fixes.

Hydra 1.8.3 - March 3rd 2021

• Maintenance release with minor enhancements & bug fixes.

Hydra 1.8.2 - November 5th 2020

• Fixed black image problem affecting upcoming iOS 14 releases under certain conditions. A big thank you to our users for the diligent feedback.

Hydra 1.8.1 - Octobre 23rd 2020

• Added support for new iPhone (late 2020) screen sizes.

Hydra 1.8 - October 13th 2020

• Hydra 1.8 brings photo library security enhancement for iOS 14. Display of previously shot photos within Hydra gallery now requires the user to explicitly grant photo library access permission. This is an optional feature and is not required for shooting with Hydra. No other use of photos is made beyond in-app display. See our privacy policy for more details.

Hydra 1.7.1 - June 11th 2020

• Modernization for latest OS & bug fixes.

Hydra 1.7 - Octobre 22nd 2019

• Support for ultra-wide (iPhone 11 / 11 Pro), wide and telephoto cameras in most shooting modes.
• Dark Mode throughout the app.
• Improved interaction with the embedded photo gallery with Contextual Menu which replaces Peek and Pop, and that is available on all iPhone and iPad models.
• Tuned visuals in the embedded photo gallery (SF Symbols).

Hydra 1.6.3 - October 2nd 2019

• Fixed a crash that could occur when saving photos or videos to Photo Album on devices running iOS 13.

Hydra 1.6.2 - March 25th 2019

• Enhancements
• Fixed incorrect date in video metadata that could occur under certain conditions.

Hydra 1.6.1 - January 31st 2019

• Minor enhancements & bug fixes.

Hydra 1.6 - December 10th 2018

• Updated for the new iPad Pro
• Handling of new iPad Pro display sizes (11" and 12.9").

Hydra 1.5.1 - Octobre 4th 2018

• Updated for new iPhone sizes (including iPhone XS Max and more).
• Updated for Apple Watch Series 4.
• Fixed a bug affecting the insertion date in Photos app.

Hydra 1.5 - August 23rd 2018

• Added support for the telephoto lens in Zoom Mode.
• Added support for the front camera to take selfies in HDR and Lo-light modes.
• Improved localization.
• Hydra 1.5 now requires iOS 10.0.

Hydra 1.4.4 - June 19th 2018

• Updated the crash reports framework.

Hydra 1.4.3 - April 23rd 2018

• Modernised Hydra Watch app to support watchOS 4. Watch app is now faster and more reliable than before.
• New haptic feedback when shooting completes and when autoshoot timer advances.
• Requires an Apple Watch with watchOS 2.2 or more recent.

Hydra 1.4.2 - January 31st 2018

• Fixed an issue causing a lack of audio in recorded videos.

Hydra 1.4.1 - November 3rd 2017

• Specific black image bug fix.

Hydra 1.4 - October 27th 2017

• Updated to support iPhone X.
• Improved Volume button shutter handling.

Hydra 1.3.6 - August 10th 2017

• Fixed an issue preventing the Watch app from loading.
• Other minor enhancements / modernization of the application interface.

Hydra 1.3.5 - July 13th 2017

• Compatibility with future version of iOS:
• Fixed image capture hang.
• Fixed image gallery problems (hangs, lack of image).
• Other improvements:
• Improvements with handling pictures in iCloud Photo Library (download of pictures that are not currently available on device).
• Better and simpler photo file naming scheme, when accessing files directly.
• iOS 9 is now required.

Hydra 1.3.4 - March 7th 2017

• Fixed an issue with camera focus indicator that could behave erratically under specific conditions.

Hydra 1.3.3 - January 10th 2017

• Fixed an issue with iPhone 7 / iPhone 7 Plus that could produce black image under extreme lighting conditions (HDR mode).

Hydra 1.3.2 - October 3rd 2016

• Removed Haptic Feedback when taking picture.

Hydra 1.3.1 - September 16th 2016

• Fixed crash on launch on iOS 8.
• Updated French localization.

Hydra 1.3 - September 13th 2016

• Added 3D Touch Peek & Pop to preview or execute actions on last taken picture.
• Haptic feedback for iPhone 7: shooting progress and completion, mode selection.
• Maximized color fidelity by reducing strength of system-applied True Tone shift.
• Improvement of iPad experience.
• Optimized for iOS 10.

Hydra 1.2.2 - March 30th 2016

• Optimized application icon for the iPad Pro.
• Fixed a problem that could occur while zooming in the image gallery.
• Minor bug fixes.

Hydra 1.2.1 - October 27th 2015

• Added URL scheme to launch Hydra in a specific mode (i.e. hydra://capturemode/hdr, or lolight, hires, zoom, hdrvideo).
• Fixed a rare launch-time crash when invoking 3D Touch shortcuts.

Hydra 1.2 - October 9th 2015

• iPhone 6s / 6s+:
• Support for iPhone 6s / 6s+ camera sensor size, with new output resolutions (Hi-Res: 18MP - 24MP - 32MP)


• iOS 9 Support:
• Support for iOS 9 Quick Actions on iPhone 6s / 6s+ to select capture mode from home screen when starting Hydra.
• Better support for iOS 9 San Francisco font throughout the app.
• Fixed a problem related to iPad split screen.

Hydra 1.1.2 - July 11th 2015

• Fixed permission requests on first launch. We've improved the permission requests workflow based on the feedback of a few users that needed to go to the settings pane under some circumstances. This should not be necessary anymore.
• Minor UI enhancements.
• Fixed iOS 9-related crashes.

Hydra 1.1.1 - May 8th 2015

• Bug Fixes and Enhancements:
• Updated Norwegian localization
• Better background state handling, in particular when communicating with Apple Watch. Fixes possible background crashes.

Hydra 1.1 - April 20th 2015

• Support for Apple Watch:
• Hydra can be remotely controlled by Apple Watch: capture mode can be changed, and photo/video capture initiated from Apple Watch.
• Live-stream preview of iPhone camera is displayed on Apple Watch.
• 3-second delayed capture mode.
• Handoff support: Starting Hydra on Apple Watch displays Hydra icon on iPhone lock screen for easier launch.
• Remote Capture:
• Support for bluetooth capture (shutter trigger) device like Muku
• Volume button shutter trigger.
• Other:
• Image gallery support for older devices with less than 512 MB (iPhone 4S, etc.). Images are displayed at a possibly smaller size to fit device memory.
• Added Original & Digitized Time(s) EXIF metadata to saved photos.
• Minor bug fixes and enhancements.

Hydra 1.0.2 - March 10th 2015

• Hydra has been localized to 5 new languages: Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Korean, Turkish, Arabic, and Japanese (note for Japanese, help contents coming soon)
• Bug Fixes and Enhancements:
• Fixed gallery glitches
• Better handling of remote data that must be downloaded in the gallery (iCloud photo library)
• Fixed crashes linked to background state
• Fixed other rare crashes
• Fixed a problem where original image wouldn't be saved even if option was enabled.

Hydra 1.0.1 - February 6th 2015

• Video recording improvements:
  • Hydra will now autofocus before the video recording starts, but it becomes a manual process during the recording. This avoid focus shakes during capture. (thanks Allen B. for feedback)

• Photo improvements:
  • 12MP HDR on iPhone and 8MP on iPad are sharper (bug fix).

• Permission update:
  • As per user request, and even though Hydra only uses microphone to record sound for videos, Hydra will now work without microphone access (if you refuse access in first launch). In that case, recorded video will be silent. You can enable microphone at any time from global Privacy settings.
  • Location and Microphone access (optional) are now better explained when authorisation is requested.

• Bug fixes and enhancement:
  • GPS coordinate fix for West and South hemispheres.
  • Silence switch is now observed for all photo modes. Video mode still emits start/stop sound because of a limitation of iOS. (we could remove it altogether, let us now what you prefer).
  • Fixed a crash affecting photo gallery / metadata viewer.
  • Fixed a crash that affect HDR photo saving.
  • Fixed crashes that could occur while recording videos.
  • Lowered memory requirement and possible crash when exporting 32MP photos and videos (mail, etc.)
  • Fixed a crash in Help viewer.
  • Fixed minor interface glitches.
  • Gallery access is now on the left for more coherence with Apple's Camera app.

Hydra 1.0 - January 29th 2015

• 5 specific capture modes:
• High Dynamic Range (HDR) mode merges together up to 20 input frames
• Video-HDR uses single-image tonemapping and device-specific sensor mode (iPhone 6 and 6 Plus)
• Lo-light mode removes sensor noise by merging together multiple images and amplifying light by a factor of 10
• Zoom mode produces 2x and 4x scale factors with more details than the standard digital zooming technique
• Hi-res mode produces up to 32MP images from the regular 8MP camera sensor.
• Photo gallery for reviewing images and their metadata
• Ability to save unprocessed photos for comparison purposes
• French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian and Russian localizations.