The popular iOS camera app Halide says it saw a huge increase in downloads this week by people needing a better way to capture orange skies from wildfire smoke. In response, Halide has donated a day of sales toward wildfire relief.
As wildfire smoke blankets the West Coast of the United States, many smartphone users have been frustrated to find that their default camera’s auto white balance can’t properly capture apocalyptic orange skies overhead.
Welp Daly City looking apocalyptic today. pic.twitter.com/FTvtWDkvf7
— ✨Teri @ LBX2020✨ (@teriarchibbles) September 9, 2020
The solution is to use a camera app for your phone that allows you to choose your white balance. Set it to “Daylight” or “Cloudy” and you’ll be able to capture the sky’s color more accurately.
One of the apps iPhone users have apparently turned to is Halide, which gives you more control over everything from focus and exposure to white balance and RAW shooting.
We saw a lot of attention yesterday as people used Halide to take photos of the eerie orange skies in places hit by wildfires.
We got significantly higher downloads.
It feels wrong to benefit from this, so we are donating yesterday’s sales to our local Wildfire Relief Fund.
— Halide (@halidecamera) September 10, 2020
We had scheduled an announcement about our upcoming release this week, but we will instead share images of these fires to highlight the impact of climate change and ask you to support firefighting & relief efforts in any way. Here’s how you can help: https://t.co/gMkaTEDlta
— Halide (@halidecamera) September 10, 2020
“We saw a lot of attention yesterday as people used Halide to take photos of the eerie orange skies in places hit by wildfires,” Halide Tweeted on Thursday. “We got significantly higher downloads. It feels wrong to benefit from this, so we are donating yesterday’s sales to our local Wildfire Relief Fund.”
The move has been very well received.
here’s one thing we hope all of our competitors copy! 😉
— Halide (@halidecamera) September 10, 2020
💞 Took these shots with Halide yesterday… thank you for helping us all bear witness https://t.co/w52Q1Uvc4H
— ellen teapot 🗽🏳️⚧️ (@asmallteapot) September 10, 2020
Here are mine with just standard overcast balance and a slightly increased exposure – it was absurdly dark for the middle of the day 🙁 pic.twitter.com/0D93ZyqaQl
— Oliver Hunt (@ohunt) September 12, 2020
What a wonderful move by @halidecamera. I’m buying the Halide + Spectre app kit to explore using it as a smartphone camera app, and to say thanks to them for donating yesterday’s sales to local Wildfire Relief Funds.
<click> https://t.co/j1LfsQo2tP
— Bryan William Jones (@BWJones) September 11, 2020
Halide costs $9 in the Apple App Store and is currently the #9 ranked app in the Photo & Video category.
Image credits: Header illustration SF photo Christopher Michel and licensed under CC BY 2.0