There are hundreds of iPhone applications available on the market, from games through to photo editing and sharing applications, many of which are available through the Apple App Store. It is a well known fact that the 2 megapixel iPhone camera isn’t the best phone camera around and even more disappointingly is that it cannot capture video recordings.

Well cheer up iPhone fans, there are some great 3rd party apps that can enhance your iPhone photography experience by enabling you to edit and share your photos easily with family and friends. There are also some ingenious applications that enable you to capture video on your iPhone and share it. These are some of the best.

Apps for Editing Photos

These applications are fun and can turn your iPhone photographs into unique works of art.

1. Oldbooth

This clever little application can change boring profile photographs into comic portraits, or even give them an authentic old world feel. All you need to do is take a new photograph or select a photo from your iPhone photo library and then select a mask from Oldbooth. There are stacks of male and female bodies to choose from and you can resize, rotate and even adjust the brightness of your photo to match. Once done, just fit your profile photo into the mask and you have a brand new, old world photograph of yourself. You can download Oldbooth from the Apple App Store for $1.99.

2. Tiltshift

In traditional photography, the Tilt-shift technique was used to bring objects located near and far into focus. Nowadays the same principle is used to create unusual and interesting digital photographs. Tiltshift has now come to the iPhone and the software enables you to focus in on a small area of the photograph, while the surrounding areas are blurred. This gives the “tiny model” effect and is great to highlight people in crowd or just to create an interesting photograph. You can download Tiltshift from the Apple App Store for $1.99.

3. CameraBag

Get creative with this great editing tool. CameraBag enables you to apply 8 different filter effects to your photos, based on camera type. For instance you can apply a fish eye filter, or select ‘1962’ to turn your color photograph into a black and white image. Other filters enable you to give your images washed out highlights, or unique coloring. You can even crop the images using the ‘Helga’ filter. CameraBag is available to download in the Apple App Store for $2.99.

4. Comic Touch

This fun application allows you to add comic speech bubbles to your photographs. It even has a camera mode so that you can take photographs and immediately add the speech bubbles to them. Of course you can also edit existing iPhone photographs from the on-phone picture gallery. In addition to the bubbles, you can also distort the photographs by making them bulge, stretch or even squeezing them. For these and many more features go to the Comic Touch website or download the application from the Apple App Store for $4.99.

5. Picoli

A traditional type of photograph editing tool, Picoli enables you to brighten; sharpen and apply multiple filters to you photographs on your iPhone.

Picoli has a multiple of special effects and filters including sepia; night vision and colour dithering. It is easy to use and an essential for any iPhone user. Available for $2.99 in the Apple App Store.

6. Pano

Amaze your friends with some fantastic panoramic pictures you took with your iPhone. Of course you do need to buy the 3rd party application Pano create the panoramas, but at $2.99 it is well worth it. All you need to do is select, or take a few consecutive photographs and Pano will stitch them together seamlessly. The application comes with a handy guide to help you line up the shots and make the resulting photograph look professional. You can download Pano from the Apple App Store for $2.99.

Apps for Sharing Photos

Taking and editing photographs with your iPhone is one thing, however being able to share them easily and quickly with friends and family makes the experience all the more pleasurable.

7. Kyte Producer

This free application enables you to publish your photographs from your iPhone to Myspace, Facebook or any other website. Kyte Producer is capable of broadcasting the images the instant you take them. In addition to this, you can also create a slideshow from your iPhone picture gallery and even chat with your viewers in real-time. You can download this great application for free from the Apple App Store.

8. AroundShare

Similar in concept to Kyte Producer, AroundShare enables you to publish your photographs to Flickr, Twitter, Google Maps and even WordPress blogs. The distinct advantage of this application is that users can subscribe to any AroundShare RSS feed and import the full resolution photographs onto their iPhones. This application is available for free in the App Store.

9. Twitxr

Another great iPhone photograph sharing application is Twitxr. It is said to be in direct competition with Twitpic however this application has been proven to be very easy to use. Once the Twitxr account has been configured online, it is simple to post iPhone photographs to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and even Picasa. You can sign up for this publishing application for free.

10. PixelPipe

With over 50 supported destination sites including Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and any WordPress website, PixelPipe is certainly a favorite photo sharing application among iPhone users. The application is free to use and it is very easy to geotag photographs and submit them to the various destination sites. Download it from the Apple App Store.

11. Phanfare

A leading photograph sharing application for the iPhone, Phanfare will automatically upload your photographs and videos from your iPhone into your Phanfare account in the background so you can continue to use your iPhone without having to wait for the upload to finish. You even get 1GB of storage when you sign up to Phanfare. Other features of this application include the ability to create slideshows, albums and even add captions to your photographs – all from your iPhone.

Other Useful Photo Apps

There are other amazing photography related applications to download onto your iPhone, which are incredibly handy to have.

12. PicVault

If you ever take photographs with your iPhone which you do not want everyone to be able to see, then PicVault is a must-have application. Once you have downloaded the application, it prompts you to create pin number for a secure folder. You can then move photographs in and out of this discreetly named ‘PV’ folder on your iPhone. No one can access the ‘PV’ images without your pin number. Available for $2.99 on the App Store.

13. Night Camera

Photographs taken at night from your phone tend to come out blurry due to the longer exposure time needed under poor lighting conditions. Night Camera helps to sharpen photographs taken on your iPhone at night. When you depress the shutter, Night Camera takes accelerometer readings for 3 seconds and when it determines that your hands are steady enough, it will take the photograph. At only $0.99, Night Camera is an essential iPhone application for any photographer.

14. PhotoCalc

PhotoCalc isn’t an editing or sharing application but rather a must-have application for any serious photographer. Calculating the correct exposure and flash settings when using proper camera equipment is difficult to do mentally. PhotoCalc will do the relevant calculations for you including aperture and shutter speeds. It will also calculate the depth of field, flash settings and even has a location-based solar calculator for sunrise and sunset. Download it from the App Store for $2.99.

Video Applications

Video capturing isn’t native to the iPhone, however there are some 3rd party applications that will enable you to record video on your iPhone and not all of them require you to jailbreak your phone.

15. 12Seconds

For those wary of jailbreaking their iPhones, 12Seconds is the perfect video capturing solution. After downloading the software, all that is required to create a video is to take or select 3 photographs on your iPhone and then record 12 seconds of audio.

12Seconds works really well for putting together family video from photos taken on your iPhone

16. iPhone Video Recorder

One of the most expensive video capturing applications, the iPhone Video Recorder enables you to capture proper video recordings on your iPhone. The downside is that you have to jailbreak your phone first in order to use it. Once you have downloaded the application, the video recorder will record at a rate of 15fps and saves the recording in a compressed MPEG4 format. It also comes with image quality controls and four different video size modes. You can buy the iPhone Video Recorder for $24.95.

17. Cycorder

If you don’t want to spend a fortune to turn your iPhone into a video record, then Cycorder is the application for you. Free to use, this application still requires you to jailbreak your iPhone first. It apparently uses the same MJPEG compression algorithms as digital compact cameras and enables you to record videos at a rate of up to 15fps depending on the available light. The quality of the video is very good compared with similar products on the market.

18. Animoto

If you don’t want a complicated video application but you do want to be able to create fancy slideshows with background music, then Animoto is a great tool. You can select between 8 and 16 photographs from your iPhone picture library and then select a song listed in one of the 9 different music genres. Together Animoto will create a slideshow with background music. An additional feature of this free application is that you can email your slideshow to your friends and family.

19. Qik

This video-recording application for the iPhone uses the iPhone video-capable camera to encode and live-stream video to the Qik website from the phone.

You do need to jailbreak your iPhone first before you can use the application, but once it is set up Qik is a great way to share your videos with family and friends.

20. CBS EyeMobile

Not a video recording application as such, but CBS EyeMobile is a great way to appease the budding journalist in you. The application enables users to upload photographs and videos directly to the CBS citizen journalist website, EyeMobile, from your iPhone. Here you can track the latest discussions on reports, add your own comments and get updated reports on breaking news.

There are many more 3rd party photo and video applications available for the iPhone. There are even iPhone printing applications available that make it easy to take your edited photo and wirelessly print to your inkjet printer. These and myriad more apps are available to make your iPhone even more indispensable than it already is!