I briefly mentioned this app in a post not too long ago. I was among the first few members who tried this free app. Back then, tadaa was buggy; even with version 2.0 update. I almost deleted it when it crashed on me a couple times while I was shooting the Chinese New Year Festival in LA. Its servers was slow and it didn’t allow me to save my shot if the servers was down. I cursed at it so many times during its first two months on iTune store.

The only reason for me to keep using this app was its immediacy, which I needed for street shooting. With version 4.1.8 update, tadaa granted me up to five photos per second. Shoot first, edit later style.

I could also choose and save multiple originals to my Camera Roll folder or I could share my photos via email without posting them to tadaa‘s server. In addition, tadaa 4.1.8 impressed me with the new HD Tilt-Shift effects. I now can customize the center focus of its Elliptical Blur tool, using the combination of Highlights and Blur slider to create variety dreamy bokeh effects.

Tadaa offered similar functionality to Instagram, but the its social features were indeed much more intriguing than the Instagram app. For instance, I could reply to a photo with not only a comment but also with a photo response. And then there was the tadaa dollars or virtual currency; each time I received a “like”, I got two tollars, and a tollar for each comment I earned on my photos. The tollar didn’t mean much at this point, but hopefully it would develop into something more useful in the future, like users could use tollars to buy more film effects, frames, lenses, etc. Beside sharing my high resolution photos on the tadaa network, I could also share them on my Twitter and Facebook accounts as well. Unlike Instagram, photos taken with tadaa were saved locally at 2048 pixels on the longest edge and upload at 1200 pixels.

With version 4.1.8, the social network became more fun since they expanded the Awesome Feeds from 3 to 6 channels. Uploading speed seemed to be significantly improved as well.

The Light Table feature sorted the photos I shot into folders in chronological order. It also gave me a choice to view all of my shots or to pull one in from my Camera Roll. From the Light Table, I could choose to delete all or just a few selective photos. My originals could also be saved to Camera Roll from here.

From the Editing Screen, I could crop my photo to 1:1, 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 and rotating. The Eye icon on the top right corner allowed me to toggle between the original and the edited version. Other Editing features were arranged into five groups on the lower part of the screen. Here, I could choose one of the twenty two live preview HD filters either before or after the photo was taken; tadaa also allowed me to control the intensities of each filter individually.

My favorite filters for street photography were the BW, Kraftwerk and Laika. In my experience, different lighting contexts along with the modifications of Brightness, Contrast and Saturation would further enhance the retro touch of these filters. By sliding the Saturation on the Laika filter all the way down, lower the Contrast and up on the Brightness slider, I could give a well lit photo a soft and beautiful sepia effect.

As I am writing the conclusion for this post, I find myself deleting other photography apps off my iPhone 4s. Tadaa and Snapseed are the only photography apps that I am using every day for my street photography. If you’ve not yet used this app, I recommend that you give it a try. Guaranteed you will fall in love with this free app after a few shots.