Swedish developer Martin Ström, filmmaker Ruben Broman, and photographer Erik Wåhlström have teamed up to create a unique filter system for your iPhone images, using a real-world 1-inch CRT monitor. InstaCRT takes a typical iPhone camera image and instead of applying a software filter, it sends the photo to a machine in Sweden where it's projected onto a 1-inch CRT screen (from a VHS camera) and a modern DSLR snaps a photo of the screen and sends it back to your iPhone.

Described as "the world's first real world camera filter," the developers created the unique filter as a "response to all the faux photoshoppn' filters out there." It takes around 20-30 seconds to process each photo, based on a Ruby script created by Martin Ström.

Speaking to us about the project, Ström said it's "really weird to just hear the camera all the time taking photos behind your back," thanks to over 2000 photos taken from the app in the last few days. Priced at $1.99, a few hundred people have purchased it so far. "If it gets too popular we might raise the price," says Ström, as a method to help keep the app functioning if it has to handle hundreds of thousands of users. "Maybe you'll get a black screen, or maybe it didn't work, or maybe it takes too long time, but I think this is the charm with using the app." Of course, you could opt for the usual Instagram and Hipsmatic filters, but neither of those use a real-world CRT to apply a genuinely unique filter.