Category Archives: News

Lastest news for iPhone Photography

CameraSharp – it’s about taking the photo with your iPhone and not about filters – Today’s Free App

Getting back to actually taking the photos with your iPhone. Forget filters and frames and highlights and even cleanup. CameraSharp takes me back to the actual action of taking the photo and not the clean up. The (current free) app starts off by making it easy to do a focus and exposure area split. Instead of a single area that has to be dragged about, CameraSharp focuses where you tap with one finger and set’s the photos’ exposure where you tap with two fingers.

On the screen is quick access to a zoom slider and a nice level indicator too.

There is also a variety of photo taking helpers to use while taking your pictures available through the menu next to the shutter button. Each of the CameraSharp options have additional tuning like the Continuous offers numbers of shots and interval between the pictures in seconds.

The CameraSharp Settings area lets you turn on/off what you see while your taking your photographs.

 

Google+ and the iPhone Photographer

A couple things happened this last week that brought Google+ to mind. While I like the system for sharing photos, there is little other that has really grabbed me to drive daily posts. The system is fine, and the folks at Google has brought together many features I enjoy on other systems. I post photos to gather people’s thoughts and share my thoughts on other photographer’s submissions. Google+ makes it easy to upload photos to folders or directly into posts.

This week, Guy Kawasaki released a eBook “What the plus! Google+ for the rest of us“, and the  Google+ iPhone app now provides a method for you to sync your photos automatically to a private folder online. Perhaps, I should expand on the last sentence.

First, the Guy Kawasaki eBook. It is a relative fast read, but I found myself jumping back to make sure I had the information correct. “What the plus…” is full of information about how to use the settings and features in Google+. It does a bit more though, it shows ways to use Google+. It isn’t a eBook on ‘getting rich with Google+’, rather it is about what you can do and what you shouldn’t do with the social service. It would appear that I should be a bit more pro-active in conversations with the folks I share a photography style passion with.

Now for the Google+ iPhone app update. The iPhone app is free, currently there is no iPad version so on the larger iOS device you have to run it in 2x mode.  The app allows you to add people to your groups, called ‘Circles’. You can put your thoughts up as posts and comment on other people’s posts. For photos, you can create folders to put them in, each with it’s own level of privacy/share. Also, you can insert a photo into a text post… which usually gets a lot more eyes and comments.

About the time Apple got their PhotoStream working correctly with the iOS 5.1 update, Google+ has added ‘Instant Photo Upload’ to their app. This is a feature that was previously only supported in the Android Phone version. When it is on, the Google+ iPhone app will upload photos from your photo library in the background. Each time you start up the app, the sync will start moving your photos from your iPhone to a private folder on your Google+ account. There is a 1 gig limit, which I am researching if there is ways around. After you close the Google+ app by moving to another app, the sync of photos will continue for a short while. Keep that in mind if you jump to another app that needs Internet access and it is moving slower than expected.

For me, having the sync feature turned on will make it much easier to share my iPhone photos with folks sharing theirs with me.

 

Merging the best parts of multiple photos into one on the iPhone – Free app till March 11th!

At first when I saw this app, I thought about the number of times I take group shots of people. It is a pretty low number so I didn’t see the need to load it on my iPhone.

Last weekend I was taking a photo for a collector’s site about the things to carry when walking big outdoor shows. When I went to use one of the photos later, I found that the strap of the backpack was showing in one photos where everything else was perfect. Another photo the backpack was better but there was glare on a couple of the object. Normally, I would set out to handle the glare. Instead, this time I went looking for that Group Shot app I had seen earlier.

With an option like GroupShot, it does remind us though that taking an extra shot or two is pretty good idea. If I had been taking photos of groups of people, I could use GroupShot to find the best parts of all of the shots and merge into one! Having seen that the app GroupShot is FREE till March 11th, it might be an item to add to your iPhone camera bag now to have when you need it later!

Back to the collector’s bag shoot. GroupShot can be used to take pictures or you can import shots in from your iPhone’s photo library.

Choose which photo will be the core photo to have other ‘better’ parts added too. GroupShot supports two finger zoom in/out so you can do better precision work. Highlight the part of the photo you want replaced.

Now choose which of the photos you imported has the part you want. GroupShot automatically replaces the highlighted part of the photo with the same area from the chosen photo. You can repeat if you have other parts of the photo to replace – like a group photo of five people could be the best faces from all the photos taken into one final photo.

The finished photo can now be saved to the camera roll, attached to an email or shared on Facebook/Twitter. One item to note about Group Shot is that the end photo is 800 x 600, so great for sharing online and posting to a Web site, but a bit small for printing. Works pretty well, and the ‘free’ through this weekend isn’t bad either!

New Stop Motion iPhone app from Studio Neat, creators of the Glif

Remember the Glif? Have you ever heard of the Glif? It is a tripod mount for the iPhone that started life as a Kickstarter social funded project by a couple guys that make up Studio Neat. The design of the Glif is simple… silly simple, but works great.

Generally there are two things you are doing when having your iPhone mounted to a tripod, both involve not moving the iPhone while taking a lot or long exposures. So, night/movement shots and stop animation shots. Staying with the ‘keep it simple’, Studio Neat has introduced their own Stop Motion app – Frames.

The use of the app doesn’t require you own a Glif, it just makes the process easier since you not worried about moving the iPhone between shots.

Frames offers a self explanatory interface where you snap photos (720p HD) to make up your animation. Focus/exposure can be locked, the speed of playback can be adjusted, and images can be added in between previously taken images if you need a change in detail or changed your story idea. The finished result is saved to your iPhone’s (and iPod Touch) photo library. Yup, not a ton of features in Frames for the pro but a killer app for all of us ‘would be’ stop motion movie lovers that want a inexpensive way of jumping in. Recordings don’t just have to be flip card like animations, imagine recording a sunrise or sunset that you can now share with others.

 

 
 

 

Americana Hipstamatic Pak on the iPhone Gets Two New Films

Earlier this month, during Fashion Week, Hipstamatic offered a lens and camera body called Americana for free. Now, Americana Pak has grown to include two new films. The ‘new’ Americana is available to purchase through the in-app cart inside of Hipstamatic.

The films have a rather light, ‘creative’ description that I thought requires a bit more info if your considering making the purchase. Below, I snapped a couple photos using the Tejas lens with one of the Hipstamatic included films, then the two new films. For examples of the American lens, see the post I did when it first came out (Hipstamatic Americana Lens and Case for Fashion Week).

‘Ina’s 1969‘ – note the border:

Americana Hipstamatic film US1776 with Teja lens:

Americana Blanko Freedom 13 film with Tejas lens (similar to Ina’s, without border, but notice the three color ticks in the lower right corner):

 

Affordable iPhone Pocket Power Supply for On-The-Go Recharge

Since I shoot a lot of pictures with my iPhone, tune those photos and need to move them via WiFi, my iPhone 4S battery really takes a beating. By mid day, depending on how hard the phone has to work to get a strong signal for file transfers, the battery can be down around 40%.

I have played with a lot of options to get the iPhone’s battery charged back up, without having to be tied to a wall socket. A variety of battery hardware, across a variety of both physical and power sizing.

A couple items I have found; the battery doesn’t actually have to be large in physical size to recharge the iPhone. 1900 mAh is good to charge the iPhone twice from 50% power remaining. And, having the battery lock onto the bottom (I am not talking wrap around case styles here) of the iPhone isn’t always a great idea. I have found it isn’t a good idea to use the iPhone with a weighty battery hanging off the bottom… either have a jumper cable or stop a half hour to an hour to get the charge in place.

A recent discovery is the Stitchway Ultrapower. When I first saw them, they were priced in the area of $40, which seemed reasonable. But, they are available on Amazon for less than $10 right now. Actually, if you go down the page a bit there is a Stitchway Ultrapower, an extra charge cable and charger cube for very little more. It make the whole set up rather mobile. The Stitchway Ultrapower does allow for pass through charging.