Category Archives: News

Lastest news for iPhone Photography

Quick and easy panorama photos with the iPhone – Free app for Valentines Day

In the world of panorama photos apps for the iPhone, there are a few to choose from. Some create very high resolution images that require effort to stitch the images together, others require matching each frame up to snap the next picture for the stitching is done for you. Then, DMD Panorama does the shutter and sticking for you, and they tell you when they will snap the image with a pretty creative graphic.

When you launch the app, you can decide on a few settings around quality and sharing. Then, hold your iPhone in portrait view and snap the button to start. You can now turn left or right. As you turn the ying/yang icons at the top of the screen will come together, when they touch the camera will take another image. You can go for a couple frames or all the way around 360 degrees. DMD Panorama then stitches the images together and presents you with a pretty nice resolution image. You can save the image locally or to the DMD Panorama service to share or keep amongst you and your friends. The Web site offers viewing of the panorama on the site so no download needed if you decide to share with others.

A undocumented feature that causes me to use DMD Panorama more often than not is that the camera does a good job at normalizing the light and dark areas so you don’t end up with what looks like one picture in the pano lighter than the rest.

Oh yea, and Free for the now through the end of February 14th makes it a great time to try it out.

 

Update to Instagram for iPhone – changes you can really see!

The folks from Instagram (the social iPhone Photo service!) shot out an upgrade today. It’s full of what seems simple but will make a huge impact. A new filter, a new enhancement and a new UI!!

So, 2.1 includes the Lux photo enhancement. You may notice that it is very similar to Clarify in other apps I have mentioned before. It sharpens the colors and and brings the dark areas up to level with the lighter areas. There is also a new filter for your photos, called Sierra. It is a brighter, more colorful Earlybird.

Lastly, the Instagram buttons along the bottom have matured and the simplified look lightens up the whole experience. All fun stuff, looking forward to sharing my iPhone shots.

A DIFFerent case for the serious iPhone photographer

I’m always on the watch for a new case idea. The problem being is that I like the portability of the iPhone without a case, but like the features of many of the specialty cases. The Survivor from Griffin Technology is the case I use when I might be someplace the iPhone will get handled roughly. It does bulk up the iPhone 4 a lot though.

New to me is the Diff Case. The case is less about drop protect, which it does, rather it is more about protecting the faces and being able to mount your iPhone to a tripod. The Diff Case is currently $30, available directly from the manufacture.

The main ‘features’ of the Diff case is the doors that cover the flat sides of the iPhone 4, which can be opened tall or wide, and has a opening for the camera to work with the case still on. The two tripod mounts make it easy to set up for still or long exposure photographs.


The iPhone, a serious tool for photographers, amateur and professionals

Not all photography tools for the iPhone involve using the iPhone’s camera. I stumbled on this little gem of an app for pin pointing location data for making decisions on when the perfect photography time will be. The app, GoldenPic, is a valuable tool for outside photography.

When at a location, the app will tell you sunrise, sunset, weather for the next few days, the geo-location and data on the moon. If the timing isn’t perfect, save the location for later to check when your not there. Imagine, parks and landmarks in your area, bookmarked so that later you know when you should go to one of the locations to take photos because the environment around the location will be best suited for your shots. You don’t actually have to visit the location, just enter the name, address or geo-location into GoldenPic and save for later. Use it for planning out your next vacation path, know in advance when different stops will be at their best to take their picture rather than showing up when the weather, sun and time of day are all wrong.

Google+ changes the look of the photo area on the iPhone

I don’t post a ton of pictures up to my profile on Google+, but do a few here and there. Just one more place to share with friends.

It has actually proven to be a great place to connect up with other photographers sharing different types of photography. I’m often in the different HDR group lists and chats, or as they call them on Google+, “Hangouts”.

The recent update to the iPhone Google+ app is mostly around the framing of photos in the albums areas. Before, Albums and individual photos where surrounded with a white frame, very ‘Google’ like. Now, the Albums list went from two columns of square framed images to one row where a slim line of the Album’s cover photo is cropped. Clicking on an Album gives you a frame-less multi column view of your images. Notice how everything is dark/black outlined now too.

 

Check your heart rate – another thing the iPhone camera can do

What is that little red light up thingy with the wire that the hospital folks put on your finger? They say it is what is telling the machine your heart rate. OK… that’s cool.

Maybe on this holiday, your wondering if all the family fun is getting your heart rate up. Now, you can check with your iPhone’s camera. An app I grabbed, with a proper name of Instant Heart Rate fills in the gap between your finger and what your iPhone’s camera sees. Just launch the app, aim your iPhone’s camera at your finger tip… within 10 seconds you will know your heart rate. No joke… it really works, this is NOT a comic gag app!

With my iPhone4, the LED ‘flash’ lights up to help the camera ‘see’ inside of the finger. If you have an iPhone or iPad with no flash, they suggest using the app in better light. The Instant Heard Rate app offers to keep track of your Heart Rate recordings in the app, this is nice. It also offers to store the history on the developer’s site… not sure I want my heart rate history out in the wild, thanks. I’ll keep using it as a stand along iPhone app though since it’s nice to know how I did after my walk or when a relative makes a wise crack!

 

iPhone Photos printed on cards and mailed… for you!

There are a few options for creating printed Holiday, Birthday and Than-You cards on my iPhone. Most apps are for creating cards that you email, but there is a growing popularity in doing the creative work myself, then letting someone else print and mail for me. Sincerely is a company that allows developers to add their code so photo apps can offer the printing of the images you took with your iPhone. “Sincerely Ink” is an app they offer themselves for free (Universal so it works on your iPad too).

Sincerely Ink has over 30 layouts to choose from. There are card templates that have illustrated art on them, and others that allow me to insert my own photos. All have editable text. After the card is as I like, I can manually add a name/address to send to or choose one/multiples from my iPhone Contacts area. Through the app, Sincerely charges $1.69 per card to print and mail for me. I’m sure all of my relatives will just love a photo I took on the Thank You cards.

 

Your iPhone pictures infused onto scratch resistant aluminum

There are a few options to have your iPhone pictures printed. There are services that will print your iPhone taken image onto a postcard and mail it. Most of the services lean towards square prints so you can do something with your Instagram and Hipstamatic images.

A new provider, PostalPix, is expanding on what others are offering. PostalPix will print your square images and mail to you or to someone else in the 4×4, 5×5 and 8×8 sizes. They also have the 4×6, 5×7 and 8×10 non-square printing covered. If your looking for using your images for a bit of art, PostalPix will infuse your images onto aluminum, all ready for the office or home walls. The free app handles everything from accepting your iPhone images, choosing the size and paper, aluminum or mousepad, to paying.

 

Remembering contacts through their picture on the iPhone

Evernote has released a new free app they call ‘Hello’. The app is for exchanging Business cards. I’m not sure about ‘exchanging Business cards’, but it is a fun way of meeting people and exchanging contact information.

The idea is that you hand someone your iPhone, they fill in the slots for their contact info and snap a photo of themselves. You could enter the data for them and snap the picture if you would rather not hand someone your iPhone. You don’t have to have a picture of the person in order to create a contact, but then why would you put them in your visual contact app?

The folks you add to Evernote Hello are automatically synced and backed up to your regular free Evernote Cloud location so you can see the info on any device you have syncing to your account.

iPhone social photo sharing app that wins on user experience design

Everyone should know by now that I post a lot to Instagram (look on the right column, at the bottom for last 20 posts), but there are many many more social photo sharing options than just the one. Sadly, most are just passing through and will be a lot of fun for a while then everyone will move on.

One that I found recently through a friend is Chumkee. While there is the usual finding of friends, post up pictures, comments and thumbs up for the photos you like. This option has a great interface for seeing what is new. The app starts up with a area of tossed together recent photos. You can tap on one to see more info or zoom in it, or flick is off the screen to be replaced with another.

One item of note, I’m finding more and more people are posting up little movies of themselves talking, singing or doing a stunt rather than just photos. It’s all for fun so take Chumkee as another option to share with friends no matter where they are around the world, through a much nicer interface. (update – just got a couple emails from readers… service doesn’t seem to be filtered so consider it ‘not safe for work’)