Category Archives: News

Lastest news for iPhone Photography

Streamzoo update lets you share your photos faster

Streamzoo is a photo social share service I have covered in detail before. It is one of the places I post and see the world via other people’s shares. As a reminder, the service leans more towards ‘streams’ that are basically hashtags, meaning the experience is a bit different from just following a long list of people.

The update this week is for letting a person post photos faster by being able to jump around the included photo edit tools. Normally, you can snap a photo, import from your iPhone’s photo library, or create a collage. After a photo is selected, the normal path takes a person through cropping, frames, filters and other enhancements.

01 Streamzoo iPhone photos

The update first shows up via the little dots in each of the options to bring in photos. Swiping across the bar changes the action of the buttons. The middle changes from importing and going through the steps, to an ‘express’.

02 Streamzoo iPhone photos

Streamzoo’s Express jumps past the edit options to the posting screen. Here you can enter a title and hashtags, or post without either. Also, pulling down on the screen exposes the photo that will be shared. Since I normally shoot and edit outside of Streamzoo, these changes mean a lot of saved time from launch to share!

03 Streamzoo iPhone photos

3 Shot Bracket Photography Comes To The iPhone with PureShot

I have covered HDR photography here before. The iPhone camera and many apps take two photos at different exposure settings and merge the images to lighten the dark and make the light areas really pop. That of course is over simplified, I’m not going for an HDR lesson in this post.

When a person finds an HDR photo on the Internet, there are three types. The basic two image merge like what is found with the iPhone’s built in camera app, there are enhanced HDR where an app is used to alter a single image for the effect and finally the images produced by a digital camera. The digital camera version usually has more natural looking lighting but everything has more vivid contrasts. The images are closer to what we see with our eyes instead of through the limitations of a smartphone camera lens unable to collect all the differences an eye can.

The digital camera version is partially due to ‘better’ or ‘specialized’ equipment… not many digital cameras have games on them or allow to be used to call mom. And, instead of two images merged, the camera captures 3 images, most common called ‘Bracketed’. The images are 3 photos taken quickly after each other so they align, but at different exposure settings. Then, via a desktop app, the photos are merged together and enhanced or cleaned up. The 3 bracket photos providing much more contrasting information to work with than only 2.

On the iPhone, app developers attempt to do the whole process of HDR so they keep it within the power of the iPhone edit capabilities, only collecting and merging two photos.

PureShot was recently updated with the feature of snapping 3 Bracket shots to be used with desktop editing software rather than being all things to all people.

The app still has more features and gadgets than the average iPhone photographer will need. But, if you are looking for more control over taking the photo and less worried about having to edit later, PureShot is the tool to be in your iPhone Camera Bag. Complete control over focus and exposure points, being able to lock both along with the focus point. The app collects a lot of data with the photo too so sharing has data that most other apps will happily use.

01 3 shot braket on iPhone

If you dip into the Menu area of Pureshot, choose  Shutter Settings, then Shutter fires, you will be given the options to have your iPhone (via PureShot, not when using the iPhone’s default camera app) capture a single image, 3-Shot Burst, or 3-Shot Bracket. Use the 3-Shot Bracket if your going after collecting 3 images for editing into a high quality HDR photo via your desktop computer.

02 3 shot braket on iPhone

Now, when looking through PureShot’s viewfinder, you will notice the addition of a ‘2’ and ‘3’ spot. Just drag those to contrasting exposure spots on the area you are going to photograph. Perhaps ‘2’ to the darkest area and ‘3’ to the brightest (don’t forget to tap the screen to focus!). When the big orange shutter button is tapped, 3 Shots will be taken with about 2 seconds between each. The slight delay allows the camera to adjust to the different exposures rather than an over all photo and attempting to fill in later. There are three small dots next to the shutter button that change from colored to blank as the three shots are taken and saved to the iPhone photo library. Now, export the three photos to your favorite HDR app on your computer and create some real bracket HDR images.

03 3 shot braket on iPhone

Even owning Instagram, Facebook continues to update photos on the iPhone app

There was a lot of excitement around Facebook purchasing Instagram. Initially, the curiosity of what will become of Instagram, another ‘buy and close’ or the evil merging of systems so a person’s Instagram data is now available for Facebook to market with. The extent of how Facebook is using the Instagram user list is still being watched, but the two services do continue to operate separately in the eyes of the casual users so both get updates to expand their particular path forward.

In yesterday’s iPhone Facebook app update, the photos area was enhanced with more ways to use and share photos posted onto the service.

Previously, a posted photos could be liked, tagged with a person’s ID and commented on, all with icons on the edge of the photo.

01 Facebook photos

The addition of a ‘…’ next to the tag icon and new ‘See More’ text next to the photos description text seems like a simple update to the Facebook app. These both greatly enhance the user experience of viewing and sharing photos through the iPhone though.

02 Facebook photos

Selecting the ‘See More’ opens up the photos’ description text to show the name of the photographer and timestamp.

03 Facebook photos

Selecting the ‘…’ provides access to additional things you can do with the photo. Directly from a photos, you can make it your Facebook Profile picture. Also Saving the image to your iPhone’s photo area and Sharing. With Sharing, you are presented with a text box and the options to share: on your own timeline, on a friend’s timeline, in a group and on your page. Everything to make showing your pictures to other easier.

04 Facebook photos

Hipstamatic Retro Pak 3 on sale this weekend only!

After I discovered and posted about the new Silver Lake film/lens pak in Hipstamatic, I received an email saying that the whole RetroPak is on sale this weekend too. 99 cents for the full pack of 3 lenses and 6 films, purchasable through the app on your iPhone.

0 hipstamatic retro 3 pak 2

This is the complete list of the lenses and film in the RetroPak Three. If you want to deep dive into what each film and lens effect is, either view through the iPhone Hipstamatic app (tap on the shopping cart), or jump over to the Web Site where there are examples of many mix and matched for fun vintage effects.

0 hipstamatic retro 3 pak

Does Albumatic have the friends photo album share figured out?

The iPhone has a camera, it has social solutions to post photos to and it many options to group photos and friends. The trick has been how to get all of the bits to come together in a way that is actually usable. Recently I was reminded of a early solution that allowed photos to be grouped by an event, it had it’s limitations around friend grouping along with a few other layout issues. In the world of apps, it was several years ago so the name has gone from my memory.

It seems everyone has made an attempt at providing a solution. Apps like Flock have ‘smarts’ built in around how and who should see the photos so there is less burden on the users. Other apps try gain usage through a unique interface for adding, sorting and viewing. It’s a huge challenge to find the magic sauce which will pull people in to use.

Albumatic is an app that has risen to being noticed not by setting new records in the number of our friends using it. Rather, in the area of the types and amount of investors that have jumped onboard to help the app grow. It’s strengths are the ability to build an album that others can be alerted to. They can then view and add their own images… which pretty much sounds like the marketing behind all of the other iPhone photo album sharing apps.

It appears from my first testing that if the album is location based, others can’t add photos without being close by. Other options are location based only by name and I ended up with pictures from other events. ‘Friends’ don’t have to be at the event to enjoy the photos, only to post (I like that). Those that are viewing (joined) the album are available via the app to the Album creator so it is easy to see who is watching along and who isn’t. Time will tell if Albumatic becomes the location photo album solution of choice. Once again, a free app that will have to pay the bills somehow once the VC money runs out, will it be location based ads?

Canon SELPHY CP900 Wireless Printer and an iPhone is my modern Polaroid

Why did we love our Polaroid cameras? It was the experience and the instant gratification of seeing the photo in a time that everyone else had to go to the local shop to get their film developed and printed. The ability to share a printed version of a photo just taken. While the sharing of a print with others quickly following the taking of the photo, the Polaroid experience has the limitation of there being only one copy of the photo… and you just gave it away!!

Trying to mimic some of the fun, I have been playing with a variety of printers. There are a lot of ink printers available on the market. Many are very inexpensive, until it comes time to buy the ink cartridges. Most printers also use a single cartridge for all colors (Black gets it’s own cartridge). This means that you have to buy a cartridge if any of the colors gets used completely. This drives up the ‘per print’ cost when partially used cartridges are getting thrown away. Also, printers are generally for printing a 8.5″x11″ sheet of paper so they are much larger than needed for a small photo print.

Over the recent holidays, a new smaller square printer appeared all of the gadget stores. It came with a 30 pin connector on top so a person can print their iPhone stored photos. After playing with one at a store, I could see the value, except I have no interest is having to dock my iPhone to the printer. It’s a wireless world!

Enter, the Canon SELPHY CP900. A wireless printer that prints to 4 x 6 paper that lasts for 100 years… and the prints are water resistant too! Printing with a iOS or Android device requires the use of a free Canon app which does have some limitations but gets the job done in under a minute.

01 CP900 for iPhone

The CP900 is pretty small, just 7″ x 5″ x 2.7″. Along with connecting to wireless network, there is a SD card slot and a USB plug. Power is provided by an included wall plug, or an upgrade external battery power supply. A small pop up LCD screen allows for managing of printing from the SD card, the USB is handy for mobile or desktop connections. I’m only using via the wireless capability.

02 CP900 for iPhone

The printer has some uniqueness in it’s paper and ‘ink’. The paper comes from Canon where the front and back edges are removable via perforated lines. The extra paper is for the printer to pull the paper in. The reason for there being the extra on both ends is because of the printing method Canon has chosen to use. The ‘ink’ is a canister of ‘film’. The CP900 pulls in the paper from the front and pushes out the back. The print paper is pulled towards the front, where a single color (starts with Yellow) is applied to the paper. The page is returned automatically to the back of the printer then fed to the front to have another color applied, happening 4 times, all in about 40 seconds. Since the multi color film in the cartridge has to advance at a rate to handle each pass of the paper, this means there is an exact amount of the film to print each page. The card paper comes with ‘Canon’ printed on the back or a specialized version that has been printed to use as a postcard. A bulk pack has three color film cartridges and 108 4×6 papers for less than $30… which means there is a cost of 28 cents per print, no more, no less.

03 CP900 for iPhone

So, I am mobile with my iPhone, and I can print quickly to share with those that like paper photo prints. Just for fun, there is always apps like ‘Instant’ that lets me frame my print to look just like a Polaroid snapshot.

04 CP900 for iPhone

PhotoJojo is going to school you on better iPhone Photography

This just in… PhotoJojo wants to go beyond cool iPhone photography gadgets and fun books. Now, they are offering their own ‘University’ on ‘Phoneography 101‘.

For $5 (introductory price), you will receive two emails a week for four weeks covering; Camera Basics, Composition, Lighting, Experimental, Creative Effects, Tools, Editing and Sharing. The emails are reported to be ‘bite-sized’ and formatted to view on the iPhone screen. Each lesson taking minutes instead of hours. While there is no homework or surprise quizzes, each lesson does end with a challenge to strength your photography skills. All taught by Professor Pancake, Professor PJ and a Basket of Kittens… yea, they have s sense of humor over at PhotoJojo.

What do I think? Well, I have yet to receive my first lesson but below are some screen shots they offer on the site. It looks interesting and may prove to be a great gift for the new iPhone (no Android version available!!) owner that found they now have a camera everywhere they go.

01 PhotoJojo University

02 PhotoJojo University

03 PhotoJojo University

Pulling together pictures that tell you about a place before you get there

Photo sharing sites have become a place for people to post photos showing what they had for lunch, the people they are hanging out with, a funny situation and a place they are visiting. While browsing around places like Instagram or Twitter, it is possible to see photos from places I have never been to. Many places are locations that I will never be able to see in person. There are other photos of places I am about to visit. The difficulty is pulling together places I’m heading to beyond doing a simple search.

A solution has shown up as a free app to use on the iPhone, called ‘Now.‘ <- there is a period in the name. The app will give you the option of viewing around you, a key city or search for another place of interest.

01 Now iPhone

The Now. location images shown appear to do not be by hashtag, rather Geotags. So, looking for a location on the map will give you photos that others have taken in that area. Unlike searching directly on Instagram where your dependent on people getting their hashtag assigned and spelled correctly.

02a Now iPhone

One instance of using Now. beyond sight seeing is an event like Macworld. Going to where the event will be or searching for the particular event by name will present all of the images posted in the area.

02b Now iPhone

The images can be scrolled through as thumbnails as well viewed larger end-to-end. The group and individual photos can be favored or shared.

03 Now iPhone

The Now. app lets you tell others about a photo (like in the case of Macworld, group photos your friends might be interested in) or to tell the system that the photo is Inappropriate.

04 Now iPhone

Choosing a picture will let you pull up the full size version. This is nice to view people, what other people have seen at the location, and in the case of a restaurant, a view of a dish you may want to order when there.

05 Now iPhone