Category Archives: Taking Pictures

Taking photographs with the iPhone

Maximizing Your iPhone 15 Pro Max Camera Expertise

The iPhone 15 Pro Max came out a few months back so there has been enough time to put together some tips for folks just jumping into some of the features available with the phone.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max has a variety of lenses that allow you to take photos from different perspectives. There is a main wide angle lens which is what you would typically use for general shots. Then there is a 2x telephoto lens that lets you get closer images as if you were zoomed in. This is great for getting nice portrait shots. Finally, there is an ultra wide angle lens which lets you capture dramatic sweeping landscape images that even the human eye struggles to fully take in. Be sure to switch between these lenses to gain different vantage points of your subjects.

Portrait mode is a fun tool that can be adjusted later if your focus depth isn’t where you hoped it to be. This produces a depth effect that blurs the background while keeping your main subject in perfect focus. The results look like beautiful DSLR-style shots. Portrait mode works best on people, pets, or objects set against relatively clean backgrounds. Use this to make your main subject really stand out.

You may need to manually adjust exposure at times if the default settings produce shots that are too bright or too dark. Tap to focus on your main subject, then hold and slide your finger up or down to increase or decrease the overall brightness levels accordingly before taking the shot. This little tweak can make a big difference in tricky lighting.

For low light shots, be sure to take advantage of night mode. This setting takes multiple exposures then blends them to greatly reduce noise. That allows you to produce clear, bright images even in near darkness. Night mode will kick in automatically but you can also turn it on manually if needed.

For maximum editing flexibility later on, use the 48 megapixel ProRaw setting on the main lens. This massive resolution captures incredible detail packed with way more imaging data than a normal photo. Just be aware files take up a lot more storage compared to standard shots.

I hope these iPhone 15 Pro Max photography tips help you capture awesome shots.

Hipstamatic adds Infrared effect filters through Bucktown Hipstapak

Hipstamatic, the film and lens filters app, is making the sharp black-and-white impact of Infrared photography to a new combo Hipstapak. Called “Bucktown“, the pack includes a film and lens which can be mixed with other films and lens you may already have in your Histamatic grab bag for even more impactful photography.

Previously, when a new HipstaPak was introduced, the lens/film would appear in the oggl social app, included at no extra charge above the social service subscription. This appears to no longer be the case. To use the lens/film in oggl, you must purchase in Hipstamatic, then import into oggl.

The lens in the Bucktown bundle is the ‘Scott S’, named after Scott Strazzante. I have not run this lens against other films to see the difference that it makes on a photos, watch for an update here.

The film is the BlacKeys IR film, which is the backbone to the sharp black-and-white results of photos using this film filter.

While called Infrared, most people will see a resulting image and relate it more to a monochrome print of yesteryear.

 

 

Quick High Resolution HDR With Editing Through Lightroom Mobile

Adobe has updated their Lightroom Mobile app with a few features that will be improving my workflow:

  • Authentic HDR taking through the app
  • Exporting original raw images to camera roll
  • Improved rating for images
  • Improved cloud syng

The addition of HDR photography to the app has the customization tuning that I would expect from a Adobe app. Rather than one-size-fits-all, a bit of tuning helps set the app to my HDR style:

A winning feature of using Lightroom Mobile app for HDR is it’s option to have it in the quick apps area of the iPhone. When access is turned on, a HDR snap is just a right swipe on the screen away.

Once a moment is captured, the Lightroom Mobile app takes a little while to save to it’s own editing library. Once there, the HDR photo has all the fine turning options that any photo edited in the app gets:

I enjoy the apps handling of editing a selected area. Most apps let you set a dot or crosshairs where the edit will happen, while Lightroom Mobile uses a circle solution so the editing area is truly known:

Raw image saving is handled via a picker to choose the image between JPG and DNG

The improved rating solution is within the photo detail view… select as many or few stars as the picture deserves.

Walk The Wild Side With A New Film And Lens For Oggl And Hipstamatic

Normally, there is a bit of a time difference between lens/film combos coming out across the Hipstamatic camera and photo sharing products. But, this weekend Madagascar showed up in both! If your a fan of shooting with film and lens effects to get more of a film camera experience, there is the bundle in Hipsamatic iPhone Camera app. If your a fan of the Oggl photography social sharing, you now have the film and lens to mix and match with your other favorites too (Oggl allows for the film/lens combo change after the photo is taken).

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In the case of the Hipstamatic app, there is a new camera face to use too. Love the colors!

Madagascar camera

Here is a shot I just took using the Madagascar combo

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In Memory Of Arjan van der Horst – Free Film For Your iPhone

To be honest, Arjan is new to me. I saw the announcement of his passing and the mentions of his impacts on street photography grabbed my attention.

His art was very hipster, so it is no surprise to me to see the folks that create the Hipstamatic iPhone camera app came out with a special roll of film in his memory.

The Arjan ‘film’ can be dowloaded for free via the Hipstamatic app, just launch the app and choose the shopping cart icon. After downloading, don’t forget to choose it from any other ‘films’ you have downloaded. It is a ‘black and white’ roll, depending on the lens you choose in the app to pair with it, produces a very wide variety of effects. The bolder images will best produce what Arjan van der Horst  is known for.

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Presidential Black And White Photography For The iPhone

The Hipstamatic folks keep at it… introducing a new HipstaPak called The District. If you enjoy black and white photography, this will be a nice add to your iPhone camera options. As usual, if your a Oggl social share subscriber, you have access to this film/lens at no extra charge (within Oggl, the Hipstamatic version is still 99 cents when purchased within the app).

01 The District HipstaPak

02 The District HipstaPak 03 The District HipstaPak

One of the example shots for The District lens/film HipstaPak (all are toward US Historical sites, but there is a lot of fun posts on Oggl showing the Pak being put to good use):

04 The District HipstaPak

As the Pak appears on Oggl

05 The District HipstaPak

As I promised, here is a shot I took using The District film/lens bundle (defaults to 2448×2448):

06 The District HipstaPak

Your iPhone Camera Loves When The USA Is Winning At Soccer

To help celebrate the USA still being in the World Cup, Hipstamatic has their Sao Paulo HipstaPak discounted to FREE. Yes, as long as the USA stays in the World Cup, you can open your iPhone Hipstamatic app and download the film and lens pack at no charge.

If your new to the vintage camera packs of Hipstamatic, this is a nice one for the full retro photography effect. Indoor photography will appear as expired film, outdoor photography with the pack has a box camera appearance.  I have high hopes for the U.S., but to be safe you may want to grab this pack now while it’s free.

02 Sao Paulo 03 Sao Paulo 04 Sao Paulo

The example photo provided by Hipstamatic:

05 Sao Paulo

And, as usual, a photo I took with my iPhone 5s using the Sao Paulo HipstaPak:

06 Sao Paulo

Sochi Games Are Over, Do We Still Need The iPhone HipstaPak? Sure!

During the last Winter Olympic Games, the group behind Hipstamatic released a film/lens pak named after the Sochi city. It was interesting but would it live up to staying on the iPhone after the end of the games. As I looked over a few recents shots I took, it would appear it is standing up to time.

If you are a Hipstamatic iPhone camera app user, this is a HipstaPak with a lens and film bundle. Rather than a vintage film look, it produces images that have a feel like new film in a vintage camera (I shoot a lot with new 620 film in my Kodak Hawkeye so I recognized the results pretty quickly).

01 sochi hipstamatic film and lens 03 sochi hipstamatic film and lens 04 sochi hipstamatic film and lens

The photos provided by Hipstamatic show colors are still bright, with a cool light effect.

05 sochi hipstamatic film and lens

As usual, here is a couple shots I took with the combo so you can see the Sochi HipstaPak in real life usage:

07 sochi hipstamatic film and lens
Hipstamatic Sochi

If your a subscriber to the Oggl photo sharing app/service also provided by the Hipstamatic group. You have access to the lens/film at no additional charge (within Oggl, not the Hipstamatic app). At first, the lens/film bundle on Oggl under the name of Sochi was different than the HipstaPak in the Hipstamatic app. It has been corrected now, but you can see the above shot as it looked via Oggl below.

Oggl Sochi

iPhone Photography For Art And Creative, Grab The Free Behance App For Inspiration

Looking through photography displays created by others can at times help open a person’s mind to new angles or views. Most often, I find people go right out and try to duplicate the photo with the equipment and location they have at hand. While this can be helpful to try new things, I find two extremes happen as a result. The photographer take a similar photo to one in an exhibit and feels it is ‘just as good’ because their brain already has the energy from the original. Or, they fail to match the mood exactly and they move on.

I tend to enjoy photography exhibits but gain creative energy from people’s creative design projects. Looking at what an individual managed to pull together with a few scraps of paper, a pen, glue and patience. Or, the photography of a creation either in the studio or out in the wild. Color combinations and contrasting elements either in a 3D creation or a drawing can expand a view that will help notice similar points to capture through my camera. There is no matching a packaging idea when out taking photos in the park, but the lines and colors of the package opens the mind to seeing trees and grass slightly differently.

One free online tool to see the creative work from people around the world is Behance. Anyone can create an account to show what they are working on or have finished. Allowing others to comment and possibly compliment. I’m sure there are many talented people that have been found and given work due to their posts.

Behance is a very large mix of creative work. There are photograph posts as well as logo designs, product packaging, hair styles and the list goes on, seemingly endlessly. And now, Behance offers a free app to remove the need to only view posts when sitting at the desktop. The app isn’t just for viewing, it also allows commenting and posting to your own account.

Projects, or people’s creative work, can be viewed by the state of the project.

01 types of projects
Viewing Projects, note the filter options along the top of the page to narrow the view of the group. Then, sweep top/bottom to see a thumbnail/name/creator for each project.
02 list of projects with filters
Search and viewing Projects by the Field of work is a surprising long list.
03 project categories
This is the view narrowed to Photography projects posted to Behance.
04 photography category
Select one to see the individual items within that particular project. There is more details on the person that created the post as well options to share your find out through social networks.
05 single photo project view
Behance allows the favoriting of projects and creators. Along with the creation of Curated lists of both so others can see your interesting finds.
06 curated groups

Yearly Hipstamatic RetroPak Released For Holiday – Discounted

Is this the fourth year Hipstamatic has done the RetroPak grab bag of film and lenses? Just announced is a discounted RetroPak Four with lenses and film that are normally only available through other groupings. “Discounted” is 99 cents for the whole Pak, where normally 99 cents would get you one or two films with a single lens.
01 hipstamatic RetroPak Four
Here is the RetroPak Four list, available within the app (7 films and 5 lenses):
02 hipstamatic RetroPak Four 03 hipstamatic RetroPak Four 04 hipstamatic RetroPak Four 05 hipstamatic RetroPak Four 06 hipstamatic RetroPak Four 07 hipstamatic RetroPak Four
Each lens and film detail can be reviewed. It is a Pak though so you get all or nothing, even if you own a few of these Hipstamatic add-ons.
08 hipstamatic RetroPak Four 09 hipstamatic RetroPak Four