Category Archives: Taking Pictures

Taking photographs with the iPhone

Fixed depth and Multi Focus Photography with the iPhone

Beyond Tilt Shift effect is the whole science of blurring out an area of a photo for an added effect… it’s called Bokeh. Tilt Shift is the focus of a single point to fool the eye into ‘seeing’ a depth that isn’t there. Bokeh is more about the effect of a blurred area causing a feeling for the photograph. The ‘out of focus’ area can be strong or light for different effects.

An app that goes beyond ‘simple’ Tilt Shift is SynthCam. Rather than just blurring everything outside of an area on a single photograph, SynthCam takes grabs 30 frames a second to see what your eye sees. The app relies on you aiming it’s camera at a object and moving side to side a slight bit (not forward/back!) over the ‘in focus’ object so SynthCam can learn the distance of that object. If you have multiple items you want in focus, you can do the process several times for SynthCam to learn each item’s depth. This mean a complicated object like a flower or a person can be central to the final image instead of a circle or blocked area. It has taken some practice to learn the amount of movement to get the right result, but this is digital so it doesn’t cost anything to take a lot of image attempts.

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!

 

All-in-one iPhone Photo app TopCamera kicks it up a notch with latest release

TopCamera is an app that ‘has it all’. It allows you to take pictures with Stabilizer, has a true multi image HDR, does burst photography shooting, slow shutter for low light and even  a timer to get yourself in the image. The only ‘negative’ for me so far is the user experience for editing photos within TopCamera. It has all the features to tune/enhance photos, it just isn’t very natural. What the app is for me is the single app to launch for just about any photo I need to take.

In the update, TopCamera lets’ you choose what the app launches with – the camera, image enhance area or ‘the last used’. Also in the update is smoother zooming, and more selective focusing if your shooting video. I may have missed that above, TopCamera does both photography and video recording… it really is that first app you launch when your in any visual recording situation, then think about how you want to save to share later.

Oh yea, and the new launcher icon update is really nice too!

Hipster on the iPhone – New free holiday templates

There are many options in the land of sharing photos taken with your iPhone. Some have cool ways of finding friends to share with, others have unique user experiences for showing of your pics with. In the case of Hipster, the fun is how the image wrapped. Instead of square images like Instagram, Hipster has the images wide in order to fit on their electronic postcards. I say post cards not because they print and mail, rather because the user experiences is flipping the framed image over and writing on the back.

Other photographers on Hipster can see where you took the picture, like, and add text. There are many templates to frame your image with which include different locations for the location text. For the holidays, Hipster has added a few fun frame templates for your ‘postcard’ images.

Remote activation of the iPhone’s camera shutter

A technique I learned with my old film cameras was to snap photos with one hand holding the camera, usually so I could get a shot from up high looking down. Attempting this in the beginning with the iPhone proved to be challenging. I would miss tapping the button and this miss the shot. Then I found that the action to take an image using the iPhone was the release of the shutter button, not the pressing. Just sit my finger on the button, raise the iPhone up high and release when I wanted the shot.

It didn’t take long for the feature in camera apps to include the ability to tap anywhere on the screen to snap the photo. With iOS5 came the ability to use the + volume hardware button to snap photos. Cool feature… I just never remember to use it.

I will be covering a couple photo apps that work particularly better if your iPhone is in a tripod. Even with the iPhone in a tripod, tapping the up volume or screen can be enough to cause some garbage to be introduced into a photo shoot. Since my iPhone’s Apple headphones have a volume control, I tried snapping a photo using the + on the headphone wire… it works!! In fact, the photos snap pretty quickly using this method.

 

Hipstamatic camera for iPhone updated with Foodie SnapPak

When Hipstamatic came out, I had a tendency to not use it. While the ‘retro’ camera effect was fun for many shots, it took so long to get the image from snap to library, I moved on. The app offers all sorts of ‘lenses’, ‘films’, and ‘flashes’. Which, act as filters, but adds to the romance of photography. The setting up the shot prior to taking it rather than enhancing a photo afterwards.

The Hipstamatic app offers the lens/film/flash options in little bundles, or as they call them, ‘packs’. A new pack was released in time for the holiday dinners, Foodie SnapPak. The SnapPak bundle includes Loftus Lens, DC Film and Tasty Pop Flash. Below is an image I took without the flash on. The flash adds a washout to the white areas of the image to add to the effect. In my house, espresso is in the food group. The Foodie SnapPak is positioned around the photography of your feast food items.

 

Can people legally tell you to not take a picture of something with your iPhone?

I snap pictures… pictures of just about everything. About the only exceptions are where I think I might make someone uncomfortable if I aim my iPhone camera at them. You can usually tell when someone doesn’t want their picture snapped. There are the general good rules of thumb too… don’t make parents uncomfortable by taking pictures of their kids without asking them, avoid trying to take pictures of things that have ‘no photos’ posted, and when your driving. I guess that is more than just one exception to the ‘take pictures of everything’.

I have heard that in some areas around the US, it is illegal to take pictures of people in public places. I have also heard that if the person in the photo is recognizable, you need to get a release signed. So many laws that might be laws or might be urban legends. Searching on the Internet doesn’t result in clear answers very quickly.

Luckily, I found Photographers Rights app. It has the rights of the photographer broken down by countries. The other areas, Your Rights, Copyright and Privacy has similar information, just divided down a bit differently so you can find the information you need quicker. I won’t be trying to use it to fight a court case about if I should or shouldn’t have taken a picture. It will be handy to double check anything that I am curious with little searching.

The iPhone Social Share Place for Photographers

Oh great… another photo sharing social network. And this one must by fly-by-night because the icon is a black camera stamp on a white background. Well, actually, it’s ‘the’ place to share if your serious about photography and expanding your ideas through the work of others. The simple entry just keeps the kids away.

EyeEm is a photo social app I had on my iPhone for a month before actually setting up a login. Now, it’s the place I go first for a fresh perspective. There isn’t pages and pages of self face shots or images to just get high ranking. Sure, there will be a few of those, but mostly it is folks from around the world that are there for the same reason, to try things and share.

The same as other options is the list of filters you can apply to a image, the difference EyeEm brings is the way you tag each photo by the Topic, Place and Event. So, you can quickly find a particular type of photography image to view one or many images in that group. A an app to use to be inspired by others with a like mind.

No, that isn’t me… just someone who has a nice group of pictures that says how I see the app. EyeEm does have a Web page interface too that you can log into via your desktop.

 

iPhone photo item for Buy Small Saturday

I seem to have missed, or it is actually a new thing, Saturday after Black Friday is ‘Buy Small’ day. The idea is that everyone who has bought all the big things with big discounts on Friday should buy at least one item from a small company.

Last year, on Kickstarter, a couple guys had a little plastic gadget they called the Glif. It is a tripod mount for the iPhone 4/4s. Rather a simple idea, the iPhone sits snuggly either in portrait or landscape mode for those shots you need to be really still. Yet, a quick little twist and the iPhone is free. No, it doesn’t work with any iPhones in a case and even a thin vinyl skin makes it a rather tight squeeze. These are still for sale on their site studioneat.com .

Visiting their site today, they have added to the original Glif. A package that includes: The Glif, Serif, and Ligature (no idea where they come up with these names!). It amounts to a Glif, a addition strap that wraps around the iPhone and Glif for a really solid lock on your tripod, and a keychain loop so you can keep your Glif with you handy. The keychain loop is neat, since you can use the Glif to hold your iPhone on the table for hands free viewing too, not just as a tripod mount.

 

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’)