Category Archives: Taking Pictures

Taking photographs with the iPhone

It’s family holiday time, grab the Polaroid camera

Dad was an electrical engineer so we had the latest tech toys. A SX70 Polaroid fit right in, much more fun at the time than my 126 cartridge camera. Film and Flash bars were not cheap so we weren’t allowed to shoot a picture of every little thing. What really helped was the fun of the film coming out of the camera and watching the grey area of the card slowly become a ‘developed’ picture. Shaking helped the development process, speeding things up a bit as well making the color more even.

Snapping a photo with ShakeItPhoto will result in the classic film card slide onto the screen. I figured the kids I showed it to wouldn’t understand since they had never used a Polaroid camera… nah, they thought it was fun too.

It’s hard to resist not shaking the iPhone as the image starts to appear…

When the image is done, a copy of the Polaroid effect image is saved to your iPhone photo library. I found this didn’t start happening till after I restarted the iPhone. ShakeItPhoto also lets you import a image from your Photo Library to apply the effect to. ‘Sharing’ via email attachment or Facebook is available.

Options are light for ShakeItPhoto. ‘Polaroid’ is a square vs classic picture frame, Fast Processing just ‘develops’ quicker… less time to shake, Keep Original is the image without the Polaroid effect/frame.

For the love of EyeEm iPhone photo share, updates and Ambassadors

Many times, services and apps are reviewed by how they do against another solution. Feature lists, support, accessibility and user interfaces of a new app have get compared to another that people think set the standard.

In the world of iPhone photo sharing, many compare others against Instagram. While I agree, the solution is very well done, there are others with a different take on the sharing problem that are equally well designed, but they are different. EyeEm is one that is a service and an app where iPhone photo sharing is at the center. Photos on the service are generally quality over quantity. People post up fewer photos, seemingly picking only their better shots. Each photo is tagged with what the photographer was doing and where they were. The location being an item they choose from a list of nearby business options or enter their own instead of being locked to a Geolocator.

A recent update to EyeEm made the application of the included filters and frames easier. While I do almost all of my tuning outside of the app, the ease of selecting an additional filter is nice. Swipe side-to-side to move through the available filters (14), seeing each one being applied, reaching the end moves you back to the start. Swiping up/down takes you through the frame options (12) to outline the photo your uploading.

You can still use the buttons along the bottom to show the filters and frames which can be manually picked. Across the top of the ‘edit’ area of EyeEm is a ‘clarify’ like enhancement tool and crop.

To get the word of EyeEm out to more possible users and to gather with people to exchange set up and usage stories, EyeEm is now offering the opportunity to be an Ambassador.

While looking at the Ambassador information, you may want to look around a bit at EyeEm’s very nice tutorial pages. Full of instructions and inspirational photos.

Composing the perfect photograph on the iPhone

Most smartphone photography these days are the result of Spray and Pray shooting. Folks are taking a ton of photos and either hope or are just plain lucky to get a ‘perfect’ shot. Few mobile photographers take the time to work through their photos to find the one with an eye pleasing composition, rather they share all their photos with a few getting a lot of likes and comments. The high level of notoriety for a shared image is due to the image being striking, rather on a subject that is hot at the moment.

There is nothing wrong with this, until so many so-so shots cloud systems with clutter that lessen the enjoyment and thus return visits to a sharing location. I have a tendency to hunt out the ‘recognized correct way’ for anything I take on. I find that by having the knowledge, many times the information will be referenced without taking a lot of time to think about it. Photography is supposed to be fun after all, no reason to have so much set up involved that the moment was lost.

Most of the iPhone photography eBooks on the market cover how the Camera works, then dives right into specialty apps to use for the tuning of photos. They cover filters, enhancements and cropping options, but shy away from composition. “Big World, Little Lens” is one that has covers many apps, but took the time to include a nice group of inspirational examples. There isn’t much on why the photos look so nice as it relates to composition, but they do a nice job of showing what is possible via the camera on our iPhone. Included with the eBook is a series of videos showing how to use a handful of enhancement apps.

A bit better for what I was looking for had little to do with the iPhone per the title. “The Digital Photographer’s Guide to the Square Format” carried much more information in the area of getting an impact out of a area of a photo. As it happens, a few of the most popular photo share services and iPhone photo apps are in the square format so I found it matched up nicely to the real world.

I found a few nice articles along the way that explained and showed examples of how the rules work that have been followed since the earliest days of film photography. A glance at the photos shows how the rules work, whether they be in the area of Thirds, Golden, Fibonacci Spiral, try applying the rules to a few photos when walking around and they become more natural and less of a burden when needing to take a quick snap. While rules are made to be broken, know the rules first then add your personalized twist. A recent find on the eBook side of solutions is “Composing the Photo” by Trey Ratcliff. The book is much more about ‘seeing’ the composition of a photo through the viewfinder than adding a filter to make thing brighter or vintage.

An iPhone app that brought this to the fore front for me this last weekend is Sense Cam. The app has little to do with editing, rather it is for helping get the best composition shot from the start. Sliding the shutter button up, provides access to the popular accepted photography rules. Also, there is a few fine tuning options like Bracketing and Timer.

When your taking the actual photo, the rules are overlaid on the viewfinder screen. There is also a ’tilt’ indicator down the left and a horizon through the middle. Both handy if you need to hold your iPhone at arms length for a shot and not used to framing things up by eye. These can be turned on/off to keep the screen clear. All of the ‘rules’ can be individually or as a group used. In the case of the Spiral, Sense Cam provides a button in the upper corner to spin it to match the angle the subject it as so you don’t have to twist your physical iPhone to use the rule.

When shooting out in the ‘wild’, everything is ready to go on the screen to frame up the shot. There is separate focus and exposure and you can lock the settings by swiping to the side of the screen. I know, the photo below is not well done for composition, I was just showing that the guide lines that Sense Cam provides can be difficult to see in bright lit photos where this a lot of contrasting colors. Still, the tool is great way to start on the road to photos worth sharing!

Multi Image Photography on the iPhone using the updated Hipstamatic camera app

Oh, here I am with Hipstamatic again. I hope you saw the Rock The Vote contest I just posted. In that same update was a big win for me via the ability to take multi image photographs. The feature is a 99 cent in-app purchase upgrade, which is the price of some stand alone apps. I’m happier to have fewer apps and more features so if the feature works well it could mean the clearing of a few other multi shot photo apps.

When the feature is installed, a new slider appears on the Hipstamatic camera in the upper left corner. When it is to the right, the camera works as it normally does. Slide it to the right to ‘disengage’ the film advance function.

When your Hipstamatic camera is in multi shot state, the slider shows the overlapping image icon in yellow. Just snap the first photo like you would normally.

The Multi Exposure slider moves across a bit to show that you are about to take a second shot over the first. If you did this double exposure by accident, you can slide it to ‘advance’ the film to a new image. I took a few shots around the house and the results where nice. I will update this post after I have spent the day around town shooting a few real life multi exposure shots. Like any Hipstamatic photography, the usability of the photo has a lot to do with the film/lens and subject combination.

Also in this update, the flash slider has grown a bit. This allows for the choice of flash styles depending on if you move it left or right.

iPhone photography Rock The Vote photo contest

The Hipstamatic iPhone camera app folks want you to get out and VOTE. So, to bring the message home, they have a new photo contest: Theme:: We Will. Now through Nov 7th, turn in your photos for a chance to win…

Top voted submission: Hipstamatic Grab Pak filled with all sorts of goodies.

Featured Submission: Selecting the most imprssive shots for a piece in the November issue of SNAPMagazine.

In support of the contest is a Free Film Pak!

Access to the film is in the usual spot within the iPhone Hipstamatic cart area, just go there and download at no charge.

ROCK THE VOTE FREEPAK INCLUDES::
RtV: this border looks like you grabbed a marker off the table at a local election rally to make a perfect DIY-looking frame for your photos

RtV SHOUT: this film has the same rad DIY feel of the first, and then cranks up the volume. Rock the Vote phrases are splashed across your image, reminding you of the power you hold as a voter in every election.

Here is a stream of the Hipstamatic Rock The Vote submissions:

Wide Angle and FishEye lenses for the iPhone 5

I tend to lean towards physical enhancements rather than software when possible. While there are many nice fisheye lens enhancement apps for the iPhone, I prefer using the Olloclip lens on my 4s to get the look I’m going for. The clip on lens is actually three lenses in one little package, that fit snuggly over the corner of the iPhone’s corner and camera. I actually stopped using the set up for a while as it’s tight tolerances didn’t allow it to fit over my iPhone that had a thin vinyl protective back on it. So, when I heard that the iPhone 5 was thinner, I set out to find a way to pick up the looseness as the Olloclip was now going to be too big.

What I hadn’t planned on was that the iPhone 5 camera isn’t placed symmetrically in the corner of the iPhone’s corner. This means that the lens doesn’t line up, and flipping it over to use the lens on the other side is just as bad. Just a millimeter off, but that is enough to effect a photo.

Luckily, someone jumped onto the 3D printing service, Shapeways, and created a lens holding clip to fit the iPhone 5 body and camera alignment.  This does mean someone else could come up with similar on their own and print the clip with their personal home 3D printer, but the price is so low it might not be worth a person’s time. I wonder if they might someday do a threaded insert so my Olloclip lenses will work with this holder… hmmm… doesn’t hurt to ask…

You may have noticed the different colors in the image above. There is the option to choose between a few colors 3D printed pieces. Which makes it fun to match your personality.

The clips (only one needed, holds two lenses for quick changing) hold the high quality iPro lenses (not included). iPro offers several lens options that will snap right into the ring; Wide Angle, Fisheye and 2X Telephoto. I have had mixed luck with telephoto add on iPhone lenses, but the wide Angle and Fisheye lenses are very nice. I own the set from a previous purchase so as soon as the clip from Shapeways shows up I’m set to start shooting. On a personal note, before you go looking at the iPro lens – if you already own a Olloclip, the price might surprise you. iPro gets about double what you paid for your Olloclip. I have never had a complaint about the quality of the iPro lenses though, they are a very nice quality product. I hope they come out with a close up lens soon.

 

Grab your iPhone and shoot some photos for your W Magazine contest entry

Last week I grabbed the latest film/lens pack for my Hipstamatic iPhone photography app. The Pak is free right now, through the end of this month. As usual, just launch the Hipstamatic app, tap the ‘cart’ icon and you should see the pack to download to start shooting right away.

The W Mag Pak includes a nice ‘Magazine Photographer’ camera case… which doesn’t change the iPhone Camera action but maybe helps a person get into the fun of being a magazine photographer. Included in the Pak is the W40 Film and Wonder Lens, but no new Flash.

The resulting photos from the W Magazine Pak are right in line with one of my favorite photography retro look and feel.

Oh yes, the opportunity to have your iPhone photography creative work appear with the W Magazine! From the folks at Hipstamatic:

“Snap some fashion-forward photos and enter our contest for a chance to have your work showcased at a month-long, W-curated exhibition at the Ace Hotel in New York City! W Magazine will even select one overall winner to shoot a photo story for wmagazine.com. Learn more about the contest here.”