Tag Archives: iPhone camera

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.

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The example photo provided by Hipstamatic:

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

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In other news, Hipstamatic Releases Hongdae HipstaPak

Hipstamatic, the retro film/lens/flash app for the iPhone, released a new HipstaPak. It actually showed up some time ago. I upgraded, played with it, and forgot to tell you. The new HipstaPak is called Hongdae. As you may guess from the name, there is a line “Made in Korea” everywhere the pack is mentioned. Included is a new lens and film, no case and no new flash.

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The example shots included from Hipstamatic –

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The Hongdae combination drops the quality and adds a bit of noise. As you can see, there is some detail drop off too, but I like there is enough remaining to not end up with no recognizable bits. People, signs and landmarks can still be seen. So many times, age filter effects drop off too much which vintage photography didn’t do. As I usually do, here is the HipstaPak used in a shot I took:

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Everything iPhone 5S Camera In One Spot

Over the weeks following the release of the iPhone 5s, there has been a variety of photographers posting their thoughts on the device’s updated camera. For me, the most notable is the speed everything photography related happens with the new chips and iOS7.

Of course, there is way more to the upgrades in the area of photography via the iPhone 5s. Rather than repeat the pros and cons posted by others, here is a list of articles you may find enlightening.

One of the first, longest and most detailed was TechCrunch’s, A Photographer’s Take On The iPhone 5S Camera. The article is broken into ‘Sensor’, What the A7 does for you, True Tone Flash (a lot of smarts in the technology), Auto Image Stabilization, SLO-MO, and wrapping up with “The differences, then, come largely in how Apple’s ISP hardware and its front-end software mesh to make life easier for photographers.”

A nice real life experience for an iPhone photographer is a post on National Geographic by Jim Richardson Capturing the Aura of the Scottish Highlands With the iPhone 5s – Leaving his trusty Nikon behind, Jim Richardson returns to a favorite spot to photograph, the Scottish Highlands, with a brave new tool—the iPhone 5S.

Connect Digital Photography Review did a very large 11 page review. Every feature and enhancement for the 5S camera is covered. There are a lot of comparison shots included to drive home the differences between earlier and other brand smartphone cameras.

Geek.com did a quick article covering the iPhone 5S photography results verses other popular phone options (HTC, Lumia and Moto X). The shot examples are at enough of a different angle between the smartphones used that the auto exposure feature on all of the devices could effect the result. But, the examples do show how the manufactures used their own unique solutions to the needs of photographers.

iPhone 5s and Sport Photography – a short post but very nice for anyone photographing moving objects like athletes.

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Vintage Polaroid Cameras And Film In The Days Of The iPhone

I am a collector of vintage cameras. No particular year or style, the cameras in my collection are only limited by my interest in the particular tech. When it is possible to locate film that will work, I actually take some out of the collection to shoot with. The fun of film is the planning and non-instant-gratification. For those times that I want to mix vintage with a instant view of my shots, I break out one of my Polaroids. Initially, this meant using expired film, then Impossible Project started producing Polaroid style film, but it had exposure issues (well, I had problems, others where happier). Recently, Impossible Project has added a coating to their film making the final results much better.

A few of my shooters –

01 Polaroid

02 Polaroid

Results vary, but when Luna will sit still long enough, she loves when the camera comes out –

03 PolaroidOf course, there is an app for that too. Not just one Instant Polaroid effect iPhone app, but many many… many. Most are just ‘frames’ apps to wrap a photo in a Polaroid trademarked paper frame. Instant – The Polaroid Instant Camera is an app that I tend to play with when I want to add the realistic vintage effect when shooting with my iPhone.

04 Instant Polaroid

Along with the exposure/film type, Instant lets you add all of the particulars that make the photo deliver the message your looking for. Color the frame ‘paper’, and add wear via blotches, wrinkles and even finger prints. Then a bit of handwriting text for a final touch.

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If the fun of vintage film photography is something you enjoy, narrowed down to Polaroid particularly, you may enjoy Polanoid.net . A site that has Polaroid camera users all over the world submitting their snapshots for you to enjoy.

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The Polanoid.net site has what seems like an endless list of Polaroid film captures. The images are grouped by camera type as well as photographer. Fun to see new and old photos and the creative work people do with instant photography.

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Long Island HipstaPak No Longer Free, But Adds A Lens To The Film Bundle

Towards the end of August this year, I mentioned stumbling upon a Free Pak available in the Hipstamatic iPhone Camera app. The ‘free’ Long Island HipstaPak offered a camera body (art) and BlacKeys Extra Fine Film (black and white). Now, the Long Island Pak has been re-introduced for 99 cents, with the addition of Florence Lens.
01 Long Island Hipstamatic
As I mentioned above, the Long Island HipstaPak still has the BlacKeys Extra Fine film and Old Sport Camera Case, with the addition of the Florence lens (Hipstamatic doesn’t go into what effect the lens creates, but basically it’s a 99 cent lens if you already have the earlier Free Long Island HipstaPak).
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Pictures provided by Hipstamatic taken with the Long Island Pak.
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As promised when there is a lens, filter or film released that I mention, here are a few photos taken with the Long Island HipstaPak. For reference, here is the earlier post on the original (lensless) Long Island Pak.
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Hey… did anyone every get the iOS7 Pak for free from Hipstamatic? Right after iOS7 was released, the Hipstamatic app showed a color gel and a couple flat design cases as free. I never saw how to download then and now the Pak is 99 cents.
iOS7 Flat Pak

Buenos Aires Square Format Photos Like My Instant Film Camera Takes

When out at the Antique Malls, there is almost always someone offering little square photos. They are fun to browse through, handy if you don’t have any family history, build your own for a couple bucks.

Interesting that many of the small square photos are actually from early Polaroid cameras. Before the iconic SX-70 and the auto developing photos buzzing out the square photos on a large lower lip print, there was the two part instant film. The early Polaroid cameras opened with an expanding front lens, the exposed film was pulled out the back, waved around for a bit then the two parts where separated to show a small lipped square photo. Fujifilm is now offering film for these early cameras so an older 180 model pulls in $700+. If you want to see the different cameras and film options, take a look at the The Land List.

There are a few iPhone filter apps that make an attempt to match the real look of film photography. That is, film photography of yesteryear with 1940/50s or lomo cameras with simple lenses. Having a collection of those early cameras that actually work, it is fun at times to compare a filter to a shot I took with film. This week, Hipstamatic rolled out a new Buenos Aires film and lens pack.

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The HipstaPak is a single lens, Diego and two films, Uchitel 20 and Blanko C16.

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As a reminder, Hipstamatic has you choose a lens, film and a flash (turn on/off) that you use to take a photo. Like early cameras and film, you can’t change that choice after you snap the photo. You tune the photo ‘later’. I have my selection of filter/enhancement apps I use, with Hipstamatic having it’s own place in my daily shooting… the fun of planning ahead instead of bulk snapping and tuning later.

Here are a few shots of the lens/film options in the Buenos Aires Hipstapak, real world stuff:

Lens: Diego  –  Film: Uchitel 20

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Lens: Diego  – Film: Blanko C16

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Lens: Diego  – Film: Uchitel 20

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For something to compare, here is a shot using the Diego lens and the Sussex film

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 Lens: Diego  –  Film: Uchitel 20

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Lens: Diego  –  Film: Blanko C16 

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2013 iPhone Photography Contest Winners Announced

The 7th annual (that means, this has been going on since 2007), iPhone Photography Awards have been announced. Rather than just a couple pics to see on the wall, the IPPAWARDS site all of the winners across the many groups. It is fun to get inspired, launch a photo and start to sweep through the collection. There are a lot of very talented  photographers in the world, calling their iPhone their camera.

1st place sunsets I should warn you about the site though… it seems to be going up and down a lot over the last couple days. So much traffic the site is going down? One would think that is a thing of the past after having been awarding talent for seven years. I hope it opens successfully for you so you can enjoy the talent.

7th Annual iPhone Photography Awards 2013

A solution for those times your looking for a photography idea

There is a variety of reasons to shoot photos. Something as simple as a social share or a snap at a family trip, all the way to large format art or marketing photography. To see what others are doing, for a few ideas, a person can simply wander around any of those social sites. To help pulling ideas together and offer daily challenges is an app, Photography Assignment Generator.

There are multiple versions of the app; an iPad version and iPhone version for photography ideas where your using a camera. There is also a version for iPhone photographers. Each app offers the option to choose an area on your own or have the app generate a daily challenge. I lean more towards finding shooting opportunities in the area I’m in rather than a general idea and then look for a area to match the need, so spent a couple days drilling down to particular areas.
01 photography assignment
Photography Assignment Generator will give you a daily challenge with reminders, the app will pick a challenge for the moment for you, or you can choose an area of challenges on your own. While the content is very nice, the user interface is very non-Apple. The buttons appear to be from an old Palm app and sliding the left back button results in the screen changing to the right. I do like that the whole database for the app is downloaded to the iPhone so I don’t have to worry about an Internet connection to view assignments.
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Tap a category to view the challenge in that area. There are over 75 assignments which can be mixed and matched. On the iPhone version, iPhotography Assignment Generator, there is a Camera+ and Instagram Tutorial. Both are actually feature overviews of the apps, with the Instagram option having screen shots from an older version of Instagram.
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Selecting one of the images takes you to a larger version of the photo and a tip for creating a similar photo. Options are available to move through the other examples in the area or close to return to the challenge. In the full version, there are hundreds of examples to gets the ideas going.
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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.

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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.

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iPhone Panoramic photos become movies – all on the iPhone

Built into the iPhone’s camera app is the ability to take pictures of tall buildings, wide for the interiors of a restaurant, simple HDR for vivid lights and even wrap around panoramic images. All of this ‘built-in’ so why do we need apps for taking pictures outside of what Apple provided? Mostly, because one solution isn’t the ‘best’ solution for everyone. Photos taken and left exactly as they are is fine, but many times there is a vision of what the photo could be so why not tune the image a bit.

In the world of panoramic photography, there has been a nice list of app options, each with their own way of doing the action of taking the photos. The early solutions required a person snap a photo then align the next photo with the previous before hitting the shutter button, then the app stitched all the photos together. After that was solutions that had a grid area that a person took photos to fill in for the app to merge. Most apps now use a graphic that two parts at the edge of the view finder which come together for the next photo to be taken. Cycloramic offers an simple, yet effective graphic to show when the next photo is being taken. The app doesn’t require alignment, it takes care of that for you. Unlike most other solutions is the ability to go back the reverse direction mid action if moving too fast for Cycloramic to have gotten a clean photo. The ability to move up/down slightly also gives more height to the resulting images too.

00 Cycloramic iPhone

If you have an iPhone 5 and a smooth/flat surface… Cycloramic will do all the work for you. A feature that put the app into everyone’s conversation when it was first introduced is how the app will vibrate the iPhone 5 to cause it to turn. Basically, place your iPhone 5 on it’s bottom edge, tap the button to take a photo, Cycloramic spins the iPhone and snaps photos as it goes. No add on hardware is required!

In the most recent update is a new feature to have the panoramic photo converted to a movie. Sometimes you want to share a photo that people can move around the 360 photo. Generally though, the message of the environment is best delivered via a controlled view which a movie does. Cycloramic 2.1 does the stitching and conversion to a movie to export all in one app.