Tag: Camera+

Photography without my Nikon

My primary camera, my Nikon D5100, is being repaired, as well as my favorite lens, my Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.8. Almost two weeks ago the aperture on the Nikkor stopped working. It was stuck at f/16. This happened just after the D5100 had a mirror lock up. The two incidents might be related.

The lens and camera body are in the hands of PhotoTech Repair in Manhattan. They found no problems with the camera but will clean the sensor. I should have them both back this week.

In the meantime, I was feeling frustrated. The weather and lighting have been great this weekend. Despite my allergies, I had hoped to get outside and capture early Spring nature and landscape photographs.

We've had some strange Spring weather, and I'm afraid that when my camera returns the weather will switch back to April showers. I'm really tired of gray skies. I understand the rain is necessary to bring the new life, but I'd like some sun too.

So I woke up this morning around 7 AM and looked outside. Beautiful day. I made my coffee1, and a toasted a bagel with cream cheeses and smoked salmon. And looked out the kitchen window.

I couldn't get rid of my need to capture something. It was like an itch that has to be scratched. But I didn't have a camera.

Suddenly I realize that that was a lie! I had another camera. I have a Sony point-n-shoot, and I have my iPhone!

For some reason, I chose to use my iPhone. The Cyber-shot has similar technical specs to the iPhone but a larger sensor and more controls. But the iPhone has photo editing apps and a faster workflow. I can snap, edit and post to my blog within minutes. So I chose the iPhone over the Sony2.

This set of photos were all taken on my iPhone 5 with either Camera+ or vividHDR and then edited in Photogene4. I cropped out an area on the left of the photos of my backyard. The miniature tripod grip covered part of the lens area while I composed each photo. I added a vignette to each photo.

Published via Pressgram

  1. I recently bought a Chemex coffee maker, Kone filter, and CJ-4000 scale. ↩
  2. Both Sony batteries were discharged. My iPhone is almost always charged due to necessity. ↩

How I Edit & Publish to Pressgram Workflow

I've never had a set workflow for my iPhone photography. I've may photography related apps -- cameras, filters, editors, etc -- that I use without thinking much about efficiency or workflow. Often times I can't remember how I created a particular image. Inspired by a [recent blog post] by Jorge Quinteros I decided to develop one for my new favorite photography app Pressgram.

image of flower

I use one of several apps for capturing my images but I use the native Camera app, Camera+, and viviHDR often. I use the native Camera app when I want quick access to my iPhone camera. It can be launched from the lock screen very easily, has a square1 mode and some ok filters. I don't use the HDR feature of the iOS Camera app. I think viviHDR does a better job and has three HDR modes. VSCOcam, Camera+ and Afterlight have excellent filters and shooting modes absent from the native app. Camera+ has image stabilization, a timer, and a burst shooting mode. Afterlight has an overwhelming number of features. I'm not going to catalog them all. Finally VSCOcam. I use this app mostly for the large number of analog film inspired filters. Camera+, vividHDR, and VSCOcam all have lightboxes. This is handy if I want to create multiple edits of my images before exporting to the iPhone's Camera Roll.

Photogene is another app for filtering and editing my photos. I know it has an overwhelming number of features but I expect that soon I will reduce the number of apps I use because it does so much. I'm using it mostly for the healing tool. My iPhone 5 camera has a scratch near the center. It's quite noticeable in shots with a clear background on portraits. I can easily remove that blemish from my images.

Once I'm happy with my edits I export my images to the Camera Roll and maybe import into EXIF-Fi. EXIF-fi is an app for editing the information stored inside the image file. I use it to add some copyright and descriptive text to my images. While I don't care if someone downloads and uses my images (non-commercial) I do want my Creative Commons copyright respected.

Unfortunately iOS does not have a file system. Each time I edit and export an image a new copy is created. This can make keeping track of which file contains my edits. Fortunately some of these apps -- VSCOcam, Exif-Fi, -- create app specific folders within the Photos app. I use these folders to keep track of which image contains my edits. It's not perfect but it's what I've got.

From the camera roll or app specific folder, I import my image into Pressgram, select my blog from the list, add some descriptive text (with hashtags), a title and some categories and hit the check mark to publish my image to my blog and Pressgram.

That's my workflow in a nutshell. My workflow isn't strictly defined; it's just a guideline I follow. The reason I have so many apps is that I find that no single app has a filter that always works to give my images the look I want. I experiment a bit. It could take me up to five minutes to create something I like.

While in the past I was quick to capture, filter and post I think I may want to change to a new strategy. I' leaning towards capturing images during the day and the doing my edits and posts later in the day. This will give me more time to think about how I want the images to look.

painted flower

  1. I'm using the iOS 7 camera app. ↩

GLMPS for iPhone

"Discovered" this iPhone app via +Robert Scoble's Google+ feed.

So, what is GLMPS?

To the untrained eye it looks like an Instagram copycat.

But I’ve found it to be more engaging than Instagram. Why? Because in addition to shooting a photo and uploading that it records five seconds of video too.

It doesn’t sound that cool, right?

But, chase around your cat, or chase around your babies, or watch your significant other for when he or she does something goofy. Shoot the photo. What you’ll notice is that the five seconds of video ENDS with that photo.

Huh? How did it record video before you push the shutter button?