Shot with my old Panasonic Lumix 2MP camera, pre-iPhone
One of my favorite pre-iPhone images.
It was a beautiful day to photograph the Fort Worth Water Gardens. The weather was unseasonably nice, even for the typically mild winters we have here. The early February sun was casting some interesting shadows. I was looking for my friend and lucked into a quiet area near a piece known as “Mountain.”
I don’t know who he is. He sat there quietly reading in the afternoon sun, finding his oasis of quiet in the middle of downtown. Quickly, I grabbed this picture — stealing his soul, as I call it. I looked back a minute later to get my safety shot. He had moved on.
A friend of mine (thank you, D!) just sent me this link to this recent entry in Art Director/Photographer Phil Coffmann’s blog. He’s had his iPhone for about 2 months and is discovering iPhone photography. While he mentions several of his favorite apps (okay, okay…. I’ll break down and try TiltShiftGenerator…!), this entry is more than just a “what’s on my iPhone” blog. He also discusses his thoughts on iPhone photography as well as new ways he’d like to see the apps perform.
While I love looking at other’s images and the way the best of them can either capture a moment or capture a feeling, I always love getting inside another creative’s head to hear their thoughts on the why of what they do.
Camera HD – Widescreen Photos is another excellent app from developer George Talusan. Like his other apps, it brings unique functionality to the iPhone. All this app does is crop your image to one of many selectable, preset aspect ratios, and does so quickly and easily. In the prefs, you select from 20 different aspect ratios, including 16:9 Widescreen HD, 1.85:1 American Theater, and 2.59:1 Cinerama. It’s actually been released for a while, but with the many other apps that have been released, good and bad, I think this one has fallen under the radar. This is a worthy app that deserves a second look. Read the rest of this entry →
When I was a kid growing up, we’d never heard of multi-screen cinemas. The fancy theaters were spelled -tre at the end. We went to the local theater. Ours was The Plaza, spelled out in an early sixties script in pink neon letters that glowed large over the marquee. There was always a double feature — two current movies. The big show started the evening matinee. The second feature started around 7:00 or so and the big show played again at 9:30 or 10:00. If you got there early, you could get in cheap and see “Jaws” twice in one night.
There was only one auditorium and it felt like it could seat the whole town. The floors sloped gently. In a packed show, odds were good that you would see the back of someone’s head covering up part of the screen. If you were tall like me, you were “that guy.” The chairs were always plush, thickly padded and upholstered in velour — usually red. There were previews before each feature. If you were really lucky, you got a cartoon.
Today, most of those big, one screen movie houses are gone — either closed, demolished, or converted to live music venues. I like going to movies now. I love digital projection, Dolby THX sound and stadium seating. The old theaters, though, were a different experience. They were a different way to see the movies.
HD Camera by OutmanTech (no website) is yet another “zoom” app. This one offers marginally better results than the in-camera cropping that most “zoom” apps deliver.
The app functions as a camera. The zoom is set using an onscreen slider, rather than pinch-and-zoom. I prefer this method of setting your zoom level and wish more apps offered this as an option.
Update 10/26/09: Originally, I gave this app a “Recommend” rating because I like the results and was hopeful that the developer would address my issues in future update. Unfortunately, other than leaving feedback in the app store (or possibly trying to phone them at their auto parts division), there’s no way to contact this developer. The app isn’t shown on their website, even though it’s at version 1.1. The email address for iPhone support bounces with a “User unknown in relay recipient table” error. I’ve tried several times over the course of the last few days.
While I like this app and feel that it offers unique results for the iPhone, right now I’m not feeling any level of commitment behind it from the developer. While I like how this app treats shadows and midtones, I feel that the image orientation bug is pretty major and without some feedback from the developer, I really can’t recommend this app any more until this bug is addressed.
My original review is below.
Of the flash apps I’ve tested, aE Camera Flash by BahnTech produces superior results for flash enhancement. According to the developer, the app was created with the input from an unnamed team which included a photographer, a director of graphic design for an unnamed international magazine, and a DSP expert from USC. Any time an app touts creds like that, I get leery.
You can’t make a Texas bar. They don’t just happen. Good ones take time. They need their scratches and stains. Really good ones will have its own permasmoke smell — even long after smoking was banned. A good Texas bar feels lived in, the same feeling you get when you step into a friend’s living room.
Cadillac Ranch is the exception. Maybe it was the company and the fact that none other than Kinky Freidman was playing an acoustic show that night. The new-ish wooden floors had the stains in all the right places. The bar stools all seemed to show the wear from years of barflys. With the windows wide open, you could still smoke here. My friends and I all lit up cigars in celebration.
It felt like an Austin bar, only wider — a double-wide one of my friends called it. The walls were adorned with old Texas paraphernalia. Restored neon signs from old honky tonks long gone were hung from the ceiling. Last night felt like Texas.
“May the best of the past be the worst of the future.”
Thank you, Kinky.
=M=
"Star Studded"
"Falling Star"
"The National Beer of Texas"
All shot with Camera Genius, processed with CameraBag
Photogene is one of my favorite photo apps for iPhone and one of my go-to apps. Photogene allows you to do some Photoshop-like manipulations on your iPhone, such as adjust gamma, curves, exposure and saturation. It also features several effects to dress up your images. It’s fast, easy and stable.
Normally $2.99 USD, it’s on sale once again this weekend only for $0.99 — over 65% off! Good through Sunday, October 25, 2009.
It’s worth it at three bucks. It’s a steal at a dollar. If you don’t already have this app, this new sale makes it even more a no-brainer. This gets you into the update path as well. Grab it now!
Camera Flash Deluxe by Haiwen Soft is yet another entry into the crowded flash enhancement category, and despite the additional features this app boasts, the overall results are unimpressive.
Using my standard test images (see below), the results this app produces are flat and washed out.
