Life in LoFi: iPhoneography | iPhone Photo News, Showcases, App Reviews

ProCamera Basic

ProCamera Basic by Daemgen.net is available for free for a limited time — down from $1.99.

ProCamera Basic is an excellent camera replacement. I’ve been using the full-version, ProCamera, as my camera replacement app of choice for the the last couple of revisions. ProCamera Basic is a full-featured camera — anti-shake with three settings, composition gridlines, full-resolution 5X digital zoom, Big Button full-screen shutter, and adjustable timer are just some of the features in Basic. Some of the missing features that the full version has are 3G tap-to-focus, video capabilities and the virtual horizon.

The ProCamera apps have become some of the premier camera replacements in the App Store, becoming the standard to beat for price and features. This is a great chance to grab one of the better camera apps available while it’s free.

App Store link: ProCamera Basic

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How two brothers from Wisconsin changed iPhoneography

UPDATED 02.08.10: Now with a link to our follow-up story, “Wausau City Pages uncovers the real Hipstamatic backstory?”

The case can be made that the hottest camera app in the App Store right now was created in 1982.

Hipstamatic (link to Hipstamticapp.com) is one of the most popular photography apps in the App Store at the moment. It’s in the Top 5 in multiple countries. Flickr groups have popped up. The #hipstamatic hashtag is all over Twitter. The app has universally gotten rave reviews, and deservedly so. The environment, the sounds, the photos — it recreates the fun of shooting with an old, plastic, toy camera.

Read Life In LoFi’s full review here.

The original Hipstamatic camera is almost an urban legend. Part of the mystique of the new app is its backstory — that it’s based on the old, plastic camera that few people had heard of, let alone seen.

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LifeInLoFi.com has been helping to promote Giorgi Gallery’s iPhoneography exhibition for several weeks. The exhibition opens at the end of January. I’ve submitted five images for possible inclusion.

Please click the link to go to my photos on iPhontography.org. If you like them, please vote up my photos When In Rhome, Sunday in Starbucks, Light and Fog, Convergence, and A Good Day on US 287. If you enter via the front page, as of Thursday, January 7, they are about 2/3 of the way down the front page.

A lot of great images that have been submitted. I like the geometry and simplicity of Mike Pouliot’s Lock, the power of Frederico Motto’s Homeless, and the captured moment and high contrast of Dixon Hamby’s Ramp. I’m excited about this exhibition as more and more people become aware of the great photos that are being created on the iPhone. If you haven’t submitted your entries yet, deadline for submission is January 15, 2010. Details are on the site.

Thank you!

=M=

Format126

Format126
Version 1.0

Bottom Line: Essential! There are apps that you’ve paid for that aren’t nearly this good. It is a fun and, especially for free, an essential app.

As a kid, growing up, my very first camera was a square frame Kodak Instamatic 100 with the peanut bulb flash and the textured plastic near the shutter release that was supposed to look like one of the old light meters. It used 126 format film, which was single perforated 35 mm film housed in a plastic cartridge. The camera was inexpensively made and was produced for the masses. It was built more solidly than the plastic “toy” cameras and didn’t produce a lot of the Lo-Fi artifacts that are the trademark of those cameras, but it was a fun camera for a kid growing up to explore the world in photos 24 square images at a time.

Format126 by Chris Comair is a new app that is the result of a collaboration between Chris Comair, who created EffectsLab, LOFI and Polarize, and Glyn Evans who writes and publishes iPhoneography.com.

Format126 makes your images look like they were shot with a number of retro cameras and films from the 1960′s and 70′s. As an Instamatic emulator, Format126 takes some liberties with the number of effects the app offers, and given the limits of the 126 format, this was an excellent choice, making the app much more interesting than the original film format.

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Maybe it’s just winter, but there are times when I find myself doing this — either getting in a photography rut or just putting off taking pictures. Sometimes life gets in the way. At other times, it might be less urgent distractions (Twitter? Facebook?). Here’s a link to a post on the MCP Actions blog with a dozen tips to break your photography rut. It’s aimed at professionals and photographers who shoot with rigs, but it still has some good, usable tips for breaking an iPhoneography rut as well.

As iPhoneographers, we have an advantage that others don’t and I’d like to add Tip #13 (#12B if you’re superstitious….).

TIP: Download that cool new photography app you’ve been eyeing. Experiment with it. Learn its quirks. For a dollar or two, it’s like getting a whole new camera. How many professional photographers get to say that?

Click here for 12 Tips to Break Your Photography Rut on MCP Actions >>>

=M=

In and around Decatur, Texas
January 2, 2010

Toolbox: HipstaMatic

"When In Rhome"

"A Good Day on US 287 3"

"A Good Day on US 287 2"

"A Good Day on US 287 1"

I love to drive the old Federal highways — the ones with the police badge-shaped highway markers. They’re no longer the best way to get there fast. The routes are usually less direct, but more often I find myself just wanting to stop and photograph the cool relics from past times that still dot the roadsides of the old US highway system — the mom & pop traveler’s hotels, old gas stations, cool signs.

Some of them are remarkably well maintained considering that the world now passes them by one mile to the west. Others are beautiful yet sad in their decay. Especially in this part of Texas, where the towns are spaced about a half a day’s ride by horse, some of the main streets are still alive and preserved. The pace of life is much slower than at the Burger King nearby at the exit off the interstate.

There are lines and curves and color and texture and history in the old architecture. The newer metal-framed, steel-sided buildings by the interstate will be old someday as well, but I doubt they’ll have the charm the old towns still have.

The weather was crisp, but the sky was beautiful. The golden hour brought out the warmth of the often faded colors. It was a good day on old US Highway 287.

=M=

Pixels at an Exhibition
Deadline for submissions: January 15
Voting begins on January 15 through January 20
Reception and show opening January 30, 4-8 PM

Giorgi Gallery
2911 Claremont Blvd.
Berkeley, CA
www.giorgigallery.com

Exhibit: January 30 – February 27, 2010

Details at iphontography.org

200 images will be printed and displayed in the gallery for the month of February 2010, and will be sold as individual works of art. A book will be published that will include all of the images along with names and a short bio of each iPhoneographer.

Deadline for submissions: January 10. Voting begins on January 15 through January 20. Reception and show opening January 30. There is no submission fee, but each iPhoneographer is limited to 5 images.

Register at iphontography.org and read the submission guidelines to start.

Note from =M=: Another deadline for a brick-and-mortar iPhoneography exhibition looms, this one on the west coast at the Giorgi Gallery in Berkeley. I’m submitting my 5 images to this exhibit and I’m looking forward to seeing what organizer Knox Bronson has in store for the overall project. I like the idea of a book — the catalog — of the exhibition, and the opportunity it gives for the permanence of print.

Images that have been submitted for this exhibition are currently on display at iphontography.org.

iPhone therefore iArt
Chicago Art Department

Exhibition @CAD East Gallery
1837 South Halsted, Chicago
Friday, January 8, 2010, 6-10pm

Email mike@chicagoartdepartment.org for questions.

iPhone therefore iArt at the CAD (Image created by Mike Nourse, Jon Satrom, Carl Sweets, and Melissa Porter. Apps: Satromizer, Collage, Juxtaposer, and Swissmaker.)

Chicago Art Department is pleased to present 25 artists from around the world, all exploring the iPhone as creative tool.

iPhone Therefore iArt is the culmination of a class led by Chicago artist Mike Nourse, offered by the Chicago Art Department which features ten local artists who met weekly, working towards a completed project in areas such as photo, digital sketching (finger painting), animation, sound, and video. In addition to local artists, CAD program coordinator Mike Nourse brought in national and international iPhone artists from as far away as Russia, Norway,  Spain, France, and Germany. The end-result is a comprehensive look at this digital tool and some of its artistic possibilities.

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iPhoneographer Dixon Hamby is hosting an iPhone Image Collaboration. Since December 30, 2009, over 50 artists have participated and the project has gotten a lot of buzz on Twitter.

The concept is simple. Download this image, manipulate it on your iPhone and send your concept of the image to dixon@idixon.com. Include your Twitter nick in the email for credit. Your image will be posted with a photocredit in a slide show on the site. There is no submission fee.

Click here to view the gallery of images. It’s worth a look. It’s a rare opportunity to see dozens of photographer’s view of the same image.

For more information, visit Dixon Hamby’s tumblr site.

=M=

Updated 01.05.2010

UPDATE 03.10.11: We’ve updated this list for 2011. Be sure to check out our new post “The Ten Best FREE iPhone Photo Apps” featuring both free camera replacements and some great free iPhone photo apps.

iPhone photography doesn’t have to bust your budget. I’ve scoured the Photography section and found four great, FREE camera apps to help you step up your iPhoneography.

This list is not complete, but these are some of the best camera replacement apps I’ve found. Granted, these apps are not as feature-rich as their paid-app siblings. Some of these apps are ad-supported, but none of them add a watermark to your images, all of them save at the iPhone’s full resolution and best of all, the price is free! For no investment other than bandwidth and download time, you can improve your iPhone’s camera and get some impressive looking photographs.

These are apps that are normally free. Apps whose price has been temporarily reduced to free are not included here.

Free iPhone Camera Apps: Camera Plus, Ultimate Camera Free, Gorillacam

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