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

So, you got new iPhone for Christmas…. You’ve already downloaded Angry Birds and have asked all of the “Siri-ous” questions (my personal favorite is “Open the pod bay doors, please, Siri.”)

Your new iPhone comes with a pretty serious camera and with the small investment of a few inexpensive photo apps, you can take and share some really cool photos.

But navigating the App Store can be intimidating without a little help. Here’s Life In LoFi’s guide to the best starter photo apps.

If you have a friend or family member who recently got a new iPhone, this is a great list to share with them. There’s a quick and easy email button at the end of this post. >>>

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This has the potential to get ugly and hack a lot of people off — users and developers.

Since the release of iOS 5 and the addition of the Volume Button Shutter in Apple’s Camera, many third party developers have followed suit and implemented the feature in their own apps. Jeff McMorris from CodeGoo, creators of Camera Genius tells Life In LoFi that Apple has approved these apps “by mistake.”

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Consistently top-selling camera replacement app, Camera+ was updated today to version 2.4VS.

Its one new feature: the return of VolumeSnap.

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The iPhone 4S hits the street this week. For many iPhoneographers, though, Christmas comes early with this Wednesday’s release of iOS 5, Apple’s latest and greatest operating system for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Over the weekend, I was able to use an iPhone 4 with a golden master — basically a release copy — of iOS 5. I didn’t have much hands on time with it, but here are my thoughts and a few screenshots of the greatly improved Apple Camera and Photos apps.

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While much fuss has been made in the Appleverse about today’s Let’s Talk iPhone event, most of the speculation has been focused on new iPhone devices. Among the announcements today are the official feature list of the next-generation iOS 5.

Significant upgrades to the Camera and Photos apps are included in the new OS. The full list of features is now posted to Apple’s website. Even if you’re not getting one of the new iPhones, click past the jump to read about the new features available if you choose to upgrade to the new iOS 5. >>>

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Despite its deceptive simplicity, there’s nothing common about Instagram’s filters. They look similar to effects that can be achieved in any number of photo apps, but they can’t easily be exactly duplicated. I’ve tried a few times and given up.

Among the changes in the new Instagram 2.0 update are the disappearance of a few of the app’s filters, including the popular Gotham filter. Instagrammer @wilburtheant, along with @darren2112 and @dudettewalnuts, have been circulating a recipe to recreate the look of the Gotham filter using Camera+ ( ).

I’ve made a couple of tweaks to their recipe which helps improve the converted blues in the image and helps reduce the amount of purple in the shadows and 3/4 tones. You’ll also need either Simply B&W ( ) or MonoPhix ( ) for this technique. The tweaked recipe is after the jump. >>>

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CamCam
Version: 1.1
Price: $2.99

Bottom Line: Good, but not very good. Great looking filters for both stills and video. Supports full-res. Needs more frames. It’s not a fast app.

Camera+Camcorder = CamCam. I get it. Catchy name. And I like the icon.

CamCam is a new effects camera from CnC with 30 film, camera and color effects and 7 frames. See below for a list of all 30 effects. All effects preview in speedy realtime, which is pretty cool. The rest of the app doesn’t feel as snappy, but it’s still an interesting app.

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11:52am (lunch time!) by Tosha. Shot with an iPhone 5? (photo courtesy of ars technica)

ars technica blog recently posted a photo of sushi allegedly shot with an iPhone by an Apple engineer and posted to his Flickr account. What’s special about this iPhone photo is that according to the photo’s EXIF data, it was cropped down from an original size of 3264 x 2448 pixels — 8 megapixels, the rumored resolution of the next generation iPhone camera.

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I’ve got this filed under “News” because I’ve never created a “Speculation” category, but we’re getting close enough to street date of the new iPhone that this is probably a pretty credible story.

AppleInsider has posted a story which gives a few clues as to the specs of the camera in the next-generation iPhone. According to a recent report on Taiwan Economic News, two Taiwan suppliers have been tapped to supply the lenses for the 8 MP camera in the upcoming “iPhone 5.”

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Orasis
Version 1.0

Bottom Line: I didn’t like it. Images look more like single-photo fake-HDR apps than images corrected to be more visually accurate.

Even with the superior phone camera of the iPhone 4 (and hopefully and even better camera coming in the new iPhones later this year), a Dynamic Range Correction app is an essential component of my toolbox. For years, that app has been Perfectly Clear by Athentech.

New photo app Orasis by Orasis Imaging claims to “[capture] reality, not just light.” It attempts to make photos more realistic by simulating the sensation of appearance formed by our Visual System. While the sample image in the App Store looks good, the real world images that I tested it with didn’t look like reality, but more like the results from a single-image HDR app.

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