It’s ironic that as digital photographers, we spend a lot of time in processing to duplicate the look of film in our photos. I’ve found very few apps that achieve the look and texture of analog films that I used to shoot with.
One of my favorite photo apps is FILM LAB. Despite its flaws, it’s a very impressive app that recreates the tonal qualities of a wide range of film stocks. The one thing it is missing, though is film grain.
Regardless of our camera preference, some things in photography are universal and a well-composed photograph is one of those constants. Starting with a good image in camera is one less thing to fix in post-production.
One of the advantages iPhoneographers have over traditional digital photography is the tremendous amount of apps at our disposal that we can use to process our photos. Almost no amount of “apping” can save a poorly composed photograph. Recently, Photo Tuts+ blog ran a great story on tips for better image composition. The post goes beyond the Rule of Thirds and offers other advice for creating well-framed shots. It’s an excellent read for the novice and a good refresher for seasoned photographers.
That’s not to say that these are hard and fast rules that must be obeyed. In fact, there are always exceptions. But I’m a huge proponent of learning the rules — learning how and why things work — so that when the opportunity arises, you know when to break them.
One of the first composition rules we learn in photography is the rule-of-thirds. But once you’ve understood this concept, what else can you do to improve the composition of your photos? It will get you started, but there’s more to composition than where you place your subject in the frame.
In case you missed this, here’s a cool link from Michael Zelbel at Smoking Strobes.com. It’s his method of organizing images on his computer. He and I have similar issues with our photography — we both take a lot of shots, we both work with multiple or subsequent copies of our production files, and we both don’t want to take much time or thought in organizing our images so they’re quick and easy to find.
I don’t use iPhoto to organize my raw iPhoneography. I prefer to work with my images directly on my Mac. I only add my finished, processed images to my iPhoto. Rarely will I add a raw or production image to iPhoto.
Using a consistent folder hierarchy to organize your images helps to cut down the clutter of your raw images and safety shots, as well as keeping your finished files organized and easy to find. Michael’s hierarchy may be a bit much for iPhoneography, especially since most of us process images before they leave the iPhone, but you can modify his approach to fit your workflow.
In forums I frequently got advice that I should absolutely use this or that photo database or this or that professional software to organize my thousands of files. Believe me dude, I’ve been there, done that. What works best for me is a set of folders that gives me no headaches, no technical glinches and which allows me to spend more time behind the camera than in front of the screen.
The iPhone’s camera has a 0.2 second fixed shutter speed and a fixed aperture of f/2.8. It adjusts for exposure by adjusting the sensitivity of the sensor inside the camera — in effect, adjusting the ISO. This means that the darker your photograph, the greater the chance there will be noise in the image.
You can improve the color and clarity, as well as reduce the noise in your iPhone images by making sure, whenever possible, that you have a strong light source that’s behind you. For example, when taking outdoor photographs, try shooting with the sun at your back whenever you can. Lighting your subject properly will help you get good color, good contrast and reduced noise from your iPhone photos.
