iShoot iPhone
Natural Bridge + iPhone + AutoStitch = Wow
Updated with a new pano from January 8, 2010:
That AutoStitch iPhone app never ceases to amaze me. I took a trip to Natural Bridge State Resort Park Sunday afternoon hoping to catch some of the fall color before it was too late (me and a few hundred other folks apparently had the same idea – I’ve never had to wait in line to get up the Sky Lift before). While under the arch, I thought I’d give the ol’ cell phone/panorama thing a try.
Thirty-two iPhone photos stitched together in AutoStitch in a matter of minutes produced the image above. It’s like magic to me.
Commonwealth Stadium pano during UT game
I had the good fortune of scoring some tickets for the Tennessee/Kentucky game Saturday night. I was hoping to witness a bit of history that night, but alas, UK couldn’t break UT’s 645-game winning streak. During a time out, though, when the folks in front of me had a moment to sit, I grabbed a few iPhone photos and stitched them together on the phone with the AutoStitch app.
Cigar shop
While visiting Austin, I saw this gentleman rolling cigars in a storefront. Thought I’d give it a go with the iPhone pano. This photo is 18 photos total. Below is a series with the QuadCam iPhone app.
The Simple Life
The fam took a short trip to Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky yesterday. It’s always a beautiful place, but the dark, gray day wasn’t particularly inspiring me to shoot. So, out pops the iPhone to play around a bit. I imagine I looked kinda odd with a 2700-dollar 5D Mark II hanging on my shoulder yet walking around shooting all my photos with my cell phone. Apply the Camera Bag app Magazine filter and voila – instant gratification.
At the end of our day, we took an hour-long ride on the Dixie Belle paddleboat – something I have never done before. The leaves were only just now starting to turn and the dark overcast skies weren’t helping the color much. I pulled out the 10D I had converted to infrared and shot a few frames as we floated down the river.
After the boat ride, we spotted a nice waterfall only a short walk from the parking lot. The photo below is from 23 iPhone photos and was stitched together in the phone with the AutoStitch app.
My garden faerie
Just having some fun with the Quad Cam App in the back yard. I like how the sequence turns into a panoramic of sorts.
iShoot goes green
Had a nice road trip with former colleagues Charles Bertram and Amy Wilson the other day. While killing a little time in the car, Amy took out her iPhone and complained about how she couldn’t get her photos to look ‘normal’ anymore. Well, of course since it wasn’t our iPhone that was broken, Charles and I had a thoroughly good time taking some photos that had a cool night-vision look to them.
A green Ale8 bottle gets greener.
The Mountain Parkway - view from the car.
Self-portrait with the green machine
iPhone App: Luvn that AutoStitch pano
Made with 19 iPhone photos and then used the Autostitch pano app and uploaded to my site with the Wordpress app. I probably shot and stitched this in 5-6 minutes.
The Wordpress app, however, isn’t playing nice with many blogs, including mine, when it comes to displaying full size images. I have to edit the post further in order to get the photos to display full size and centered and to get the text to appear below the photo. Bummer. Hope they fix that soon.
That AutoStitch pano app, on the other hand, ROCKS! It is by far the best iPhone pano app I’ve used. Granted, there are more out there, but these are at the top of the list when searching the app store for “pano”.
Autostitch ($2.00)- Easy interface, uses photos from your photo library, blends exposures, can handle a large number of photos, and the stitching is beautiful and remarkable fast. And, you can work backwards and remove a photo from your stitch easily if you need to take one out.
PanoLab (free, but there is a $2 pro version) – only uses photos from your library, but has a really wonky interface and the stitching is always manual (fun the first time), but if you use more than, like, three photos, it gets a nasty pinch in the middle.
Pano ($3) – Can’t use photos from your photo library (booooo. Deal killer for me. Wish I could get my money back.)
iPhone panos from Vegas
All shot with the iPhone camera. I used either Photomerge or Calico to stitch them.
iShoot iPhone: Hallway to nowhere
Flamingo Hotel, Vegas
I swear this is the longest hallway I’ve ever been in. Kind of Get Smart without the slamming doors.
iShoot iPhone: Hello ‘biscus
Lovely hibiscus growing on an old farm in Mercer County, Kentucky. The iPhone 3Gs camera does a MUCH better job of focusing closely.
iPhone App: QuadCamera
[Updated with more photos]
On another tip from Justin, I took another leap of faith and actually spent money again on an iPhone app. Now after the less-than-satisfying experience with NightCamera, I was a bit hesitant to try QuadCamera from the same company. But I only hesitated for about 2 seconds, ’cause the description and sample photos were so intriguing.
QuadCamera
I think it was long about THE FIRST IMAGE that I took with QuadCamera that I decided it was well work the $1.99. The app uses the iPhone camera and takes 4-8 photos in sequence and makes a grid-like single image out of all the images. It’s part of the ToyCamera line of iPhone apps from Takayuki Fukatsu You can customize how many images you take and the interval at which you take them. The app also applies a Holga-ish vignette and desaturation to each image.
The first few images I shot, I used the default interval between images, which is pretty fast. Moving subjects or moving the camera helps in this case.
Then, I tried slowing down the interval and shooting photos that when combined would appear like they were stitched together.
Ah, but wait! There’s more. Head to Fukatsu’s website and you can download the QuadAnimator. After loading an image taken with QuadCamera, it makes it into an animated gif.
This is going to be a fun app. Thanks Justin for the tip.
Happy Valentines Angie!
•
Made with the QuadAnimator. Original QuadShot above.
iPhone app: Hold ‘er steady
At the suggestion of friend Justin Fowler, I thought I’d give the iPhone app Night Camera a try. While I was looking for it, I also ran across the free SteadyCam. Here’s the short answer after an even shorter test: Don’t waste even the 99 cents on Night Camera.
Night Camera iPhone app
SteadyCam iPhone app
The concept is this: If you use the built-in iPhone camera, you’ll often notice that in low-light situations the camera shake will often blur your photos. These two apps use the camera’s accelerometer (the motion sensors that are normally used to detect the position of the camera) to determine when the camera is at it’s most motionless point – and then it takes the photo.
Before these apps came around, I always used a little-known trick of keeping the camera steady. When you push the camera icon to take the photo, the image is taken ON RELEASE of the button, not when you push it. In other words, push and hold the button until you are ready to take the picture, then let go – that’s when the photo is taken. It’s very effective and I found it comparable to these apps and sometimes a better option than Night Camera.
But while Night Camera is getting rave reviews and is quite popular (and hey, a buck ain’t gonna break the bank), I had much more trouble using it in the short 15 minute test around my house. SteadyCam was simpler and more consistent. While it lacked some bells and whistles of Night Camera, SteadyCam did have a nice motion indicator that gives you an idea of how steady you are. Some of the options on Night Camera were unclear as to what they were actually for, so maybe they are useful, maybe not.
My vote is for the free app, SteadyCam because it’s just as good as Night Camera and certainly no worse. Alas, I’ve lost my $$ to Night Camera – hey Justin, click on some ads for me so I can earn my 99 cents back!
iPhone camera
Night Camera
SteadyCam
iPhone Camera
Night Camera
SteadyCam
iPhone camera
Night Camera
SteadyCam
iPhone camera
Night Camera
Steady Cam
iPhone app: A camera bag in your pocket
Rarely will I purchase an iPhone app. So rare, in fact, that I’ve only purchased one: CameraBag.
If you have low expectations for a cell phone camera like I do, then you’ll find the iPhone camera to be mostly serviceable, especially since it’s always there when you need it. But there are times when a photo just needs a little something extra.
CameraBag iPhone app
My favorite is the Helga for it’s saturation and vignetting. Least favorite so far is the infrared – I guess I’m a little spoiled with the real thing.
One of the great things about this app is that it is non-destructive. You can take a photo and apply the filter without ruining the original. That means you can experiment and apply different filters to the same image as many times as you want.
Price was $2.99 when I bought it and I consider it money well spent. It’s currently on a holiday sale, however, for 99 cents (don’t know how long that will last, though).
Original image
Helga filter
Original image
Helga filter
Original image
Helga filter
Original image
Instant filter
Original image
Ansel filter
Original image
Helga filter
Original image
Ansel filter
