You’ve got yourself an iPhone equipped with arguably the best camera this side of a high-end point-and-shoot. It’s so good there’s a whole movement that’s sprung up around it called “iPhoneography”, or photography with the iPhone. It proves the old saying, “the best camera is the one you have with you”, and in this case, that camera is also pretty darn good. But it takes more than just a great camera or lens to produce great photography. That’s where iMore’s new iPhoneography segment comes in. We’re going to go over all the basics and work together to transform simple snapshots into photographic art.

And if you’re already a seasoned photographer or iPhoneographer, we welcome you to join us. Sit in on the articles and in our new Photography Forum, lend us your eye, and share with us your experiences.

Now on with our first project! One of the most important, yet most difficult, elements in creating beautiful photographs is composition – where your subject is placed and how it’s related to its surroundings. A great starting point for developing this skill is to understand the rule of thirds.

What is the rule of thirds?

Take a close look at the vertical lines in the image above. These two lines divide the image into thirds. Similarly, there are lines that divide the photo horizontally in thirds. Together, these lines form a grid over the photo and divide the image into 9 equal parts. The rule of thirds is simply a guideline that states that a photo is compositionally more interesting if the important elements of the image lie on one of the grid lines or their intersections. In the above photo, I have placed my daughter on the far right vertical line.

Luckily for you, the iPhone has the option to turn on this grid so that you don’t have to estimate where the lines fall while taking your photo. To do so, while taking a photo just tap options and switch the grid to on. Until you feel comfortable with your ability of using the rule of thirds, I recommend leaving the grid turned on.

Landscapes and horizons

When photographing landscapes, it’s important to make sure the horizon is not in the dead center of your photo because it is compositionally boring. Using the rule of thirds on the horizon will instantly improve your results. Make sure the more interesting piece, the sky or earth, is what makes up two thirds of your photo. In the example above, I chose to highlight the sky. Notice that I used the rule of thirds twice, both on the horizon and sun. I decided to change things up a little in this next photo.

After taking a few photos with the horizon on the bottom third of the frame and the sun on the left grid line, I wasn’t too thrilled with the results and felt my pictures were a little bland. The sky wasn’t particularly interesting on this day and there wasn’t anything that made my photos special. So instead of making the predictable decision with the horizon on one of my horizontal lines, I placed the sun on the bottom grid line. In fact, in the above image, the sun lies on the intersection of the bottom and left grid lines. By pure luck, a bird decided to fly into the frame and I waited until he was flying past my right grid line to snap the photo. These two changes suddenly made this photo a lot more interesting.

I made a simliar decision for the following photo.

When taking photos of sunsets, it’s alway more interesting to involve a silhouette, so that’s what I decided to do with this tree. Most of the time, you would want your silhouette to fall on one of the grid lines, but it wasn’t working with this tree — there was something awkward about it. So, instead, I decided to use the rule of thirds on the sun. Again, it’s lying on the intersection of the bottom and left grid lines and the photo came out great.

Portraits

The important element of just about every portrait is your subject’s eyes, so make sure the eyes fall on one or more of the grid lines. When shooting in portrait orientation, you may want to center the subject with the top grid line passing through your subject’s eyes. When shooting in landscape orientation, take advantage of both horizontal and vertical grid lines by placing one of your subjects eyes on the intersection of two grid lines.

Rules are meant to be broken

Keep in mind that this so-called rule is only a guideline and does not need to be followed to a tee. For example, if there is a lot of symmetry in your scene you may want to highlight the symmetry by centering your subject. Or perhaps moving your subject even further off center will have a greater impact and improve your photo. Be creative and don’t limit yourself.

Now go out and shoot!

Now that you know how to use the rule of thirds, here’s your first assignment: go out and practice. Turn on the iPhone camera’s grid and shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. Then head over to the Photography Forums, ask questions if you have them, and share the great shots you got demonstrating the rule of thirds. Go!

We can’t wait to see them!

Kenisngton and Chelsea College in the UK is planning a new course which will be devoted entirely to taking photographs with the iPhone’s camera. The course in “iPhoneography” is thought to be the first ever course of its kind in the United Kingdom.

The college says many iPhone owners struggle to use the camera properly. Students will create images using the iPhone camera and a range of “apps”. Tutor, Richard Gray, said: “all you need is a passion for photography and a creative mind.” Students are required to have their own iPhone to do the course which will begin next month. “With the right apps and skills, the iPhone can be a powerful creative tool,” said Mr Gray. “It is a great levelling force within photography. No longer do you need expensive or complex equipment to produce great images,” he added.

Mr Gray is planning on teaching students the basic rules of composition, color and light as well as editing skills using various iOS apps. He sees the iPhone as revolutionising photography by the way it allows you to take a picture, edit it and post it online all within minutes; no matter where you are. Mr Gray will also be holding a free workshop at the Apple Store in Regent Street, London in the near future.

We’ve been saying that here at iMore for years, of course. We even have a dedicated iPhone photography forum available for you to discuss the subject, share tips, and start projects. With more to come!

Source: BBC

According to Adam Lashinsky, author of the upcoming book, Inside Apple, the late Steve Jobs arranged a meeting with Ren Ng, a Stanford graduate and the CEO of the incredible Lytro light-field camera company.

The company’s CEO, Ren Ng, a brilliant computer scientist with a PhD from Stanford, immediately called Jobs, who picked up the phone and quickly said, “if you’re free this afternoon maybe we would could get together.” Ng, who is thirty-two, hurried to Palo Alto, showed Jobs a demo of Lytro’s technology, discussed cameras and product design with him, and, at Jobs’s request, agreed to send him an email outlining three things he’d like Lytro to do with Apple.

Lytro, if you’ve not heard of them, uses radical new imaging technology that involves capturing the entire light field into one single file. Edits can then be made post-production, including refocusing the image or any portion of it.

Given the nature of their technology and how it works, it all seems like something Steve Jobs would have been interested in, especially when you consider the amount of attention Apple gave to how the iPhone 4S camera worked.

According to Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs had three things he wanted to reinvent – the television, textbooks and photography. We’ve bared witness to the beginning of one of those things at Apple’s education event with the introduction of iBooks 2 and  iBooks Author for Mac OS X. And Apple Television has been rumored for a while now.

One could argue that Steve Jobs and Apple have already changed the photography world with each iteration of the iPhone, as the cameras got better with each new release. The the iPhone 4S has an 8 megapixel camera equipped with a fast f/2.4 lens, and is certainly capable of taking great shots and that photo taking ability has caused some folks to drop their point & shoot cameras and strictly use their iPhone for shots as needed.

Could we see a portion of Lytro’s camera technology in the some iteration of the iPhone and possibly even the iPad? It’s quite possible – but we’ll have to hold on for that. One meeting does not a next-generation iPhone 5 camera make.

• Inside Apple – Amazon link

Source: 9to5Mac

At CES 2012, we had the opportunity to check out an olloclip, an accessory for the iPhone that converts the lens to either wide angle, fisheye, or macro. It simply slides onto the corner of your iPhone and is small enough to carry around in your pocket.

After the demonstration, I picked one up for myself, and Rene and I used it for filming during the remainder of our time at CES – it made a huge difference.

The olloclip is available now for $69.99.

Source: Olloclip.

Photography app specialists Interealtime has just released an update to its highly acclaimed True NightVison app. The app uses special light capture techniques which allow much darker photographs to be taken using the iPhone camera.

Looking for powerful light amplification tech that fits in your pocket? You came to the right place. True NightVision features advanced image enhancement AND unique light gathering modes. Combined, they make this the most potent night vision app available on the App Store. How does it work? It uses a live camera view and special photo enhancement techniques capable of producing a decent image at high speed (we’re talking fluid 30fps action here!) even where it’s way too dark for the iPhone’s camera app.

• Speed: For full motion, 30fps action use
• High: Balances speed and light enhancement, good for regular use
• Still: High level light enhancement, but requires a steady hand
• Max: Ultimate light enhancement for stationary use
• Improved zoom: Up to 8x zoom on iPhone 4/4S, up to 4x on 3GS
• Enhancement is now set to 50% initially
• Speed fix for iPhone 4s

• App Store link

The For iPhone Lens for the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 4 comes with a tripod, a holder, a case, and large zoom lens that can take your photos all up close and personal.

Assembly is easy and the results are good. It’s not priced in the thousands like Nikon or Canon lenses, so set your expectations according, but it does exactly what it claims — adds an 8x optical zoom to your iPhone photography.

I tried it out on both an iPhone 4 and and iPhone 4S. Both take good photos and the iPhone 4S takes great photos for a phone, but the built in digital zoom is… really not great. So, my primary concern here was for something affordable that handled optical zoom but otherwise got out of the way and let the iPhone camera do the heavy lifting. And that’s what I got.

If you don’t want to lug around a DSLR or even a pocket camera, but still want something to help you take pictures of your kids soccer game, your favorite band in concert, your special someone accepting an award, wild life on your nature walk, or anything else you need to get a closer look at but just can’t get closer to, the For iPhone Lens is definitely something to consider.

Source: Photojojo

We all know the iPhone 4S camera can replace most point and shoot cameras in a heartbeat. But what about for professional photography? Does it make the cut for on the go photography or does it still leave something to be desired?

Ryan Bolger, a personal friend of mine, is a professional photographer and local gallery owner. He has been patiently waiting to pick up an iPhone until he thought Apple got the camera feature right. I suggested that he pick up the iPhone 4S and give it a chance as a camera to use while on the go.

Over a month later he has nothing but positive things to say about the iPhone 4S camera and the quality of the images that it produces.

So I’ve been holding out for years. I’ve had an upgrade ever since the original Iphone came out & I decided that I was going to wait until the camera was where I wanted it & knew it could be. The iPhone 4S has changed my creative life in a very big way. The App Store has also opened up my eyes to a whole new creative & visual world. The ability to capture, ratify, & share my creative life with a few simple taps has helped me in my quest of trying to make the world a better place through my art.

Within the first week of my new marriage to this phone I took over 2,000 photographs. I’m amazed at the detail & the versatility of the iPhone 4S’ camera. I’ve even used it on some paid client assignments. That’s how much I trust it as a professional photographer.

I just read an article last night that photography was one of the things Steve Jobs aimed to re-invent. As a guy whose life revolves around photography and has since childhood, you’ve already done this Sir. So thank you Steve Jobs and thank you Apple.

Be sure to hit Ryan’s gallery of photos at the link below. The first 200 to 250 photos are all taken and edited on his iPhone 4S.

Source: RJB Imagery

Official Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson has given an interview to the New York Times where he reveals what Steve Jobs was going to tackle next at Apple, including television, textbooks, and photography.

He had three things that he wanted to reinvent: the television, textbooks and photography. He really wanted to take these on. I didn’t go into details about these products in the book because it was implicitly Apple’s creations and it’s not fair to the company to reveal these details. But, he did talk about the television. He told me he’d “licked it” and once said, “There’s no reason you should have all these complicated remote controls.”

While an Apple television set has been rumored for a while now, and the iPad certainly seems part of a textbook plan, photography is interesting to see on the list. What about photography now is broken and in need of a Steve Jobs-style fix?

Source: NYT

The Capta mount is an all in one stand, cable management and tripod mount designed for the iPhone and other smartphones. It has just received Kickstarter funding with double the pledges required and there are still seven days to go.

Designed by two freelance designers, Bojan Smiljanic and Adewale Adelusi-Adeluyi they set about originally creating a simple and elegant tripod mount. That has now expanded and the Capta can be used for many more things. The Capta is made from airplane grade aluminium and has a adhesive pad that can hold an iPhone securely. There is also a groove for cable management as well as threaded hole for a tripod attachment.

According to Smiljanic, “With the form factor and technology of smartphones always changing we designed Capta to be the hybrid accessory that could keep up with those changes. For example for iPhone users regardless of generation, Capta replaces the iPhone tripod mount, iPhone stand and iPhone cable management with one simple device. Capta has exceeded our original expectations and when paired with a suction cup or tripod mount the uses increase exponentially. We are humbled by how versatile Capta truly is.”

Source: Kickstarter

JOBY GorillaMobile

• iDUSCRAFT

Complements of JOBY! To see the other entries and to share some of your great photos, head on over to our forums.

Jawbone JAMBOX

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Skyfire Web Browser

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Steve Jobs biography

• The God of Thunder
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It’s no secret that the iPhone is equipped with a great little camera. In fact, there is a entire genre of photography dedicated to it – iPhoneography.

In recognition of the iPhone’s great photographic potential, TiPb has opened up a Photography and Video forum, and what a better way to celebrate it than to have a contest! A photo contest, that is.

To enter, head on over the forums and submit up to 3 of your best photos. The rules? The photos must have been taken with an iPhone and edited only with iPhone apps. With each submission, include which apps you used to make your edits.

The winner will receive a GorillaMobile tripod for iPhone courtesy of JOBY! This awesome little accessory includes a case that can be connected to the GorrillaMobile tripod in either landscape or portrait orientation. The legs of the GorillaMobile are extremely flexible and can be wrapped around and attached to nearly every surface. Every serious iPhoneographer should have one!

You have one week to submit your entries. We’ll choose our 5 favorites, post them on the blog, and let our readers vote for the winner!

Now, get shooting!

ENTER NOW!

Instagram has gone 2.0 and brings with it 4 new filters as well as the ability to view filters and tilt-shift effects live while using the camera.

Instagram is my favorite photography app available on the iPhone! The filters are great, but I absolutely love the social-ness (yes, I made that up) of Instagram. This update makes a fantastic app even better. I look forward to what they do next.

Pick from one of several gorgeous filtered effects or tilt-shift blur to breathe a new life into your mobile photos. Transform everyday moments into works of art you’ll want to share with friends and family.

• 100% free custom designed filters and borders such as XPro-II, Earlybird, Rise, Amaro, Hudson, Lomo-fi, Sutro, Toaster, Brannan, Inkwell, Walden, Hefe, Nashville, 1977, and others.
• Linear and Radial Tilt-Shift blur effects for extra depth of field.
• Instant sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare, and Posterous
• Unlimited uploads
• Interact with friends through giving & receiving likes and comments
• Works with first generation, 3G, 3GS and iPhone 4
• Full iPhone 4 front & back camera support

The update includes:

• Instant live filters & live tilt-shift
• 4 new filters
• Turn borders on & off
• Rotate photo after taking
• Filtered photos save in high-resolution to photo library

Instagram is available on the iPhone for free.

[App Store link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they’re iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they’re fair game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

LIFE for iPad – @sethclifford

I love photography, and in particular, photos that transport me to other times and depict life as it used to be. I’m fascinated by our changes as a culture, and always love comparing what we see now to the way things looked decades ago. I completely stumbled onto LIFE for iPad this week, and instantly fell in love with it, tweeting out how great it was. I’ve been spending a lot of time with the app this week, and I’m still enjoying it immensely.

Life magazine has been a staple of photojournalism for almost a century now, and has gone through some transitions in that time. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the incredible quality of the images it brings to readers. The iPad app is a wonderful way to browse some of these libraries, both from the past and present. Much of the app focuses on current events and color photography, but for me where it really shines is with the historical archives you can page through. I spent hours poring over pictures of New York City from the 30s-50s, and gazing at pictures from the 1939 World’s Fair and the construction of the Empire State Building. The captions and the summaries for each picture provide a little more insight into the moment of capture, and allow you to really immerse yourself in the scenes.

There are, unfortunately, some jarringly intrusive ads that sit within the photo sets, but you can skip them easily enough. I would really prefer if the ad content was served some other way, because it takes you out of the frame of mind in which you’re viewing the content, but for now it’s not so annoying that it would prevent me from using the app. There are also some sharing functions (email, Facebook, Twitter) if you want to post photos or tell friends about the app.

If you’re a student of history (and you should be) and appreciate great photography, it’s worth the few minutes to download. I can see this being a “must-install” whenever I restore or change my iPad out in the future.

[Free - App Store link]

Frogger Decades – @chrisoldroyd

I am showing my age here but I remember the original game and used to play it in the arcades when I was young. Anyway to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original, Konami has released Frogger Decades. It follows a similar theme to the original game but is much more colorful and has a more varied back drop than the original. It has loads of levels and even carries Game Center support!

It does look beautiful and is one of those games that you pick up instantly and enjoy forever. It is only $1.99 in the App Store so stop messing about and go and get it. It’s pure gold!

[$1.99 - App Store Link]

Tangled – @Alli_Flowers

I’m not a big game player, and I hate games with a soundtrack that distracts me. I stumbled onto Tangled, which is normally $.99, but the developer is giving it away for a limited time. It’s minimalistic (no soundtrack – yay!), simple, beautiful, and neither too simple nor frustrating.

The object is to untangle the lines by grabbing the round handles and moving them around. Of course, the tangles become increasingly difficult, but not impossible. You won’t “die” if you don’t untangle them inside 60 seconds, and you can always reset and start over if you get things more tangled than they were when you started.

This is a peaceful brain exercise that you can catch onto quickly. Go get it while it’s still free!

[Free - App Store link]

1Password (Mac App Store edition) – @reneritchie

1Password has just hit the Mac App Store. Repeat, 1Password has just hit the Mac App Store. This is not a drill. Deploy. Deploy. Dep… What, too over the top?

Listen, there’s a few things I do whenever I install or re-install a Mac. I a) Type in my Apple ID and start syncing down my Preferences, Keychains, etc. (which iCloud won’t be doing in the near future, frakdammit), b) install Dropbox and start syncing my home directory, including the library I’ll use to, c) install 1Password.

And then I’m most of the way done.

Now if you bought 1Password directly from AgileBits in the past, you might hesitate on buying it again via the Mac App Store. Don’t. It’s on sale for $20 and comes with a free upgrade to 1Password 4 when it launches.

If it was any more of a no-brainer, it’d be negative brained. Seriously. Especially because it’s also available for iPhone and iPad as a universal app, and Windows if you swing that way (or both ways). It also plugs into Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc. to autofill your password hassles away.

There’s supposed to be a continual conflict between security and convenience. 1Password does a great job of mediating that conflict. It lets you have gnarly, strong, pseudo-random passwords without having to remember them.

Get it now.

[$19.99 - Mac App Store link]

Your pick?

You’re part of the team as well, so we will be choosing one reader to make a submission each week! Just look for the announcement on twitter or our Facebook page each weekend for a chance to be picked! In the meantime, jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

The iPad 2 is equipped with two cameras, a front-facing VGA camera and a rear facing 720p HD camera. Check out the video above for example footage with both cameras.

Recording video on the iPad 2 is a little awkward given it’s large size, but it gets the job done. Another thing that takes some getting used to is that when using the front-facing camera to record yourself in landscape mode, the camera is positioned to the far left (or right). It feels strange looking so far from the center of the screen because I have grown accustomed to looking at the top of a device or just the screen while recording video. It’s clear that you are not looking at the camera if you stare at the screen while recording.

The quality of video taken with the VGA and HD cameras are as expected. In well-lit situations, the HD camera produces excellent results and the VGA camera gives acceptable quality. Both cameras do an ok job in bad lighting situations, but admittedly do better than I was expecting. In fact, while taking footage in my daughter’s poorly lit bedroom, the video looked pretty bad; but after uploading it to YouTube and watching on a computer, it didn’t look too shabby.

Taking still photographs with the iPad 2 is not nearly as rewarding as video. The photographs come out mediocre even in excellent light conditions. With that said, I was actually rather impressed with the close-up photograph I took of a bush. Digital zoom with the rear-facing camera, however, is awful. It’s not even worth your time to test it out.

Considering the fact that the iPad 2 is not, and should not be, regarded as a primary camera, I am content with the quality of the video and photographs obtained with the iPad 2. Of course, I would love to see better cameras, but they do a good enough job for my needs.

To check out the photos taken with the iPad 2, follow along after the break!

Side note: the video above was edited with iMovie on the iPad 2.

Ever wish you could easily crop a photo right on your iPhone? Well, if speed is more important than resolution you can. We’ll show you how after the break!

Here’s how to easily crop a picture on your iPhone (or iPod touch or iPad):

1. Tap on the Photo app
2. Tap on Camera Roll (or one of your Photo Albums)
3. Tap on the picture you want to crop
4. Use pinch to zoom to expand the photo until just the part you want to keep is filling the screen
5. Take a screenshot

That’s it! Your cropped photo is now saved to the Camera Roll! Sure it’s lost some megapixels (down to 960×640 on an iPhone 4 or iPod touch 4, or 480×320 on older devices) but it’s fast and perfect for on screen viewing or sharing via email or MMS.

If you have any questions or any other cool photo tips to share, leave them in comments!

[Thanks to Brian for sending this in, and his adorable son Dean for modeling! And since we hadn't thought of this one before, we'll be sending a reward -- an iPhone case! -- your way!]

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

blueSLR is a bluetooth accessory that will allow you to use your iPhone as a remote control for your DSLR. In addition, blueSLR will embed GPS information from the unit into your photos. Since the device makes a bluetooth connection with your iPhone, line-of-site is not necessary to trigger your camera.

With the blueSLR companion app, you can use your iPhone to adjust focus, shutter speed, timer, and tell the camera to take a certain number of pictures within a given timeframe. You can also edit the GPS update frequency. GPS information will be embedded into the RAW or JPEG files and is compatible with iPhoto, Flickr, and Picasa.

blueSLR is currently only available for Nikon cameras, but XEquals promises to bring Canon support soon. There are three different models, Nikon Essential, Advanced, and Professional. From these 3 products, you will find support for the following Nikon cameras: D3100, D5000, D90, D7000, D3(S), D200, D300(S), and D700.

The blueSLR can be yours for $149 with free shipping if pre-ordered today. The companion app is available for free in the App Store.

Check out the photos after the break! Anyone planning to pick one up?

[BlueSLR - via Electronista]

360 Panorama for iPhone just issued a large update to their popular panorama app that uses the built-in gyroscope feature. This essentially allows you to capture more accurate panoramic photos much easier. It can take a bit longer than a standard stitching app but the overall quality seems to be better. As iPhone photography becomes even more prominent and mainstream, good photography apps tend to do well. 360 Panorama is definitely an app to check out if you enjoy editing and taking photos on your iPhone.

iTunes Link

When you first load the app you’ll be presented with a 360 view grid with an image in it. You’ll simply select capture and the app will capture what you’re viewing as a panorama in real time. The app has built-in light sensing too as well. This will automatically help the app adjust for low light settings. In good light settings, you should have no problem panning continuously to get a pretty good shot. In low light, I tended to go a bit slower to prevent seeing seams in the image.

Occipital has also mentioned that holding your phone at an angle also allows you to maximize capture area. This is a great feature if you have good light quality. In a low light setting, this feature wasn’t too great and I’d still recommend holding it in portrait.

After you’ve finished creating your panoramic shot, you can view it live in the app as a 360 view image. Simply rotate your phone and the gyroscope feature will automatically pan the live shot for you (refer to video for example). You also have the option to save the image to your camera roll as a regular image, e-mail it, or upload. Some uploads allow the full 360 view as well. Nice little add on for those who want an interactive photo.

Overall, I’d say this is one of the better pano apps I’ve used on my iPhone. The only issue that really bugged me was that when you attempted to move the phone up and down a bit in order to maximize a capture area, the image didn’t line up very well and you’d be left with overlapping elements. But for a simple 360 shot, this app will be a great addition to anyone’s photography app portfolio.

Pros

• Extremely easy to use
• You have options when it comes to sharing your photos in-app
• Rendering time is faster than other similar panoramic applications
• Overall quality is much better (in most situations) than stitching applications

Cons

• When creating a pano, if you move your phone up and down, sometimes the seams don’t match up properly
• In low light settings, seams can be noticeable if you pan around too quickly

You can say goodbye devilish red eyes and blemishes with Perfect Photo 2.0 for iPhone. The popular photo editing application has just released a significant update that, in addition to red eye removal and spot healing, also includes:

• Retina display support
• New user interface design
• Sharing to Flickr
• Sharing files via Documents folder
• Hi-quality image processing

Perfect photo has recently become my favorite photo editing application and I welcome this update with open arms. The new interface is substantially better than the previous one.

Now for the give-away! The good folks over at MacPhun LLC have generously given us a few promo codes to give away to you, our awesome readers. Just let us know why Perfect Photo will be the perfect addition to your photography app collection and we’ll randomly choose a few of you and send you a promo code. The contest begins now and ends Friday, December 3 at 8p EST. (Must have US iTunes account to win. Apple’s rule, not ours!)

UPDATE: Congrats to winners Watcher, Stef, and Jared!

Check out the video after the break!

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

[YouTube link]

HDR photography for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G wasn’t something Apple provided under iOS 4.1, but that doesn’t mean 3GS and 3G users have to be left out of the fun (if you’re jailbroken that is).  Redmond Pie has a great guide up showing how to enable the HDR camera option provided you’ve jailbroken them under iOS 4.1 and aren’t adverse to SSHing and editing some files.  The process really isn’t that difficult, but as always, if you’re not comfortable altering files on your iPhone, we don’t recommend it.  So hit up the source link for a detailed walk-through.  And if you’re not sure if it’s worth it yet, read our take on HDR photography on the iPhone 4 or our full iOS 4.1 guide.

[via RedmondPie, Thanks to Geo Coldz for sending this in!]

Clearcam for iPhone is an app that compliments the already existing camera app. Instead of tapping camera, you take your pictures through Clearcam. I found myself using this app when I wanted clearer pictures or when I was in an area that pictures came out either blurry or dark. The concept is quite simple, it’ll take several shots of the same thing and either overlays the shots or chooses the best one (depending on what setting you choose).  The app claims to up quality of the camera from 5MP images to around 11MP images.

When first loading Clearcam, it looks somewhat similar to the iPhone camera app.  It adds a few options that are the basic foundation of what the app really does.  You’ll see the shutter button and then two options.  One labeled “quick” and one labeled “enhanced”.

The quick setting is just that.  It will take 3 shots in rapid succession.  It will save the best one to your camera roll.  It works like it says it does and typically always gets a good shot.

The enhanced mode will take 6 shots quickly and it will take the best parts of each one, essentially stitching them together to create a better all around image.  In my experience, it was somewhat touch and go.  I also would take the same picture with my stock camera app.  In some scenarios, it seemed like the stock camera app took better pictures than what Clearcam stitched together.  It was rare, but it did happen occasionally.  I’m not sure if maybe the app has trouble stitching certain pictures together or rendering them, but there’s definitely a bug there.

The app performs better in low light settings than the default camera in all instances (at least in my experience).  I’d probably attribute this to the fact that it’s picking either the best picture or rendering 6 pictures together to create the best possible image.  If the exposure was a little dark in some places, it will pull the better pieces from another picture.  Having this app in low light settings is enough to justify purchasing it in my opinion.

(*Side note about pictures, most of them are better quality than shown here, we have a limit on image uploads so I had to downsize some of them which will reduce the quality a bit)

[iTunes Link]

Pros

• Increases the quality by a landslide, especially in low light situations

• App is responsive and doesn’t take forever to save to the camera roll like other photo apps

• Increases quality in darker pictures

• Very simple to use

Cons

• Some photos come out blurrier than the default camera app (assuming this is some kind of bug)

• No settings other than Quick and Enhanced and tap to focus, would like to see some native contrast and saturation settings to make up for the lack of settings in the default camera app

Camera+ for iPhone is a photography application that allows you to take photos and edit them. tap tap tap claims Camera+ is “all about one thing – GREAT PHOTOS!” How does Camera+ hold up to this expectation? Follow along to find out.

When you launch Camera+, you will be looking at the back of camera with a view finder. Under the viewfinder, where there would normally be a screen on a digital camera, there are two options: take photos and Lightbox. Behind the camera, you can see a little of what your iPhone’s camera can see. Inside the viewfinder, you’ll see a very small version of exactly what your camera sees. Tap on the viewfinder or “take photos” to take a picture.

When taking a photo, there is a 3×3 grid to help line up your shot (optional). There is also a stabilizer which will not snap the picture until the iPhone is held still. This is great for low light situations or when you are zoomed in (up to 5x).

The Lightbox is where you go to view all the photos you’ve taken with Camera+. The Lightbox is designed with filmstrips containing 3 photos each and is very visually appealing. None of the photos save to your camera roll until you tell it to. This is great for keeping your camera roll clutter-free of photos you don’t want. Tapping a photo brings up options to edit, save, copy, or share. Double tapping a photo makes it larger and provides the same options.

There are 4 different ways to edit your photos: scenes, crops, effects, and borders. Scenes is similar to the different modes you might find on a digital point and shoot camera: auto, flash, sunset, night, backlit, portrait, beach, scenery, concert, food, and text. There are 9 different common crop ratios available. The 21 different effects are categorized as color, retro, and special. I am impressed with all the options and quality of these effects. They are fun and look great. There are 7 different borders to choose from. Most are very basic; the only “fun” one being “instant” which makes your photo look like it was taken with a polaroid camera.

Overall, I was impressed with Camera+. The plethora of good effects makes the app worth it alone. Camera+ does a great job of producing great photos.

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Pros

• Unique UI
• 5x zoom, stabilizer, and grid available when taking photos
• Creatively designed Lightbox to scroll through pictures
• Many scene modes, crop ratios, borders, and effects
• Share to Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr
• Support for multitasking, Retina Display, flash, and front facing camera on iPhone 4
• Access photo library to edit photos not taken with Camera+

Cons

• Landscape only supported when taking and viewing photos
• Cannot view photos in full screen
• Saving a photo to camera roll removes it from the Lightbox

While iPhone 4 has stolen the spotlight these days, iPhone 3GS is still equipped with a great camera, especially for a phone. However, we never imagined a photographer using the iPhone 3GS during a professional photo shoot. Lee Morris, a professional fashion photographer and writer for f stoppers, has done just that!

The idea behind the shoot was to prove to his readers that a professional camera is not required to get professional photos. He assembled a team of professionals including professional model, Olivia Price, hair and makeup artists, a retoucher, and videographer, all of whom volunteered their time for the project. Morris also used his a studio and lighting equipment.

Morris also admits to using photoshop in post production. He claims that Photoshop is a “necessary tool” for his line of work. “I am in the business of making money and my clients do not care if I got it perfect in the camera or made it perfect in post, they simply want a perfect image.”

Morris made sure to stress that the point of this shoot was to show that a photographer should not be limited by his camera; in fact, “the most expensive camera in the world is capable of taking bad pictures.” He does a great job proving his point, but your average low budget photographer will not be able get the same results without the thousands of dollars of studio equipment that Morris used. He did mention that he may do a similar shoot in the future using only natural light. I would find that much more interesting and believe it would make a bigger impact. I also hope he uses an iPhone 4 next time!

Nevertheless, the images Morris produced are stunning and even more impressive because they were taken with an iPhone 3GS. You can see the entire set of high res photos on Flickr.

Follow us after the break to see a video of the shoot!

[f stoppers via 9To5Mac]

How does a photographer use his iPhone to get the job done and what iPhone apps help get him through his day? TiPb’s iPhone at work contest aims to bring you just such slices of the iPhone life. Here’s JustinHammondPhoto’s answer and as a small token of thanks we’re sending him a $20 iTunes gift certificate. If you want to see your name up on the TiPb home page and get a gift certificate all your own, head on over to the TiPb iPhone Forum and share your story now!

I’m a professional photographer from Massachusetts. I have the wonderful job of photographing some of the most beautiful women in the world in the coolest locations all over the country. Models, celebrities, NFL Cheerleaders, it goes on and on. My work has been in magazines, advertisements, Maxim, websites… the works! I love my job!

I honestly realized for the first time when reading this contest how much I actually use my iPhone on a day to day basis for what I do. It’s a lot! Especially now that I have my iPhone 4, it’s been even more. Here’s when:

• I own a studio, but I’m very often on location shooting, which means no wifi (on the beaches, bars, outdoors, etc). So having a 3G connection is great. I often pull up Safari in the middle of a photoshoot to come up with a pose idea, or sometimes girls want to show me a picture of a shot they really love so it’s easy to Google image search some ideas! It helps out a lot during a shoot!

• Also, because I do travel to photoshoot, I’m always using Maps! Maps is so crucial to getting around because I barely know areas well. It’s definitely got me out of so many jams or has even helped find shooting locations! I remember this one time I was doing outdoor shooting and I pulled up my map and noticed a large pond nearby so we walked toward where it was and got some really beautiful shots by the water at a place I would have had no idea about if it didnt show up on the gps.

• It works great in times of urgency! Even last night, the “model light” on my strobe died (lights the model so you can auto-focus on her when there’s low light/lights off). Well, I pulled out my iPhone, opened the new trusty video camera, turned on the new amazing light from the iPhone, and my assistant held it to the model! It was perfect! I was so happy about having the new iPhone 4 last night.

• Also with the new video feature, being HD, I have decided to do some “behind the scenes” videos that I will be posting in the near future of my photo shoots. This is really great for my website and facebook page as a lot of models/fans follow my work, and it’s real fun at photoshoots. I am beyond excited about that. I may even start video blogging and doing tips/pointer videos for photography.

• I also use it for networking with models and clients or even friends with my photography. I save all of my edited photos to my iPhone so when I am out and about, when someone asks what I do, I just open up Photos and show them my work right from my phone – they look amazing on the new retina display! It really allows me to have a portfolio with me at all times. Such a perk in the industry! It’s like carrying my book with me in my pocket!

Then obviously the basics! Calendar for booking shoots/remembering what I have to do that day, and Email for keeping up with everything going on in my life in and outside of photography.

iPhone tip: Always keep it charged/charge every night! I use my iPhone so much, so my battery tends to go fast. I do have multiple chargers to make sure I am never without it. The iPhone really is my personal assistant. If it could only bring me coffee and water and move around lights, I wouldn’t need to hire my real assistant anymore!

Favorite apps: Safari, Calendar, Mail, Photos, Maps. These are my most important and all Apple created! Thank you Apple!

You can see some of Justin’s work at Justin Hammond Photography. Are you a photographer? If so, what apps do you use to help you with your job?

Does iPhone 4 support the iPad camera kit? Turns out no, at least not under iOS 4. I plugged mine in and immediately got the error you see above. Since I’ve gotten compatibility errors using other accessories in the past that turned out to work just find if I ignored said errors, I plugged in a camera to see if anything magical would happen.

It didn’t.

Whether or not Apple will chose to add that functionality in a future iOS software update, or if they’ve decided that, somewhere in their product differentiation matrix, iPhone is for creating photos and iPad is for consuming them via USB and SD card adapter, we’ll have to wait and see.

[Thanks Sina for asking!]

FlickStackr for iPad is a Flickr browsing application. The interface is beautiful, intuitive, and a pleasure to use.

With FlickStackr, you can browse photos on Flickr, even if you don’t have a Flickr account. If you do, then you can also browse your photostream, sets, favorites, groups, and contacts. FlickStackr also displays EXIF data, tags, and comments. The main feature that is missing from FlickStackr is the ability to upload photos. However, iPont promises to bring that ability in a future update.

In addition to the wonderful online photo viewing that FlickStacker brings to iPad, it also allows you to save photos locally for offline viewing. iPont calls this feature a “Stack”. You can choose any photos from Flickr to save to your stack. It only saves the actual images, however, not the EXIF data that’s associated with them.

FlickStackr is an excellent app for experiencing Flickr on the iPad, and for only $0.99, it’s quite a steal!

[$0.99 - iTunes Link]

Pros

• Browse photos from photostream, sets, contacts, groups, explore, or search
• View photos as slideshow
• No account required
• Support for multiple accounts
• Offline viewing in your “Stack”
• Wonderful interface

Cons

• Cannot upload photos
• Offline viewing does not include EXIF data

Video and Screenshots after the break!

Photogene is one of the top selling photography apps for iPhone and now we have that same great editing power, plus more, in Photogene for iPad [$3.99 - iTunes link].

Editing images with Photogene for iPad is pleasurable. The big screen allows you to really see the changes and the tools provided by Photogene are easy and intuitive to use.

• Enhance photos with multiple color adjustment: adjust color levels, exposure, contrast, saturation or manipulate the RGB.
• Apply filters such as the sharpen or the pencil filter.
• Crop, straighten and rotate your image.
• Add fun effects like text balloons, frames or special filters.

I have encountered a few minor bugs when using Photogene for iPad, but I trust that these will be fixed in a future update.

To see Photogene for iPad in action, follow us after the break!

Pro HDR [$1.99 -iTunes link] is a fantastic little app that brings “>high dynamic range photography to your iPhone. The way it works is simple; Pro HDR asks you to take a photo of a “dark” part of what you are taking a photograph of, then do the same for the “light” part. Next, the app takes the two images, aligns, straightens and blends them automatically to give you a final result; it is quite clever. You also have the ability to save the photo when done, email it and adjust the subject’s brightness, contrast, saturation and warmth.

If file size is important to you, you can change whether to save as full size or a lower resolution for your library or for email. Oh, and one more thing, you can take images from your library, you don’t need to take the pictures in real-time.

I was very pleased with the results of this $1.99 app and I am sure you will too. It is a lot easier than doing it yourself! To see some great examples of what this app can do, check out their gallery.

DSLR Camera Remote Professional Edition App Forum Review by llofte. For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!

DSLR Camera Remote Professional Edition [$19.99 - iTunes link] is a “the next-generation cable release” for your Canon or Nikon DSLR camera. With it you can trigger the shutter as well as change multiple settings, see through your camera’s viewfinder, and view images directly on your iPhone.

To use DSLR Camera Remote, you will need a computer, a USB cable that connects your camera to your computer, a Wi-Fi network (internet connection not required), and onOne’s free DSLR Camera Remote Server software installed on your computer.

The home screen has a big window that displays a photo or live view and your camera’s current settings. The six settings in the center are the ones you can remotely change: aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, quality, and exposure compensation. Just tap the setting you want to change and list of available options appear. Below these you will see what focus and exposure mode your camera is set to (you cannot change these remotely). If you are using a mode that is partially automatic, then you will not be able to adjust all settings. For example, in the screenshot above, you can see that I’m shooting with aperture priority, so the shutter speed is grayed out. In the center of the bottom toolbar, you will see how much hard drive space is available on your computer. The bottom right corner is the fire button to trigger to shutter and the bottom left corner is where you go to access more options.

Before I used DSLR Camera Remote, I was concerned that there was going to be a bit of a delay between tapping fire and my camera actually snapping the shot as this would be a major problem when shooting subjects like children or pets. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there is no noticeable delay. This is of course only true when not using LiveView mode. There is a significant delay when utilizing LiveView because your camera must first exit LiveView before taking the shot – not a fault of the app.

In situations where instantaneous shutter releases aren’t necessary, LiveView is awesome. From the home screen, the app displays exactly what you’d see by looking through your camera’s viewfinder; rotate to landscape for a larger view. After taking the shot, the app will display the photo for a few seconds before going back to LiveView. There is not a setting to change how long you see the preview for. If you have your camera set to autofocus, tapping the LiveView screen will focus. (Note that LiveView is only available on cameras that support it).

With LiveView disabled, you can swipe through all the photos saved in the chosen folder on your computer. Double tapping the photo will zoom in. Zooming in is nice in theory, but isn’t implemented well. It zooms in quite a bit and there isn’t a way to pan around the photo or change the magnification percentage. It’s easier to walk over to the computer and view the image there. You can zoom while in portrait or landscape, but you can only delete a photo from landscape – just tap and hold. Also from landscape you can trigger the shutter and access options.

Options

The intervalometer lets you take up to 999 shots anywhere from 1 second to 1 day apart. After choosing the desired interval and number of shots, just tap start

DSLR Camera Remote makes it easy to auto bracket. You can choose an exposure increment of ⅓ or a full stop and a total range between ⅓ and 5 stops above and below your current exposure. DSLR Camera Remote does the math for you and tells you how many shots will be included in your bracket given your chosen settings. You can also choose to lock shutter speed, aperture, or ISO speed and the delay between shots from 0 to 5 seconds. Once you’re ready to shoot your bracket, tap start.

Burst Mode lets you shoot 1 to 12 shots at your camera’s fastest rapid fire speed.

When turning on Live Preview, you will be given focusing options to choose from. Your choices depend on which camera you’re using. Refer your camera’s user manual if you aren’t sure what the options mean.

Conclusion

DSLR Camera Remote really is the “next generation cable release”. It’s biggest drawback is that you must have your camera connected to a computer. Since an actual internet connection is not required, you can create an ad-hoc network with your computer and communicate with your iPhone that way. This is a great workaround to the Wi-Fi requirement, but still needs a computer. I did see a glimmer of hope on onOne’s website about utilizing 3.0 to increase functionality:

Several people have asked if they can plug their iPhone directly into the camera’s USB port and control it this way. This is something we are actively investigating, but until the iPhone 3.0 update, third party developers like us don’t have any way to communicate through the iPod dock connector. In the future we hope to be able to add this support, we will keep you posted. They haven’t said anything more since 3.0 was released in June, so I hope that this is something they are still actively pursuing.

Regardless, DSLR Camera Remote is an excellent application as is and well worth the $19.99.

Pros

• Remotely control many settings and shutter release
• Immediately see photo taken
• Look through your camera’s viewfinder with LiveView
• Supports 16 Canon and 9 Nikon models
• Intervalometer and auto bracketting

Cons

• Zooming in on photo is limited
• Must have computer to use

TiPb Review Rating

(Photogene Forum Review by cjvitek For more Forum Reviews, see the TiPb iPhone App Store Forum Review Index!)

Photogene is an iPhone “touch up” utlity that can be used to touch up or enhance photos you take with your iPhone.

First, what Photogene isn’t. It isn’t simply a series of filters that you can apply to photos. There are lots of apps out there that can apply a huge range of filters (oil painting, cartoon, black and white, sepia, posterize, etc). I have reviewed a couple of them. This app does have a few filters, but it is more about touching up photos (fine-tuning them, if you will) rather than simply applying a filter to make it “art”.

When you start the app, you can choose to take a new photo, edit an existing phot, or continue a previous session. This last option is particularly nice, it means the app “remembers” where you were and what you were doing. If you get interrupted, you don’t need to start over. One cool little thing is when you start the app, a “tip of the week” appears about taking photos with the iPhone. Normally I don’t like tips that appear like this, but I like it here because the tip is specific to using the iPhone camera (not just a general photography tip).

I was using a general photo of some mosquito cages when testing this app. The touch up features include a crop option, rotate option, three filters, color adjust, symbols, and frames. When you finish with your editing, you can save the photo or start over (take a new photo or edit a new photo). There is an undo button to undo the last edit, but there isn’t a complete “reset” button to undo all adjustments. I would like to see that in a future release. So let’s talk about the touch up features.

With the crop feature, you can choose to crop it with a specific ratio (3:4, 9:16, etc). The area that will be cropped appears highlighted on the picture, and you can resize it or move it around. One nice thing is that as your resizing the crop, you can see the pixel size that the new image will be – very useful. You can’t do a free-form crop however.

The rotate allows you to rotate the picture by 90% or flip the picture on an axis. If your image is at an angle, you can also do some slight angle adjustments to make it level.

The app comes with three filters – sharpen, pencil, and effect (which includes sepia, night vision, or infrared (heat vision). With sharpen and pencil, you can adjust the level of effect as well. Pencil is sort of cool, making your picture look like a pencil drawing. But as I said, this app isn’t about having 30 filters – it is mostly about touching up photos to make them as nice as possible.

Next we move onto color adjustment. Here, you can see the color histogram and either adjust it manually or automatically for the best color image. You can also adjust the exposure, contrast, saturation, color temperature, as the actual RGB levels. These are, in my opinion, the best features of this app because this is the area that really helps you touch up a picture to optimal quality.

You can add symbols like stars, word ballons (with text), arrows – about 13 symbols in all. These aren’t anything really that help the picture, but they can make a picture a little more entertaining.

Lastly, you can add a frame – ranging from a “blurred” frame that doesn’t have a distinct edge to more tradition picture frames to a stamp border or photo album “taped on the corners” frame. There are about 15 frames in all to choose from.

Working on a couple sample pictures, I was able to make some nice adjustments and really make some of the pictures shine. You are still working within the limitation of the iPhone camera, so pictures that are outdoors or in bright light are going to be the best, but you can really enhance some pictures that you might have throught were lost. The features like frames and symbols aren’t really that necessary, and I would have preferred more filters instead of having those, but they can be fun to add to some pictures.

Pros:

• Touch up iPhone pictures to make them shine

Cons:

• Some features don’t really add anything,
• no ability to completely reset a picture

All in all, this is a good, all around photo touch up tool for the iPhone. Rather than just rely on applying filters, you can make some manual adjustments to thingsl ike saturation and exposure to try to bring out the best in your pictures. Some of the effects don’t really add anything to the picture quality, but they might be fun to include in some pictures. There is no way to remove all the touchups at one, however – you have to reset each feature individually. But the color adjust can really make a picture shine. The app is $2.99, so the price is great if you use the iPhone camera a lot. Four and a half out of five stars.

TiPb Forum Review Rating

[http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=309327900&mt=8">Photogene is available for $2.99 via the iTunes App Store]