Hipsta-Tilt

Posted by dkrashb on March 6, 2013

Looking down the walkway in the park and across the river at the Tennessee Aquarium

I learned one of the limitations of shooting with an iPhone using an app like Hipstamatic, which applies all of the edits as you shoot: fixing tilt doesn’t work out so well. Because the effects applied to the images include a noticeable border, when I tried to straighten some of the images, I ended up with a crooked border.

Hipstamatic doesn’t have a level (or at least I haven’t found it) that appears in the screen like some apps. When I’m shooting a scene with lots of angles and curves, I have a hard time telling when I’m level and when I’m not. Sometimes I suspect I walk around at an angle.

I really want to love the image below, but in order to get the bridge piers straight, I ended up with some weird looking edges. Notice the upper left hand corner compared to the right hand and how weird the lower right edge looks. It really bugs me.

Bridge, clouds, steam boat, water taxi house–what more could I ask for? Maybe a level.

The historic Walnut St pedestrian bridge in the background and the equally historic Delta Queen in the foreground with the little water taxi house/dock hovering over the water in front of it seemed like the perfect subject for tintype. I’m starting to visualize me walking around with my iPhone in its Lifeproof case with a level glued to it. That won’t look odd at all.

Tisen does not like Hipstamatic. He probably doesn’t know this about himself. None-the-less, his favorite part of photography is when I am sitting on the sofa with the laptop in my lap doing post-processing of the images and he is curled up next to me.

Looking up the street next to Market St bridge

Hipstamatic reduced my post-processing to 5 minutes since I discovered doing much to the images besides adjusting levels was rather destructive. That means less cuddle time for Tisen.

Unless, of course, it’s a Sunday morning, in which case it means setting aside my laptop sooner and giving him my undivided attention for an extra 20 minutes. In that case, he probably likes Hipstamatic a lot.

The Delta Queen peeps from behind Market St bridge

However Tisen feels about Hipstamatic, he’s definitely been enjoying cuddling. I’m not sure if it’s because the weather has been colder of late or if he’s just discovered the joys of being covered, but he suddenly needs to root under any available blanket. This started when the weather was warmer, but he only wanted his head covered then. We thought he was trying to block the light so he could nap more soundly.

Now, he burrows underneath until more or all of him is covered. After a few minutes, he starts sounding like he’s wheezing and we move the blanket so at least his nose is exposed, worried that he’s not getting enough oxygen. He often raises his head out from under the blanket and blinks at us as if he’s either confused or annoyed–or maybe both–when we do this. But his breathing quiets and he keeps his head uncovered, so I’m thinking we’re doing the right thing.

Uh, honey? Have you seen the dog?

Hipstamatic Hype

Posted by dkrashb on March 5, 2013

Hipstamatic stores the settings used with each image! Tinto 1884 Lens and Ina’s 1982 Film. Interesting blur effect.

Here’s a statistic for you: in 30 minutes, I took 36 shots with my Hipstamatic app on my iPhone. That’s while walking around a park with a dog (who was not exactly helpful when it came to setting up shots) by myself.

After shooting, I spent about 5 minutes on post-processing the photos making only a few slight adjustments to a few of the images. I ended up with 15 images I liked well enough to share on my blog and 4 I’m seriously considering hanging on my wall (we’ll see how they look in print).

So, in 35 minutes, I netted 15 shareable images. Comparatively, on our Christmas hike, hand-holding my DSLR and using only 1 lens, I took 165 shots in about 5 hours, spent at least another hour on post-processing, and netted 35 shareable images and none I would consider hanging on my wall. That’s nearly 2 minutes per shot.

In total, I invested over 10 minutes per shareable image with my DSLR compared to over 3 minutes per shareable image with Hipstamatic. Hmm . . .

Of course, I’m not ready to stop using my DSLR–the images I got with my DSLR are higher quality and better technically. I just don’t decide what to hang on my wall based on those criteria.

Sunbeams suddenly make their way through the clouds

One of the big challenges I discovered on my meander through the park is the bright sunlight problem. This is a universal problem for LCD display screens–you can’t see them in bright light. I literally held the phone up completely blind and tried to guess if I was pointing at the bridges at a good angle. While I might have framed the sun beams differently had I been able to see them, I was pretty impressed with the images.

Maybe not quite the framing I would have chosen, but not bad for shooting blind

That is one of the huge advantages of a camera with a view finder: you can see what’s in the frame no matter how much sunlight there is. Although, supposedly pointing the lens directly at the sun puts you in danger of damaging your eyes. That might explain why my vision seems to be failing.

Trail of Tears sculpture shot from observation pier

I love the trail of tears sculpture in the tintype settings in Hipstamatic. I also like it shot from this position–I’ve shot it from the other side many times, but this is the first time I incorporated the observation pier in front of it. The pole for the security cameras in the background doesn’t really work for me, but maybe I’ll see if it’s possible to remove that from the image without messing up the look.

Tisen ready to go sniff elsewhere

Tisen quickly lost patience while I was shooting at the end of the observation pier overlooking the river. I guess there weren’t any interesting scents on the pier to keep him entertained. He kept picking up on scents he needed to run to check out each time I was pushing the shutter button. I really need to provide better on-the-job training if he’s going to be my assistant.

Getting Hip to Hipstamatic

Posted by dkrashb on March 4, 2013

The aquarium takes on a whole new (old?) look in Hipstamatic

I did some searching on what other people are doing with their iPhones. I’ve been following Davide Capponi’s blog for quite a while now; he demonstrates that it’s possible to create art with the iPhone.

For now, I’m not after art so much as just discovering what’s achievable for people who don’t want to be photographers. I’ll worry about the next level when . . . well, when I’m ready for the next level.

This modern park shot with retro effects seems like an anachronism

I decided to further explore the Hipstamatic app. I found a blog post by photo journalist Antonio Olmos; he shares inspiring street images shot with Hipstamatic in Derry, Northern Ireland.

I learned Hipstamatic creates effects based on three components: the “film” you choose, the “lens” you choose, and the “flash” you choose (if you use flash). Basically, it mimics the effects of retro equipment in software. I also discovered that while it comes with one package of lens, film, and flash choices, you can purchase more for $.99 a pack.

A relatively uninteresting scene takes on a completely different character in tintype

I decided to start by imitating. I purchased the pack that included the lens and film options used by Antonio Olmos (at least, I thought they were the same).

On my next walk with Tisen through our daily haunt, I went armed with the Hipstamatic app set with what I thought was the Helga lens and the c-type Tintype film. Somewhere along the line, I ended up with the D-Type film and some other lens. This may have been because a) I was holding the phone and Tisen’s leash in the same hand, and b) Hipstamatic has a feature that randomly selects settings if you shake the camera.

This sculpture/structure seems like a good fit for the tintype effect

A few words about using Hipstamatic.

First, I left the app on the entire time I was walking and discovered my iPhone 4S battery died after only 30 minutes. This was the shortest period of time my phone ever lasted. I need to upgrade iOS, which might help, but I suggest turning off the screen (by pressing the button on top of the phone until the screen goes dark) when not shooting. On the plus side, Hipstamatic did not lose any of my images when the phone shutdown unexpectedly.

Tisen rolls for the camera

Second, the Hipstamatic mimics medium-format film, which, in a word, is square. Having practiced viewing the world through a rectangle for many years now, I found this disconcerting. For example, I kept looking at the scene and making decisions like, “I think I’ll shoot that vertically so I can get some sky.”

In fact, I turned my phone vertically on several occasions, feeling rather foolish by the third time I made that mistake. I mentally smacked my forehead and said out loud, “Oh yeah, it’s a SQUARE!” Tisen seemed perplexed by my commentary, but he’s pretty used to me talking to myself by now.

Third, some images have vignetting (in this case, dark corners) and some don’t. Sometimes it occurs in the top two corners, sometimes only one. I haven’t quite figured out what causes the variability.

Finally, even Tisen looks nostalgic using this combination of settings in the app. While the effect is fun, the one thing I don’t like about Hipstomatic is you get what you get. You can’t undo the tintype effect and try something else.

I like the tintype effect on the clouds in particular

Photo Apptitude

Posted by dkrashb on March 3, 2013

Tisen takes a roll in a brief beam of sunlight on an otherwise gray day

While I was experimenting with iPhone camera apps yesterday, I also decided to try out two photo editing apps recommended by elessar78 (aka, a friend of mine and a far better photographer). I also included Hipstamatic in the category of “photo editing” because the output from this app always has effects applied to it.

The unedited version used with Photoforge and Snapseed

For ease of use, Hipstamatic gets a gold star. Although, I did not find it intuitive to figure out how to get different effects. I shot this image with the settings it had for that reason. I will have to play more with this app to figure out what else it will do–I wasn’t too impressed with the effect I got with the current settings.

Hipstamatic shot without changing any settings

Snapseed was, in fact, a snap. It had the advantage that I could apply different adjustments to an unaltered photo, meaning I could get many different looks from one shot instead of, like Hipstamatic, getting one set of adjustments that can’t be undone or redone differently. The disadvantage, of course, is that you take the photo with one app and then do the editing in a separate app, which may be more than the average iPhone shooter wants to deal with.

Snapseed edited using black and white slider and texture effects

To create this version of the image, I changed it to black and white and then used the very simple slider to make it slightly less black and white, allowing some of the color to remain. This is the same effect using a saturation slider has, but it was easier and more intuitive for someone who doesn’t normally do any photo editing.

Photoforge has many more editing tools than Snapseed and may, for that reason, be less appealing to the photo-editing-fobes of the world. I stuck with only one menu of tools (filters) and played with some of the adjustments to get this very dark version of the image.

I like the way the detail in the weaving under the vase pops in this edit as well as the strong contrast between the light and dark areas. I also like that the background went to black and left only a partial reflection of the vase in the mirror.

Imaged edited with Photoforge

The best feature of Photoforge that I used was the undo button. It allowed me to try whatever adjustment I wanted and then undo it if I didn’t like it.

A fun aspect of doing photo editing on the iPhone is that, because I use the Apple iCloud service that syncs all devices via the internet, once I saved my edited versions, they automatically showed up in my Aperture photostream on my laptop. I could have done further adjusting in Aperture easily, although I didn’t for the sake of comparing effects from the apps themselves.

Tisen remains unimpressed by technology. All he wants to know is when I will stop playing with my phone and take him for a walk. I obliged. Although the photo of Tisen was actually taken the next day–more on that later.

Appventure

Posted by dkrashb on March 2, 2013

My silly boy “awesomized” by Camera!

I tried a little experiment comparing the collection of iPhone photography apps I have. I picked a vase sitting on a dresser in front of a mirror for a subject instead of trying to capture my rambunctious dog whose immediate reaction to having any form of a camera pointed at him is to either run towards me or start turning his head back and forth.

I learned some lessons I didn’t expect to learn from this test. First, no metadata is captured in the photos that identifies which app was used to take them. This made it difficult to identify which photos were taken with which app. Maybe when someone starts paying me to test iPhone photo apps I’ll do that.

“Awesomized” image from Camera! app (using their built-in editing)

While I did my best to reconstruct this (and in some cases it was obvious), I can’t guarantee I’ve accurately matched unedited photos with apps. I did, however, do editing one photo at a time so I could keep track.

Another surprise lesson was that some apps don’t save the image you’ve created automatically. HDR Pro was one that I tested, but then lost the image when I tried to find it after the fact. Same problem with Camera Plus. Or else I just couldn’t find the images because of the aforementioned problem.

Camera+ edited version using the black and white slider to make it not quite black and white–also darkened

Tisen did not, as usual, enjoy my photographic experiment. He started out lying in his bed at my feet undoubtedly thinking I was there for the purpose of giving him a belly rub. When I ignored him, he decided to try ignoring me and moved into the living room. When this didn’t result in me following him to the living room, he came back in to check on what in the heck I was doing.

I made amends by taking a few shots of him when I was done with my test. He seemed grateful enough for the attention to hold relatively still.

Here is my summary:

I tested 5 Apps: The iPhone default camera app, Camera+, Camera!, Hipstamatic, Pro HDR and Camera Plus. Since I lost the photos from Pro HDR and Camera Plus and Hipstamatic is more of an “instant photo editing” app than an enhanced camera, I haven’t included images from those two.

There is little difference in the quality of the unedited image from one app to the next with the exception of the Camera! app. This may be because I turned on image stabilization in this app. That feature does make a difference.

Camera+ Version

“Image Stabilized” shot from Camera!

The default camera app on the iPhone

The experience of getting the image is made harder or easier by the overlays available for framing the image. I like the Golden Rule overlay in Camera! the best.

The exposure control in Camera+ is minimal and I found it takes quite a bit more time to adjust the exposure and then have to reframe the subject because the act of changing the exposure causes me to move the camera all over the place.

Frankly, I think a tripod might help more than an app.

IPhone Dogs

Posted by dkrashb on March 1, 2013

Black and white in black and white

Since I worked too late to have time to do much experimenting with either my iPhone or my DSLR tonight, I decided it was a good time to review photos taken with my iPhone and determine its limitations and advantages.

I decided to pick only iPhone photos of Tisen and/or Twiggy, Tisen’s friend who sometimes stays with us. When we run into Twiggy in the park, Tisen bounds up to her like he can’t believe how long it’s been since he’s seen her. She seems less excited to see him.

Tisen is holding still; I am not

The first challenge with using a camera phone is stability–or, rather, lack there of. This results in many slightly blurry images. I believe there are several causes of the motion blur that occurs in so many of the shots that would otherwise be adorable:

Hand holding the phone far from the body (and sometimes in awkward positions) while looking at the screen to see the shot
Slow shutter speeds that cannot be controlled
Delay in firing that often results in a dog going from standing/sitting/lying still to a dog in motion by the time the camera actually takes the shot.

An adorable puppy pile, except the blown out whites on Tisen and the blur from motion

I will have to experiment more with the rapid fire mode in the Camera+ to see if that helps at all. With my DSLR, rapid fire mode helps to capture many images shot very quickly, increasing the odds that at least one of them will be sharp. Of course, with my DSLR, I can control the shutter speed to help stop motion as well.

Haze from the light at the right

The second challenge relates to shooting in lower light situations. I have taken to using the “flash” feature in my iPhone camera quite a bit when shooting Tisen and/or Twiggy. This helps with the motion blur issues as well as the problem of a camera with a tiny sensor. However, that introduces more issues:

The whites on Tisen’s face are blown out from the flash

In low light, photos become grainy and any motion is captured whether you want it to be or not.
Using the flash often blows out the highlights; they cannot be recovered in the software I have and result in having to choose between blown out highlights and gray patches.
Background light seems to create a great deal of haze, often leaving an otherwise sharp subject looking blurry.

The sun light on the left side creates a hazy effect

The depth of field is quite amazing, however. Although Twiggy’s head is blurred because she was moving, notice how the rug is sharp all the way to the front edge of the frame and Tisen is also sharp far in the background.

Sharp from front to back, except for Twiggy’s moving head

So, I need to work on finding a way to hold the camera more steady. I also need to work on controlling lighting. This is a bit counter-intuitive for me. After all, I usually shoot with my iPhone because it’s the most convenient camera I have handy when something i want to capture is happening. Usually with the dogs. Trying to get light on my subject would likely result in him running away. We shall see . . .

Still pups but more motion blur from unsteady hand holding

Finding Flowers

Posted by dkrashb on February 28, 2013

Purple Deadnettle–an early bloomer

Yesterday, while walking Tisen through the park, I noticed things were starting to bloom. Not big things, but tiny little things and, of course, dandelions. Since I haven’t shot outdoors much lately, I thought I’d try seeing how well my image stabilization works on my 100mm macro lens and try hand-holding some macro shots of these blooms.

Since I was hand holding while holding a dog, I decided to forego extension tubes. These cut down the light by a couple of stops when I use all three–less light means slower shutter speeds, which leads to more blur when hand holding.

Bright spots

I am still enamored with dandelions. Their big, bright blooms light up the mostly dead grass like tiny suns. They make a gray day seem cheerful. They also seem to promise spring is right around the corner. I wish they would let the weather service know–they keep talking about 20 degree weather coming our way. I really thought we were past that.

The other things blooming weren’t flowers I knew. I did a little searching online and determined that these are Purple Deadnettle:

Apparently most of the stuff blooming in February is non-native. I guess that’s how it got so widespread–by starting early.

A similar bloom was in another section of the park. I believe this is Henbit Deadnettle:

The last flower in this small collection was a complete mystery to me. From my searching, I believe it is Harbinger-of-Spring, which, happily, is a native wildflower:

I really needed extension tubes and a tripod to get a good shot of this one.

I don’t think Tisen liked any of the flowers. He kept peeing on them. Fortunately, not while I was shooting them. That would have made for an interesting action shot!

Henbit Deadnettle from the side

Tisen seems to think it’s fine for him to stop and sniff whenever and for however long he likes, yet he gets impatient when I stop to shoot. He was particularly unhappy when I spotted the Harbinger-of-Spring and had to back up so I could get a shot. He was very focused on getting to the next good scent.

More purple deadnettle

Once many weeks ago, when Tisen was particularly involved in snorting every last particle of scent off a tree trunk, a man walked by and said, “Catching up on all the good gossip!” That’s the perfect description of what Tisen was doing.

In any case, I found myself struggling against the pull of Tisen against the leash I was holding while shooting. Between Tisen tugging and the wind blowing, I had many a blurry shot. However, I was pretty impressed with the image stabilization. Without it, I doubt I would have gotten any sharp shots at all given that I was shooting at 1/60 sec or slower for all but one of these images.

Clearly, I needed something much faster to catch Tisen while he played with Pink Dog (borrowed from his girlfriend, Twiggy):

Tisen is a blur at 1/50 of a second

Mini Still Life

Posted by dkrashb on February 27, 2013

Side-lit, the decoration on a bobby pin takes on lots of shine

Here I am on a Tuesday night. It’s Chinese take out night. We’ve gotten our food, returned home, eaten (sans fortune cookies because I forgot to grab some on the way out and they never put them in the bag at this place), and it’s theoretically time to unwind and relax for the rest of the evening.

This, of course, translates to “time to write my blog” for me. And, the realization that I have no pictures from the weekend causes me to scratch my head. I ponder what I can possibly do for a photographic experiment tonight. I decide to try something I’ve never tried before: macro with flash.

But now, I need something to shoot. Something small. Really small.

The snoot produces less sparkle

My eyes fall on the fluffy area rug in the living room. It has lots of great texture, but I want something shiny with the flash.

I end up digging a couple of bobby pins out of my jewelry box and positioning them with some black glass beads on the carpet. I find a hand-shaped hair-dryer diffuser and decide it will add some background color.

Laid back view of the flower–not as sharp at this angle

I start with a snoot on the flash to see what happens when I use it to direct the light onto the subject (a snoot is like a narrow tube around the flash). After shooting with a snoot for a while, I decide the light looks flat and I should try bouncing the flash off of something instead. The trouble is, what to bounce it off of? I’m in the middle of a large room shooting something that’s about a half an inch wide.

Straight on with the snoot has the least sparkle

I pull out my mini reflector and position my tripod in such a way that I can get it to stand up. I’m so proud of myself, I have to take a picture of my setup. This gives me the opportunity to practice iPhone photography in the same shoot!

I’m over-the-top-excited now. I use the new app I downloaded yesterday, Camera+, and try to make use of the levels on the screen to get something reasonably straight. I don’t know how to tell if I succeeded or not from all the angles in the image, however.

My setup for the side-lit image at the top

As you may be able to tell, my DSLR has 3 extension tubes on it in addition to the 100mm macro lens. I’ve got the flash swiveled to the right to bounce off the reflector hanging on the tripod. For those of you who don’t care about the setup, can you find the subject of the other images? Pretty small, huh?

I had a lot of fun with this. I don’t know exactly why I find this fun, but I do. However, Tisen wasn’t so amused by my shenanigans. At one point, I had my tripod with the legs stretched out flat on the floor, he came over and laid on top of one of the legs. Maybe he was just trying to help?

A blurry Tisen with a stuck lip–a sure sign he jerked his head up from a cat nap

iPhone Couch Potato

Posted by dkrashb on February 26, 2013

Close-up of dinner, which happened to be in my lap

In a moment of desperation, after realizing I had no photos for this post and it was already after 9PM, and, more importantly, I had already crashed on the sofa and Tisen had burrowed in next to me, I decided it was a good time to experiment with my iPhone.

Recently, my bestie suggested writing a “how-to” on taking better photos with a smart phone for people like her.

I like the idea of teaching photography, although I’m not a pro and I have much to learn. The thought of teaching photography in simple non-technical terms for people who don’t want to be pros relieves some of the pressure.

The problem is, I rarely use my iPhone for photos. And when I do, my photos usually suck. So, I figured I could use a few lessons myself.

The problem with shooting blind is not knowing what ended up in the frame until after the shot has been taken

I did some googling on taking better photos with an iPhone over the weekend. I didn’t find much that was particularly helpful. Most the articles I found either provided tips that apply to any photography or mentioned changing settings I couldn’t figure out how to change. I tried searching for camera apps to see what I was missing. I did find an interesting app that provides some control of the exposure and has a setting that turns the LED on so you can see what’s in your frame before you shoot in the dark. I couldn’t however, find the advertised pre-sets for different types of subjects.

It’s funny how I used to figure out how to do really confusing and technical things and now I suddenly can’t figure out how to work iPhone apps. Am I getting old?

Tilt and yaw created a bad angle, although you can at least see that Tisen has his nose covered

In any case, I attempted to do some couch potato shooting. I was parked laptop in lap and dog at my side–it’s hard to get motivated to get up sometimes.

I think I figured out why I usually end up hating my iPhone shots:

I frequently use the iPhone to take shots I would never attempt with my DSLR. For example, holding my iPhone out at arm’s length and trying to get a portrait of Tisen while shooting in a dark room (which means I have to have the screen facing away from me for the “flash” to work and I am shooting completely blind).
I have a very difficult time holding the iPhone straight in all 3 directions (or even 1 direction) because I have to hold it away from me to view the screen since there is no viewfinder. I frequently try many times to get the angle I want and still don’t quite get it.
I haven’t found anything that let’s me control depth of field. I really miss controlling depth of field.

Top down view of Tisen cuddling against my leg, showing off his spotted head

That said, the photographer’s adage is “the best camera is the one you have with you” and there is a lot to be said for smart phone cameras when it comes to having them with you–even when you’re just laying around on the sofa.

Taken with the app I just downloaded, with the LED on, I’m able to get better exposure

Finding Fun

Posted by dkrashb on February 25, 2013

Pink clouds capture my attention when I glance out the window

We agreed to do something fun this weekend. However, we didn’t agree on what we would do. I, of course, wanted to go hiking. My husband, however, wanted to do something that wasn’t physical because his ankle has been bothering him. Given that I can’t argue with an injury, I contemplated what we could possibly do that would not be physically demanding, but that could include Tisen.

I suggested we take a drive to Atlanta to go to IKEA, something we had planned to do a month or so ago, but ended up not doing.

The pink streaks reach all the way to the view directly in front of us, which is almost due North

IKEA is one of those places that always sounds great to me. Lots of cool, clever, and affordable concepts to make a home more livable. And, we could use some shelving and lighting, etc. in our new place.

So, we loaded Tisen up in the car about mid-morning Saturday and off we went. The drive to Atlanta is not nearly as scenic as the drive to Nashville. There is no IKEA in Tennessee, however, so Atlanta was the closest choice. We made one stop for a fast-food lunch. It occurred to me that if we’re going to do a road trip, we should start planning our route based on enjoyable, healthier restaurants. It’s just no fun to eat fast food.

Once we made it to IKEA, by the time we found a parking spot and through the front door, I was ready for a nap. Have I mentioned I hate to shop? I don’t know why I always think going to IKEA is going to be fun. I’ve been to about 3 IKEAs now and I always have the same experience: I start out excited by the idea; then, as soon as we walk in the door, I feel exhausted and overwhelmed by choices. By the time we get about a quarter of the way through the first show room, I am practically shoving people out of the way because I can’t get through there fast enough.

The light eventually fades, leaving only a faint glow between the clouds and the ridge

The further we get into the store, the more my desire to leave increases. All I can think about it how much I don’t want to be there.

We did make it out of the store without inciting a riot. We immediately used my iPhone to find the closest park. We found a lovely little park in the middle of a nearby neighborhood and took Tisen for a loop around it. I felt human again afterwards.

Able to breathe again, we returned to the car and drove the nearly two hours back home.

We not only failed to do something fun, but we also ended up walking further than my husband intended.

On the plus side, we spent some quality time together in the car. And, later that day, there was a nice sunset partially viewable from our balcony.

I decided to do a short time lapse “video” of the clouds blowing through as the sun went down and the light faded away.

Tisen and his infamous purple monkey

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