About a week ago rumors of an iPhone app that could shoot in RAW format raged across the Internet. The app in question, the 645 PRO by developer Jag.gr, was to be the first camera app for the iPhone to achieve this feat. And although by all accounts the app is a very impressive and useful app, it turns out that shooting in true RAW isn’t among its features.
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iPhone photography app Hipstamatic was the king of retro filters before Instagram came along and stole its crown. Now, the developers are hoping to capitalize on the retro photo app craze with a new idea: delivering a disposable camera experience on an iPhone. Pocket-lint reports,
Hipstamatic D-Series is set to bring back the film feel to your digital photography by preventing you from actually looking at your pictures the second after you’ve snapped them. Working like an old disposable camera, you have to finish all 24 shots before it’ll let you go back and review how they all came out. Sounds crazy to begin with but try not to think about coming almost full circle and it might just be crazy enough to work.
“It’s an opportunity to bring back the idea that you have this roll of film and you shoot with it, and you think about what you’re seeing in the moment, more so than snapping a photo and looking at it, deleting it or taking another one,” said Lucas Buick [founder of Hipstamatic]. [...] “It really is a completely different way to experience photography that a lot of people have forgotten about, but it wasn’t so long ago that people don’t remember it, and that’s the key.”
So basically, it’s an app that restricts its users — like an app that only lets people shoot in black and white. While it may sound like a lame idea to the general population, the market for this type of thing (e.g. hipsters) might just be big enough for it to attract a following. They do have one thing going for them though: the app will be free once its released later this month.
(via Pocket-Lint via VentureBeat)
Image credit: Hipstamatic Projekt IV. Chunky + Cano Cafenol by Zé.Valdi
Today Instagram released version 2.0 of its wildly popular iPhone app, which will soon see its 10 millionth user. The base technology has been completely overhauled to bring speed to the app — filters now apply 200x faster, tilt-shift applies 100x faster, and both can be viewed live while shooting. Four new filters have been introduced (seen above), and borders on filters are now optional. Finally, the resolution of photos saved to the iPhone 4 has been increased from 612×612 to 1936×1936 (the size of photos uploaded to Instagram remains unchanged).
Noticeably absent from today’s announcement was an Android version of the app, though with this major release you can bet that they’re working harder than ever on getting it released.
Instagram Version 2.0 (via Instagram via TechCrunch)
What if every photograph included a short video showing the few seconds that led up to the shutter being pressed? That’s the idea behind a new free iPhone app called GLMPS (pronounced “glimpse”). It’s a camera app that stores a few seconds of video with each shot, letting users share the background behind each picture (try clicking the photo above). Unlike normal iPhone photos, displaying a GLMPS photo/video requires a special embed code, make it somewhat inconvenient to share. Wouldn’t it be interesting if short videos could be stored in the metadata of photographs taken by all digital cameras? Seems kinda farfetched, but it might be possible as technology progresses.
Mobile photo sharing star Instagram just announced its 5 millionth member and will soon pass 100 million photos, but their domination of the market may not last much longer. According to TechCrunch, Facebook — a service that receives 6 billion photos a month and stores 100 billion photos total — is currently working on a feature-packed iPhone app that may soon be ubiquitous on iPhones.
The information comes from 50MB of images and documents leaked to the blog, and TechCrunch says that the app can be described as Path meets Instagram meets Color meets With. Unlike the legions of photo sharing apps struggling to capture users, Facebook can simply tap its 600+ million users to instantly dominate the market — much like it did with photo sharing on the web.
Update: TechCrunch has just published a large number of screenshots showing the app in action.
There are plenty of iPhone apps that mimic the look of vintage analog photography, but what about retro video game photography? “8-Bit Pocket Camera” is a new app that is designed to mimic the style of the Game Boy Camera, which became pretty popular on playgrounds in the late 90s. In addition to the 8-bit photos, the user interface will surely cause some serious nostalgia. You can pick up the app for $1 over in the iTunes App Store.
3D Photo is hardly a useful app, but it’s a fun way to play with the camera on your iPhone. What it does is map your photographs onto geometric shapes, giving them a pseudo-3D effect by allowing you to move the shapes and view them from different perspectives. You can find it for $1 in the iTunes store.
(via John Nack)
Cameras usually hide what it’s shooting from you when the sensor is capturing light, so you can’t watch slow shutter speed photographs as they’re being shot. Magic Shutter is an app for the iPhone that shoots these long exposure using the camera’s video feed, which allows you to see the photograph as its being “developed” on the screen.
Due to limitations Apple places on video resolution, this app currently only spits out low res images (though an update with 1MP photos is coming soon). If you want to play with it you can find it for $3 in the iTunes store.
Magic Shutter (via Wired)
There seems to be a growing trend of professional photographers teaming up with developers to create the “ultimate” photography application for the iPhone. In September 2009, photographer Chase Jarvis teamed up with Ubermind to create The Best Camera, an ecosystem that revolves around the Best Camera iPhone application.
Now, Lisa Bettany of MostlyLisa.com has partnered with Taptaptap to create Camera+, an “ultimate” photo app that aims to upgrade your iPhone photography. Development of the application took over a year. Here’s a sample photograph posted on the website:
The app, priced at $2.99 like Best Camera, includes features such as a stabilizer and dozens of 1-touch effects to enhance your photos. Here’s a short video in which Bettany introduces the application:
If you decide to try out the app, let us know how you like it!
Streetmuseum is a new (and free) augmented reality iPhone app created by the Museum of London that allows you to browse historical photographs in various parts of the city.
The app leads you to various locations around London using either the map or GPS. Once you’re there, click the “3D View” button, and the app will recognize the location and overlay the historical photograph over the live video feed of the real world, giving you a brief glimpse into how the past looked.
We’ve seen projects that overlaid historical photos over modern ones, but this is the first time we’ve seen an augmented reality app do it for you in real time. Here are a few more examples:
If only this were available in every big city around the world.
