Researchers in Germany have found a way to take old iPhones -- specifically an iPhone 5 -- and combine them with LEGO to make a DIY high-resolution microscope designed for young students.
Artist Jenny Lam has spent the last seven years capturing photos with her iPhone 5S, showcasing scenes from her life and travels as a Chinese American daughter of immigrants.
Director Sean Baker’s latest film, Tangerine, features two transgender prostitutes in Los Angeles on a hunt to find a cheating boyfriend. If that premise isn’t interesting enough to attract your interest, then consider how it was filmed: the movie had a budget of $100,000 and was filmed entirely using the iPhone 5.
While everybody was still speculating and chasing after rumors about the then unofficial iPhone 6, photographer Austin Mann was hopping a plane to Iceland with a 5S, 6 and 6 Plus in tow. His mission was to test these three phones out side-by-side and see if the major tech updates Apple made to the camera translate into real-world results.
Maybe you're sick of the "cartoonist/photographer/artist inserts fun characters or images into the real world using forced perspective" thing, and admittedly there have been a lot, but the video above is an example that falls very near the top of the genre's "best of" list.
Admit it, you've always wanted walk around a rainforest hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger using your cool thermal vision and shoulder cannon, and now you can... sort of. While the shoulder cannon is still pending, and your chances of getting Mr. Schwarzenegger to a rainforest of your choosing are slim, a new smartphone case dubbed the FLIR ONE will turn your iPhone into an awesome thermal camera of your own.
Although it can't compare to a quality camera, it's hard to deny that the iPhone is capable -- after all, we've seen NY Times cover photos, fashion shoots and even a professional portrait taken using an iPhone as the camera of choice.
Although cracking open your smartphone and possibly voiding the warranty is never a pleasant task, sometimes it's necessary. For example, YouTube handyman JerryRigEverything's friend recently dropped his iPhone 5 and started getting some serious dust buildup on his front and rear cameras.
In the above video, Jerry shows you how he opens up his friend's iPhone and performs a quick cleaning job on both cameras to get them shooting good as new. (Note: If you choose to try this at home, you do so at your own risk)
Take a look at that stock camera app on your iPhone. Does a fair job, doesn't it? Then SnappyCam Pro 3.0 lands on it and makes you realize how truly slow the stock app takes photos. For your reference, it's about 3-to-6 images per second at full resolution (assuming you're using an iPhone 5).
SnappyCam, on the other hand, is able to take 20 full-resolution images per second on the iPhone 5. You read that right, a whopping 20 frames per second. It's all thanks to John Papandriopoulos (who has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering) and his frustration with what he thought to be "inadequate" camera applications (we're looking at you, stock camera app).
Want to shoot photos using your smartphone from the hip, but don't want buy a MirrorCase? When photography enthusiast Angel Gonzales found himself in that situation recently, he decided to go the DIY route and make his own mirror case.
Remember the old ViewMaster toys? All you had to do was put in one of the special cartridges and you could go "sightseeing" in 3D. A new invention by entrepreneurs Ethan Lowry and Joe Heitzeberg harkens back to the old ViewMaster days, only instead of a cartridge, you have your iPhone -- and instead of just viewing 3D content, now you can capture it as well!
Nokia recently announced its new Lumia 928: a 8.7-megapixel PureView, Carl Zeiss, OIS-toting replacement for the already impressive Lumia 920 that will do its best to blow away the rest of the market in terms of image and video quality.
But in case words aren't enough, Nokia has also released the above video comparing the low-light video capability of the new Lumia with that of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5.
Part awesome party-trick, part brilliant idea, the new Cycloramic app from Egos Ventures is about the coolest thing you can get for one dollar on the iTunes app store at the moment. The app -- which will only work with the iPhone 5 -- triggers your phone's vibration at the exact right frequency to make it spin around in a perfect circle. Just stand your phone up, hit go, and keep an eye on your friend's faces (several reviewers called the reactions "priceless").
Last week we reported that Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am was planning to launch an iPhone attachment that would boost the phone's resolution to 14 megapixels. That launch happened today, and we have our first look at how the artist plans to turn iPhones around the world into more-formidable cameras.
An update on the iPhone 5 and "Purplegate": DPReview has published a pretty in-depth review of the iPhone 5 as a camera -- a review that has 1 of the 5 pages dedicated to examining the purple haze issue that has been widely discussed in recent days.
Remember this photograph tweeted last week by @weaksauce12? It shows the strange purple flaring reported by many iPhone 5 users, which is being called everything from "purple haze", to "the Hendrix effect", to "Purplegate". Fingers were pointed at everything from the phone's new sapphire lens to the infrared filter -- or supposed lack of -- inside.
If you were patently waiting for a fix, you'll be disappointed to know that there doesn't appear to be one on the horizon: Apple is saying that the excessive purple flaring behavior is "normal".
If you were thinking about buying the iPhone 5 as your primary carry-around camera, you might want to hold off on that. Reports are emerging that the camera suffers from purple flares when bright light sources are in or around the frame. Cult of Mac reports that iPhone 5 owners are taking to online forums to express their displeasure with this issue.
Instagram is in the process of pushing out version 3.1.0 of its photo sharing app. For iOS, the new version updates the app to be compatible with iOS 6 and the taller screen of the iPhone 5, doing away with the annoying gap that owners of the new phone have been seeing. While it's certainly a welcome improvement for Instagram devotees, seeing an app be updated for the new display isn't exactly a rare sight these days.
What's interesting is what the new update eliminates: live filters are gone.
We live in strange and exciting times in which phone camera photos can be compared side-by-side with top-of-the-line DSLR photos without anyone laughing (too hard). Having just gotten his hands on a shiny new iPhone 5, photographer Dustin Curtis decided to test out its camera's quality by pitting it against his Canon 5D Mark III (with a 50mm lens fixed at f/2.8).
iPhoneography has made some significant advancements in the past couple of weeks due to the launch of the iPhone 5 and the release of iOS 6. Here's a brief report on some of the interesting improvements and changes.
Here's something to give you a chuckle as we head into the weekend. It's a parody iPhone 5 commercial that pokes fun at the fact that the phone has been stretched out in height without any change in width. But instead of being 7% taller, the imagined phone stretches that figure out to 795%. The result is a device that has some pretty interesting photographic applications.
After announcing its new iPhone 5 yesterday, Apple published a gallery of full-res sample photos showing the updated camera's quality. Although the specs haven't really changed, Apple says that the updated sensor and processor leads to better photographs. What better way to test these claims than to compare resulting photos side by side?
Luckily for us, DPReview has the droids comparison we're looking for. When Apple's official sample images were posted yesterday, DPReview product manager Scott Everett realized that he had taken an iPhone 4S photo that was nearly identical to one of the images -- the one of the coastline in Big Sur, California.
Back in 2011, it was discovered that iPhones, iPods, and iPads running iOS 5 had a hidden panorama feature that was built into the operating system but not ordinarily available through the devices. Methods were discovered for unlocking the feature, which we all assumed was simply a half-baked feature that wasn't ready for release at the time.
It seems that Apple engineers have been busy polishing the feature in the 10 months since then, as the panorama feature was announced yesterday at the iPhone 5's unveiling. For those of you who are content with your iOS 5 device, here's some good news for you: iPhone 4S users will get the new panorama mode as well when iOS 6 is rolled out on September 19th, 2012.
Marketing and customer loyalty are two powerful things. They can make minor improvements in gadgets seem great, and major advancements to-die-for. In the world of photography, many camera owners feel strong allegiances to the brand they use, fiercely defending it as their own, and even going on the offensive to belittle other photographers who shoot under a different banner. This kind of customer loyalty does strange things to how the "fanboys" perceive the quality of their camera gear.
Earlier today, Apple announced its new iPhone 5, which features a camera that's nearly identical to the one found in the 4S. Soon after the announcement, Apple put up the official product page for the phone, which includes a gallery of sample photographs shot using the iPhone 5. Unfortunately, none of the shots show low-light environments, which would have allowed us to gawk at the power of the camera's new and improved noise-killing processor. For now, we'll just have to settle for these generic shots showing what the 3264×2448 images look like when they pop out of the camera.
Apple is on stage right now announcing its new iPhone 5, and has just revealed the details of the smartphone's camera. It's pretty much the same camera as the one found inside the iPhone 4S, except they made the whole thing "thinner" (the iPhone 5 is 18% thinner than its predecessor). You'll find a slightly improved backside-illuminated sensor that shoots the same 8-megapixel photos at 3264x2448 resolution, and the same 5-element lens with a f/2.4 aperture.
What would happen if Apple made a DSLR? Web video artist Adam Sacks thinks it would be a hit with iPhone users who use their phones for the sole purpose of taking pictures of food, applying filters to them, and then sharing them online. He created this humorous parody of an Apple commercial in which Greg Mansfield, the "Vice President of iPhone Product Design", introduces the iPhone 5. The new phone is reinvented as a DSLR to make everyone's life easier, and features a single app: Camera.
A new patent application by Apple is showing off some of the technology …
Here’s a bit of photo humor to start off the day: Jeremiah Warren …
What you see here may be the first leaked photograph shot with the upcoming iPhone 5. The EXIF data claims it was shot with the iPhone 4, but other EXIF details indicate otherwise. Although the leaked image was cropped, the original size of the image was 3264x2448 (roughly 8MP), the rumored resolution found on the next iPhone. The lens info was recorded as "4.3mm f/2.4", more similar to a point-and-shoot than then 3.85mm f/2.8 lens found on the iPhone 4. Finally, the geotag info in the photo shows it was taken at 37.33216667,-122.03033333 -- the location of Apple's headquarters. Check out the full-res file with EXIF intact here.