Photographer Lisa Bettany has an interesting post over at Camera+ comparing the iPhone 4S camera to the cameras on each of the previous versions (and a couple other cameras as well). It's an interesting look at how much cell phone cameras have improved since the original iPhone was announced at the beginning of 2007.
We've shared before that the Canon 5D Mark II was used for scenes in Captain America and Iron Man 2, but if you think that's crazy, get this: the upcoming movie 'The Avengers', which features an entire team of Marvel superheros, contains scenes shot with the iPhone 4. The movie's cinematographer Seamus McGarvey tells IFTN, …
Casetagram is a service that makes custom iPhone cases using Instagram photographs. The case comes in four different templates, and cost $35 each with free shipping worldwide.
The latest version of Android, called "Ice Cream Sandwich", was unveiled by Google and Samsung in Hong Kong this morning, and they've focused a great deal on improving the gallery and camera aspects of the mobile OS. There is indeed built-in photo editing now, allowing users to do everything from crop and rotate to adjust levels and remove red eyes. There are also a number of Instagram-style filters that can be applied to photos. Adjustments are non-destructive and stored in a file separate …
Earlier today we shared an interesting video comparing 1080p video shot with the iPhone 4S with footage from a Canon 5D Mark II. Here's another short video demonstrating the quality of the new f/2.4 lens and Sony-made sensor, created by photographer and filmmaker Benjamin Dowie. He says, …
The 4th version of Android, named Ice Cream Sandwich, is set to be released sometime in the next month or so. If you've been craving for a built-in photo editor, you may soon get your wish. Android Police has uncovered a boatload of icons and images that strongly suggest that future Android phones and tablets will ship with photo editing tools built into Android Gallery. In addition to basic tools such as crop, sharpen, and rotate, there will apparently be 19 different photo effects you can …
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, …
One of the main reasons Apple has been so successful as a tech company is its focus on usability. Even as competitors' smartphones screens are approaching tablet screen sizes, Apple has stuck with 3.5-inches -- an optimal size for operating the phone with one hand. John Gruber of Daring Fireball just published his review of the iPhone 4S today, and writes that Apple focused on speed as one of the main improvements featured in the iPhone 4S camera: …
A team of researchers at UC Davis have come up with a super-cheap way of turning an iPhone into a microscope -- useful for diagnosing diseases in areas where medical equipment is hard to come by. Inspired by the CellScope project at UC Berkeley, Sebastian Wachsmann-Hogiu decided to create something even smaller and cheaper. By taping a 1-millimeter ball lens embedded in a rubber sheet to the iPhone, he was able to boost magnification by 5x, which allows the camera to photograph blood cells.
After Apple founder Steve Jobs passed away yesterday, the company replaced its homepage with a well-known photo of the brilliant innovator made in 2006 by photographer Albert Watson. An article published by PDN Pulse today reveals the story behind the (perhaps soon to be iconic) photo: …
Apple has just announced its new iPhone 4S, and the new camera found on the phone is pretty impressive. It packs an 8MP (3264x2448) CMOS sensor that's backside-illuminated, allowing it to gather 73% more light and capture images 33% faster. The lens is now an f/2.4 lens that contains 5 separate elements, which provide 30% more sharpness. Snapping a first shot now takes 1.1 seconds, and subsequent shots require only an addition .5 seconds each.
Instagram released a new update today in response to user complaints regarding the filter differences in Version 2.0. Version 2.0.1 features rewritten Earlybird and Branna filters that act much more like their Version 1 counterparts (they were "accidentally altered" in V2). The company also acknowledges that other filters were intentionally changed, but that they're working hard to bridge the gap between the new and old versions. Other improvements in the update include a smoother tilt-shift …
Adobe has announced a new Android app called Photoshop Touch for tablet owners. Rather than provide a full suite of image editing features, the app appears to be more geared towards minor edits, effects, and sharing. It'll be released in the near future for Android at a price of $10, and an iOS version is on the way as well.
If you're a Flickr loyalist that hasn't jumped ship for competing services, Flickr is rewarding you with a couple new tools for sharing your photos. Today the company announced an official app for Android and a new photo-sharing feature called Photo Sessions.
Fast Burst Camera is a best-selling Android app that upgrades your phone camera's FPS to 5 to 10 frames per second, allowing you to capture action shots by spraying, praying, and selecting the best image afterward. On high end phones, the FPS can even go up to a crazy 30FPS. Like with the burst mode on DSLRs, holding down the shutter will fill up your buffer, and you'll need to wait for it to clear before continuing. The app can be purchased from the Android Market for $3.63.
Color -- the much-hyped but largely ignored photo sharing app -- is back, and this time it's built entirely around Facebook. One of the main reasons for the app's failure the first time around was the fact that the photo sharing relied on proximity, a huge problem for new users when no one around is using it. Now, founder Bill Nguyen is trying to avoid the "ghost town" problem by harnessing the power of Facebook's social graph.
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 612x612 to 1936x1936 (the …
We all knew it wasn't a question of if, but of when: a major camera review site (Imaging Resource) has published a review of a cell phone (Apple's iPhone 4) as a digital camera. The review's conclusion is positive news for camera-makers though: …
Google's new Photovine mobile photo sharing app for iOS is now out of private beta and open to public signups. Here's how the iTunes download page describes it: …
Apple's upcoming iOS 5 will offer a number of welcome photography-related upgrades for iPhone shooters, but here's one that will surely cause a love/hate response: filters.
If you've been dying to turn your Android phone into a remote for your Canon DSLR, today's your lucky day. A developer who goes by "chainfire" has released a new app called "DSLR Controller". It gives you live view and access to a whole host of camera functions through your phone, which connects to the camera through a USB host cable. Check out the demo above to see it in action. The beta version currently costs $8.56 over in the Android Market.
If ordinary citizens have the right to photograph police in public places, what about the other way around? That's a question that's sure to be asked often in the coming days, as 40 law enforcement agencies across the US are planning to use iPhones to photograph civilians for the purpose of identifying wanted perps. The system, called Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS), costs $3,000 apiece and will be able to do facial recognition searches on a database of known …
Kyle Jones wanted to see what it was like to film from inside a guitar, so he stuck his iPhone inside and started recording. The resulting footage shows the strings vibrating in wacky wave patterns thanks to the rolling shutter effect, which we also saw in the Canon 5D Mark II footage of a bass player shared earlier this year.
If you're not convinced that Google is jumping into the photo-sharing pool head first, get this: the company has not one, but two stealthy photo sharing apps in private beta. Besides the Pool Party app that came to light at the beginning of the month, the rumored Photovine service has now materialized into a website -- well, a landing page, at least.
Space Shuttle Atlantis blasted off for the last time today, the final launch ever for NASA's Space Shuttle program. 18-year-old Ryan Graff was lucky enough to be flying to Miami as the Shuttle launched, and captured this awesome photograph of Atlantis' smoke trail using his iPhone.
If for some reason you've always wanted pair up your SLR lenses with the tiny sensor found on the iPhone 4, Photojojo has a new mount that can make your dream come true. The package includes a special aluminum case for your phone, a UV filter attachment, and the lens adapter, and almost guarantees that you'll be the strangest looking iPhone shooter on your street.
The power of the Internet is awesome when it helps reunite people with lost photos, but it's even cooler when it uses photos to help reconnect people with relatives. That happened recently with a 71-year-old shoe shiner in China named Shufang Zhong. Zhong's daughter had moved to a far away city five years ago, and although they could speak on the phone, her daughter desperately wanted to see her face. The problem was, Zhong had absolutely no Internet access and no idea how to reach her daughter.
Facebook can't be too pleased with Google right now. In addition to releasing a Facebook competitor called Google+, the company has also beaten Facebook to the mobile photo sharing space with a new app called Pool Party. Like Google+, the app is currently invite-only, but if you can score an invite it's a free download for both iOS and Android. The app is based around collaborative group albums called "pools" that allow you to share pictures with friends and family in real-time.
Wedding photographer Brian Adams and wedding videographer Rainer Flor claim to be the first to capture a wedding entirely using the iPhone 4. Flor volunteered his own wedding last November for the experiment, and a total of three iPhone 4s were used: two for the photos and one for the video.
One of the exciting features of iOS 5 announced by Apple last week is the ability to use the iPhone's "volume up" button as a shutter button when taking pictures. What's also neat is that this design choice also means that the "volume up" button on Apple's headphone remotes can also trigger the shutter, allowing them to be used as remote shutter releases. Say hello to stealthy and/or non-blurry iPhone photographs!
Textify.it is a neat little web and iPhone app that recreates photographs using colored text. Simply drag and drop a photograph from your computer onto the page to get started. The image above is a photograph of Crater Lake that we turned into text using the letters from "PetaPixel".
Apple unveiled its new iOS 5 at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2011 today, which includes some notable upgrades to the camera functionality on the iPhone. First off, the volume up button now doubles as a shutter button, allowing the phone to be used more easily in a camera orientation. There's also a new camera button on the phone's unlock screen, letting you quickly switch to the app before a precious moment slips away. Finally, a AE/AF lock feature will allow you to tap any area on the …
Apple recently filed a patent having to do with baking infrared communication capabilities into the iPhone. Although there are certainly useful applications for the technology (e.g. a museum beaming information to the phone at different exhibitions), what's troubling is that the feature may also allow the camera to be remotely disabled by those who wish to prevent photography.
The iPhone 4 has become the primary camera for many of its owners, but it lacks many of the useful features found on actual compact cameras. iShuttr is a hard case that makes your iPhone operate more like a compact camera by adding a grip, a shutter button, zoom buttons, a larger flash, an external battery pack, and a tripod mount. The people behind the case are currently raising money for the project through Kickstarter: a $50 contribution will pre-order an iShuttr, which is set to retail for …
It seems every time we feature a fun or useful phone app, it's for the iPhone. If you're an Android user (there's more and more of you out there), here's one for you: Photo Tools is a free app that offers a pretty large number of useful photography tools bundled into a single application. In it you'll find everything from a digital gray card to a sunset/sunrise calculator.
Since we first covered its launch back in October 2010, Instagram has become one of the fastest growing photo-sharing companies and iPhone apps. This week founder Kevin Systrom announced that they now have 4.25 million registered users, and that users are posting 10 photos every second, or around 900,000 photos per day. Not bad for a seven month old service, eh? …
design mind has an interesting post titled "Aged to Perfection" that explores the issue of whether or not consumer gadgets age gracefully as time and use wear them down. They specifically compare a 3-year-old iPhone with a 7-year-old Canon compact film camera: …
Rather than using traditional instant film that develops on the spot, newer instant cameras are using a special ZINK technology that prints digital photos rather than exposing special paper. As more and more consumers rely solely on their mobile phones for shooting casual snapshots, perhaps the Sophie concept iPhone case is the next step in instant film's evolution: it's a case with a built-in printer that turns your iPhone into a Polaroid-style instant camera. What do you think of the idea?
Play Kalei is a creative new puzzle game by Chillingo that allows you to use your photo collection as part of the fun. It takes a particular section of a photograph and turns it into a kaleidoscope-style pattern, and you're objective is to figure out where that point in the photo is. The normal version is available for $1, and there's also an HD version designed for the iPad for $2.
The Leica i9 is a concept camera case dreamed up by design firm BLACK Design Associates for the iPhone 4. Unlike the Slow Photography Camera we shared last week, the i9 is actually an independent camera that simply uses the iPhone as a giant touch screen and as a modem for the web.
With the recent craze on mimicking retro photography through phone apps, it's only natural that someone would take it a step further and design a retro way to shoot with the phone as well, right? The Slow Photography camera concept by photographer David McCourt is a medium format-style box that lets you use your phone as a digital back.
Slit-Scan Camera is a new app for the iPhone that lets you shoot trippy slit-scan photographs. Rather than capture a whole image at once, the slit-scan app exposes each scene through a "sliding slit", giving anything moving within the frame a strange, warped look.
Microsoft's jaw-dropping Photosynth technology has arrived on the iPhone as an app that allows you to easily create immersive 360-degree panoramas. All you need to do is load up the app and sweep your camera around in every direction, and the app automatically snaps photographs filling in the panoramic image (you can also tap it if it gets sluggish with its snapping).
As Instagram continues its meteoric rise, an ecosystem of third-party services is developing around it. Postagram is one such service by Xobni co-founder Matt Brezina and his new company Sincerely. It lets you easy send physical prints of your Instagram photos as postcards with personalized messages. The photo itself pops out of the postcard as a glossy 300-dpi print. Postagram is available as a free download in the App Store, while each postcard costs $1 and arrives in 2-5 days.
As the world of photography collides with the world of computing in smart phones, we will undoubtedly be seeing many mind-boggling applications (e.g. augmented reality translation) that utilize cell phone cameras in the near future. A new app called Meal Snap fits that description -- it's an app that analyzes photos you take of food, telling you both the ingredients and the number of calories you'll be consuming. It's only available for iOS 4+ and costs $3 from the App Store.
If you think the 5-megapixel sensor found on the iPhone 4 is good, wait till you see the camera found on the next iPhone -- it's reportedly going to be a 8-megapixel sensor made by Sony. The Street wrote back in 2010 that the next version of the iPhone to arrive in 2011 would pack an 8-megapixel Sony sensor rather than the 5-megapixel OmniVision one found in the current phone, and Sony's CEO Howard Stringer seems to have confirmed that today in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Have an older camera that doesn't have a built-in light meter? Instead of buying an expensive light meter, you can download the Pocket Light Meter app for free if you have an iPhone. What's more, you can even mount it to your camera's hot shoe if you don't mind looking uber-geeky while shooting. Nigel over at phototinker wrote a tutorial for creating the iPhone hot shoe holder shown above.
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.
The mobile photo sharing space is hot right now, with services like Instagram, Picplz, and Path growing like weeds. A new contender called Color is causing some buzz after successfully raising a whopping $41 million... before even launching. The company has seven notable founders who have either started successful companies in the past (e.g. Lala and BillShrink) or have held executive positions at them (LinkedIn). Among the investors is Sequoia Capital, one of the most influential and …
After Noah Kalina published his "Everyday" video back in 2006 featuring a self-portrait a taken every day for 2,356 days, the concept took off and soon the Internet was filled with copycat projects by people who wanted to document their own lives in the same way. If you've been wanting to try you hand at taking a photo of your face every day but have lacked the discipline to do so, there's a new app for the iPhone called "Everyday" that is designed to make things easier for you.
