After seeing 3D light painting done with an iPad, classmates Jinhwan Kim and Cameron Zotter decided to take the experiment a step further. Instead of simply "painting" in a single direction, they spelled out letters by waving an iPod Touch across six different rows for each long exposure photograph.
The UN01 is a Kickstarter-funded iPhone 4 case that makes it look like some kind of Apple-designed futuristic camera. The middle of the case features a pseudo-lens bulge that is actually a locking mechanism that secures the two halves of the case. They're looking to raise $23,000 to bring this case to market in 7 colors, and a pledge of $30 will pre-order one for you in black or white.
If you're not content with having a massive telephoto lens for your DSLR camera, you can get one for your cell phone as well! The Conice Zoom Lens is a 6x lens for the iPhone, Samsung Galaxy S, or Sony Xperia 10 that makes your phone look absolutely ridiculous.
Ever wish you could take shallow depth of field photos on your iPhone that look like they were taken with a DSLR and large aperture lens? With an app called SynthCam you can. You simply aim the camera at a foreground object, press Record, and then slowly move the phone around a little while keeping it aimed at the subject. The app will then create a "synthetic aperture photograph" that blurs the background while keeping the subject you locked onto in focus.
DOF Calculator is an app for Android phones that helps you easily calculate depth of field and hyperfocal distances. Simply tell it your camera, lens, and aperture setting, and it'll spit out the numbers you need for optimally sharp landscape photographs. You can download it for free by searching for "DOF Calculator" in the Android Market.
iPhone photography continues to grow in popularity, but transferring photographs to your computer can be a hassle. If you're sick of having to plug in your device via USB every time you want to sync your photos, you might want to take a look at Cinq, a free app that allows you to wireless transfer full-resolution photographs to your computer as you take them. You simply download the app to both your computer and your phone, and photos taken through the app will automatically be sent to a folder …
If PetaPixel's very own Leica skin for the iPhone isn't enough photo geekery for you, there's also a Polaroid Land Camera skin being sold over at Infectious. We think it would go very nicely with your retro-photo apps! The skins run $15 a pop and are available for not just the iPhone, but for other devices as well (e.g. Blackberry, iPad, etc...).
There's a number of notable iPhone apps out there that add a vintage look to your photographs (e.g. Hipstamatic and Instagram), but what if you want to shoot vintage-looking video? 8mm Vintage Camera is an app that does just that, allowing you to choose between a number of films and lenses. You can also turn on "jitter", adding an extra measure of realism to the look.
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.
In addition to slowly replacing the need for compact cameras, the cameras found on mobile phones will also have a huge impact on how we live our lives in the area of augmented reality. Word Lens is a crazy new free app for the iPhone that translates between Spanish and English in real-time in the video feed, allowing you to read the world in your language through your cell phone. As this technology becomes available for more and more languages, it will change the way people survive in foreign …
onOneSoftware's DSLR Camera Remote is a convenient way to control your camera remotely with an iPhone or iPad, but a major downside is that the camera needs to be connected via wire to a computer running the software. BlueSLR is a dongle that connects to your DSLR and allows it to be controlled using an iPhone or iPad, allowing you to shoot remotely from up to 300 feet away. It also geotags your photos, writing its GPS location to the EXIF data of your images. Sadly, it's only compatible with …
If you're subscribed to the New York Times, you might have noticed some unique-looking war photographs featured as the top story when opening up the paper yesterday. The four photographs were actually iPhone photos taken by NYT photographer Damon Winter in Afghanistan, and processed with the popular app Hipstamatic. Earlier this year AP photographer David Guttenfelder did the same thing in Afghanistan with an iPhone and a Polaroid filter app.
If cameras can have external flashes, why can't mobile phones? The iFlash is a flash module that allows owners of older iPhones to illuminate dark scenes with a blast of LED light. iPhone 4 owners can also use it to gain some additional light.
After photographer Ross Ching came across Dentsu London's creative 3D light painting technique with an iPad, he decided to give it a try, combining it with timelapse photography to make a music video for "I'll Try Anything Once" by The Strokes (seen above). The app he used was Holographium, which you can pick up for $5 from the app store.
With the ongoing craze in photo sharing services on mobile devices, it's not surprising to see new photo apps launching left and right. Stealthy startup Path is a bit different though, with their high powered team launching an unusual sharing service service a couple days ago.
Here are a couple mockups by MacRumors showing what Photoshop might look like on mobile computing devices like the iPad or iPhone. Adobe recently published a presentation they did on various things they're exploring with such devices. An example was using Content Aware Fill to modify a scene by painting over objects to be removed using your finger.
As the cameras on mobile devices are used more and more for augmented reality applications, one thing we'll undoubtedly see more of is augmented reality gaming, where the real world becomes part of the game. The above video shows some test footage of the upcoming game "Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner", which uses the camera on the iPhone (or iPod Touch) to turn real locations into places you need to defend from the Empire's attack.
Back in September we featured a creative technique that used an iPad to "light paint" 3D objects and text. Now there's an app called Holographium that allows anyone to light paint words with an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. All you do is provide some text, start taking a long exposure photo, and then drag your iPad (or whatever iDevice) through the photo while the app slowly displays the various slices of the text. The resulting photograph will show the text spelled out in 3D and floating in the …
Light Studio is a new iPhone app designed to teach you the basics of studio lighting for portraiture. In addition to sections with examples of setups and tutorials, there's a 3D modeling feature that allows you to position up to three hard light sources and watch how the lights affect the 3D face model. The app is available for $1.99 in the App Store.
When Apple unveiled the iPhone 4, they also showed off a white version that would be available alongside the black one. Since then, however, the company repeatedly pushed back the launch date for the white version, claiming that the white one was, "more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected".
PhotoSync for Lazy is an app for iOS devices that automatically syncs photographs with a PC folder over wi-fi. Once the program is installed on the a Windows PC, a special folder is monitored, and when the app is opened on the iPhone (or other iOS device) it will automatically update to reflect the contents of that folder. This can be a good way to keep your phone for sharing photos on the go, or for having your latest portfolio pictures with you at all times. It's not currently available for …
The expression "shooting from the hip" might soon become "shooting from the ear" for iPhone photographers. There's a new app in town called Camera Camouflage that allows you to sneakily photograph while appearing to be engaged in a phone conversation. The app can activate your phones ringtone, allowing you to "take a call", and then snaps photos whenever you talk (it's voice activated). On the iPhone 4, the app deactivates the flash by default, helping you avoid potentially embarrassing …
Apparently inspired by the f-stop watch we posted on recently, theres a new widget for Android phones that puts an aperture clock on your home screen. Unlike the wrist watch, the widget actually adjusts the "aperture" depending on what time it is, though it refreshes every half hour to save battery life. The bad news is that this dash of geekery comes at a price -- the app costs $1.05 over at AppBrain. Someone make a free version please.
This has got to be one of the saddest uses of imagery ever. The Daily Mail is reporting that iPhone owners in the UK are using satellite photos and GPS to cheat at getting out of corn mazes. By seeing their current location in a birds-eye view of the maze, visitors can quickly solve even the most challenging corn mazes.
Instagram is a new iPhone photo app developed by Stanford grads Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger that offers Hipstamatic-style filters for your photos, easy uploads to popular services, and a Tumblr-esque community built right in. While photo sharing apps in the App Store are a dime a dozen, there are a few things that set Instagram apart.
For whatever reason, Vimeo user Aniebres decided to combine the bulkiness of an SLR camera with the lowly sensor of a phone camera. Taking an old Canon film SLR, he gutted it and created a space for his iPhone to snap into place. What's sad is that the SLR acts as a completely useless shell, and the lens has to be removed for photos to be taken. If only he took off the lame Apple sticker on the front, he might be able to pass off as a photographer... as long as he only snapped photos while …
Apple had a special event this morning where they announced a few new products. In addition to the introduction of HD-video recording on the iPod Touch, an interesting new announcement was the HDR Photography feature in iOS 4.1, which is found on the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad (though the iPad doesn't currently have a camera).
Say what you want about cameraphone photography, but this is one beautiful shot. It's a view of the Ebro river in Spain, and was captured by Joan Ramon Bada Suñe on his iPhone 3GS. What's more, the post-processing was done completely in-phone as well.
Flickr user joey_joey_joey wanted to customize his iPhone 4 in a unique way, so he decided to make it look like a Leica M9. This is one of the neatest looking cell phones I've seen.
Believe it or not, the above photograph was made with an iPhone 4. jurilog created a tiny astrophotography kit using a small telescope you can buy online for ¥9,800 (~$115) and a miniature tripod mount.
It looks like tap tap tap's Camera+ added one too many features for Apple's liking. When the app developers tweeted a secret workaround that enabled the volume button to double up to control the shutter, Apple pulled Camera+ from the App Store.
Many of Sony's new digicams have a nifty "Sweep Panorama" feature that allows you to create panoramas of up to 224 degrees by sweeping your camera across a scene. The camera then takes the numerous frames it captured during the sweep and combines them together into a panorama for you.
Canon announced today that five upcoming models of the Canon PIXMA printers will feature a "full HD movie print" feature that allows users to print individual frames from their HD movies. The big catch is that the HD movie files have to be .MOV file format created by certain Canon cameras only. The company has yet to release sample prints using the feature.
Jeremy Salvador assembled this strange contraption in an attempt to combine an SLR lens with the iPhone. Salvador created a prototype with an Owle Bubo iPhone camera mount, a 37mm filter with glass removed, a 37-58mm step-up ring, a Canon EF mount adapter ring, and a 35mm Canon lens. Though he's managed to fit all the pieces together, he's been unable to actually take a useable photograph.
Using a bit of drawer liner as both padding and case, Instructables Living editor scoochmaroo has created instructions for this simple DIY shock-resistant camera case. It's fairly straightforward: just cut from a template, add velcro, and sew.
Photographers can now use their iPad or iPhone to view images remotely during a photo shoot -- if they've got a Leaf or a Mamiya digital back. Today, Mamiya and Leaf announced the release of a new App compatible with Leaf backs, as well as Mamiya's DM-series and RZ33 digital cameras and backs. When tethered shooting on a Mac, the Leaf Capture Remote v 2.0 App allows one or more iPad or iPhone to function as a remote image viewer over Wi-Fi.
There's no app for this: Etsy seller Erin Paysse designed this pinhole camera out of an iPhone box. It's been done before with an iPod box, but Paysse added a clean, retro touch to the camera. She's selling the camera for $80, as well as some prints produced by the camera for $25.
A few guys in Los Angeles recently convinced their friend to let them borrow his new iPhone 4 (that he waited 4.5 in line for), and got onto a rooftop with the help of another friend. Using some large helium balloons, they attached the iPhone and started recording 720p video of downtown LA as it rose up to 1000 feet into the air on the end of a kite string. They also made a fun behind-the-scenes video of their project.
"Apple of My Eye" is a short film by Michael Koerbel that was created using only an iPhone 4 over the course of 48 hours. Editing was done entirely using the new iMovie app that's bundled with the iPhone 4. It's an extremely short film, running at about 1 minute without any real plot, but it's an interesting glimpse at what the new phone is capable of. The video above also includes a behind-the-scenes look at how it was created.
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.
For all you pixel peepers out there, Apple has posted a collection of unretouched photographs taken with the 5 megapixel iPhone 4 that was announced yesterday at WWDC 2010.
Engadget and MacRumors were covering Steve Jobs' keynote address at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2010 this morning, where Jobs announced the next-generation iPhone that everyone has already seen through the multiple, highly-publicized leaks in the past couple months.
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 tech war is on between Apple and Adobe, and it's starting to sound political. What's fairly interesting is how Adobe's been running "We [heart] Apple" as well as "We [heart] Choice" ads, suggesting that this tech war is all about word choice -- or perhaps the word, "choice." …
It looks like Nokia's executive knew what he was talking about when he claimed that HD video will be hitting cell phones very soon. Preset values found in the iPhone 4 Beta SDK (software development kit) seems to show that the next iPhone will be capable of 720p resolution for video capture.
Mopho is a new photo sharing service with a strange name -- until you realize it's a domain hack using Tonga's ccTLD, making it mopho.to.
Verizon and HTC have recently unveiled the HTC Incredible phone, which runs on the Android 2.1 OS, and carries some pretty impressive camera functions.
Adorama announced today that "So Long & Farewell" by Neville Black was picked as the grand prize winner of the first annual iPhone Photo Contest, which comes with a $1,000 gift certificate as the prize.
The big news in the tech/gadget world is that an Apple iPhone 4G prototype was found lost in a Redwood City, California bar, disguised in a plastic case to look exactly like an iPhone 3Gs.
A common gripe about the iPad is that it doesn't contain a built-in camera. Developer Yusuke Sekikawa saw this need, and wrote two applications that allow an iPhone 3GS to be used as an iPad camera.
