Monday 30 August 2010

Steve Martin And His iPad

I heard about this a couple of weeks a go on the iPad Today show over on TWiT.tv. It’s a funny little routine between numbers by Steve Martin at one of his Bluegrass concerts.

I’m a big fan of the early Steve Martin, let’s face it his track record on movies since about Roxanne time has been a bit below standard for such a great talent. But at least his efforts haven’t been as dire as Eddie Murphy’s. But I digress this blog is about tech, and here is a Bank Holiday afternoon funny for you to enjoy with a geek slant to it.

Saturday 28 August 2010

Wishing Upon A Star

I need a benefactor. I believe they used to be all the fashion back in the day of Yates and co.

A benefactor would be most useful indeed, but sadly they are more rare than an honest MP these days.

I have a list of a couple of bits of kit I would like to get that would allow me to expand the coverage of stuff I have on this blog and my main one (whitespider1066.com) , plus be useful in a new blog project I am planning to start up in the next couple of weeks and my day to day work.

So what are these items of desire that I would find useful?

Well the first is the object of desire for many an Apple Fanboy (oh yes I am one of them, I drink from Steve Jobs Kool Aid), the iPad. Several of the outdoor mapping companies have released iOS4 (ie iPhone) apps. Some have even released versions that run specifically for the iPad. Plus with outdoors publishers also starting to dip their toes in the electronic book world, there is enough going on in the iPad world that needs covering. Let alone talking about how the iPad can be used in the education sector, or for photography. So this is a very very exciting product to look at, and want to cover. No one is covering it on an outdoors context at the moment. I would love to be the first. But I know that I will be piped on that front.

The second is a Google Android phone, like the Desire,Nexus One or Droid X. Yes I know how can I be an Apple Fanboy and still want one of these? But that fact aside, to be able to also talk about relevant apps on Android as well as iOS4 would be great. It’s another area that no one seems to be covering in the outdoors, and to be able to cover it’s usage along side the iPhone will just add more value to the information I can offer when I talk mobiles in the outdoors. My posterous account would be rebranded to be mobile photography blog, and be the home of photos taken on the iPhone 4 and the Google Android phone

There is a third, but this is totally blue sky dreaming, and that is a dSLR camera, and a selection of lenses. I’d love to get to grips with one of these and see what directions it would take my photography.

But in reality I know there aren’t benefactors out there these days for bloggers. We have to fund our own purchases and if we can’t afford the kit that we want then we go without. What we have here is wishful thinking. A nice day dream.

Some bloggers are lucky (for want of a better way of describing it,)  and able to get an income from their blog that can either cover their costs or even luckier enable them to buy new gear as and when they like.

I know I don’t carry adverts on my blogs, well the amounts I would earn would be miniscule. This blog for example is the equivalent of plankton in a sea of tech blogs. The reason I write it is because it gives me an outlet for my tech ramblings when I have something to to say on the subject that just isn’t outdoors related.

And although my main blog has significantly more readers than this blog, still there are no ads on there. Compare to some of the more popular subject areas or magazine backed blogs my main blog still has a relatively small readership.

But truth be told I have not really been interested in having ads on my blogs, as I like to give ad free content. I also like to give free content. Yes I am one of those internet types. For me I get my kick out of others enjoying and getting a use out of the stuff I write or have photographed.

Sadly this utopian point of view doesn’t put food on the plate and keep a roof over the head as I was reminded during my two year spell of being unemployed.

But this charging for content , and people consuming it for free is an age old problem, in a favourite book of mine The Autobiography of a Supertramp by W.H. Davies, he writes in the 1923 Foreward to the book “…I have come to the conclusion that if only one quater of my readers had been buyers instead of borrowers, I would now be worth half a street, perhaps a castle,island, or a full-masted ship.

A very good friend of mine who has been a journalist and publisher for decades, who I admire and respect greatly, often asks me “and how much did I get paid for that post?”

I will always keep my content free, because it’s something I believe in deeply. I like the sharing. There has been toying with the idea of a tip jar, but then I think would it be worth the effort? Would people be generous and tip, or would I be sympathising with W.H. Davies?

In the absence of a benefactor or a lottery win, I will have to think creatively, scrimp and save to get the items mentioned above. If in the meantime others start covering these areas then so be it. I will enjoy reading their coverage, which will inspire and give me further ideas for my own coverage when it starts.

Thursday 19 August 2010

My iPhone Photography Workflow

I was asked about what apps I use on the iPhone for photography, so I decided to write this little post to describe my workflow when taking a photo on the iPhone.

The majority of time I start with the iPhone Camera app. Sometimes depending on what I am photographing I will use another app for the photo. But nine times out of ten I will use the camera app.

With panoramas if I have time to take a panorama I will use Panoramatic to take it, if I want to capture something as a panorama that requires speed to capture (ie like a rainbow) I will use the camera app and then use autostitch to generate the panorama. Which allows me to get a quick and dirty check. If I'm not happy I can retake, or if the moment has gone use Panoramtic which often gives better results.
If I want to get "arty" on the panorama I use See This!

For occassions that I want to capture an action scene I use Gorillacam that has a three photo burst mode.

Just recently I have added TrueHDR to handle the times when there is extreme shadow or light.

So now I have a photo(s) sitting in the Camera Roll of my iPhone. This is where I start to use iPhone apps to enhance the picture taken.But first using the Photos app I review what I have shot and make mental notes of which ones I am going to edit.

Generally my first app I pass a photo through is Photogene, here I usually crop the image, and use the colour correction if need be, before saving the image back to the Camera Roll.

If the photo is noisey I will pass it through NoiseBlaster to try and improve it.

Next I may pass the photo through a tilt shift app, my preference at the moment is TiltShift, although if I'm not happy with the results I will try TiltShiftGen.

Then it is down to what filters I want to apply to the photo. This is such a personal thing. The filters I use the most are the ones that come in the Best Camera app, followed by Camera+.
But I use other apps to get some effects I like. For example I will use ColorSplash, or the HDR in 3in1Filters (although the HDR is available as a seperate free download).
But other apps I have in the tool box are ToonPaint,PicSketchPro,Diptic,LensFlare,Mill Colour and Collage.
The Nikon L&E is a great free app (from the US iTunes app store) that gives photography advice.

The only drawback of working this way is that you get multiple versions of the same photo sitting in your Camera Roll. It shows your thought process, and acts as a back up, which is a good thing, but you do need to clear out regularly.
Here is a couple of screen shots showing the current apps I use.






You can see some of the photos I have taken with the iPhone here on Posterous or my SoFoBoMo 2010 project, or these over on whitespider1066.com A Virtual Exhibition and Misty Morning A Photo Post. Well they are the ones I am proud of and willing to tell the world of ;)

Some posts on whitespider1066.com that you may want to look at as well looking at one or two of the apps in more detail: "You Gotta See This","Panoramatic 360" and "Autostitch".