The Ukrainian folks behind the iblazr, a little four-LED accessory flash that plugs into an iDevice’s 3.5mm jack, have almost doubled their $50K Kickstarter goal and now offer something new: a diffuser, included free with the flash.
Instagram just pushed out a big update for its iOS and Android apps which gives users the ability to import video from their smartphone libraries into Instagram.
Now you can film video at any time and then splice it together later into a 15-second video to import into Instagram. The update also brings video support to Android 4.0 devices and has a new trim and crop feature so your vids can be molded into perfect squares.
iOS users also pick up a new Automatic Straightening feature that set your photos level with the tap of a button. The new Instagram 4.1 update is available now in the App Store and Google Play.
Source: Instagram
Nikon’s new SB–300 is an entry-level speed light that you probably shouldn’t buy. It’s a tilting, non-swivel model that runs off two AA batteries, costs $150 and has pretty much zero off-camera manual control.
Leica’s incredible Monochrom camera costs $8,000, and shoots only B&W images. That is of course an absurd price, but it does bring amazing light sensitivity and detail thanks to the fact that there are no color filters blocking light from the sensor, and that all three dots from each pixel are dedicated to grabbing luminance data.
New Zealander Raymond Collecutt clearly liked the look of a dedicated monochrome sensor, but didn’t like the price. So he did what anyone would do—he sacrificed one of his two Canon EOS 1000Ds to the cause, and scraped off the color micro lenses on top of the sensor.
Developer tap tap tap just announced the details on its latest Camera+ update for iPhone and iPad. The folks behind one of the best camera app replacements out there add the ability to layer effects in editing, letting you quickly and easily add and remove a multitude of effects per photo, stacking and re-arranging the order of the effects to attain your own unique look and style.
If you’re not into doing all the micromanagement, Camera+ is also releasing two new filter packs.
Today the GoPro iOS app hit version 2.0, and the update includes several additions that make it easier to interface with the GoPro camera from an iPhone or iPad. The app is way more than a remote control now.
The biggest feature is the ability to wirelessly transfer photo and video from the camera to a dedicated album in an iOS device’s camera roll. Once the you download version 2.0 of the iOS app and the most recent software update for the camera itself, you can browse, view, and delete media right from the camera’s memory card. Photos and videos that have been wirelessly synced over to your iOS device from the camera can be shared through email, text, or other apps like Instagram and Facebook.
GoPro users are going to love today’s update, so grab it now.
Source: App Store
Afterlight is one of the most popular photography apps in the App Store, but until now it’s only been optimized for the iPhone. Today’s update brings full support for the iPad, meaning you can edit in a native interface for the iPad’s larger display.
If you’ve seen pics in your Instagram feed that are framed creatively or look like they aren’t filtered in Instagram itself, chances are they were probably edited in Afterlight. It’s nice that the app officially supports the iPad now, but the interface is basically just a blown up version of the iPhone app. Some iPad-only UI tweaks or features would be nice for future updates.
Afterlight costs $1 as a universal download in the App Store.
Source: App Store
MyShoebox is yet another cloud photo storage service which syncs your pictures between all of your devices. It’s been around for a little longer than newcomer Loom, and also goes up against Everpix.
Panasonic’s new Lumix DMC-FZ70 flaunts a nonsensical 60x optical zoom range, completely unaided through the use of Viagra.
Olympus was always the company with the best gimmicks, the smallest cameras and the coolest TV ads (in the 1980s UK, at least). And that (apart from the ads) continues to this day. Almost a year ago, the company showed off the Body Cap Lens, and now it’s available to buy. As in, “buy from Amazon today.”
Just five short years ago I interviewed the magnificently-bearded Julius von Bismarck about his Image Fulgurator, a modified 35mm film SLR which would project an image onto whatever it was pointed at using a powerful flashgun. The gimmick was that the device was triggered by the flashes of innocent tourist sheep as they flocked to famous monuments and snapped point-and-shoot pictures.
Invisible to the human eye, Julius’s various pictures and messages would be marked indelibly onto the pixels of these tourist photos. The fact that the Fulgurator looked like a gun just made the whole thing cooler.
Now, there’s a version you can buy. It comes from the folks at DIY Photography, and it’s called the Light Blaster.
Ever wonder just how much light a polarizer filter cuts out from your photos? You can easily see the effect in the viewfinder as your turn the filter and see the reflections disappear, but what if you could take a photo of the light it cuts out?
Sounds impossible? Not if you use math… and Photoshop.
Unless you like sprinting to beat your camera’s timer, as the family photog, you know often you just end up being left out of the family memories.
The Satechi Smart Trigger can offer some help there. By connecting to your DLSR, it gives you a cartful of remote shutter controls that works wirelessly via your iPhone or iPod Touch. But it also includes some features advanced photographers, or those wanting to get into landscape or time-lapse photography, will find highly beneficial.
“Wow, this is cool.” That was my first thought when I saw CamRanger controlling a full-size DSLR for the first time, then wirelessly beaming picture previews to an iPad 15 feet away.
From ISO, to shutter, to aperture, white balance—-even live view and touch-to-focus—-the CamRanger gives you amazing control of any compatible DSLR from your iPad or iPhone. All it takes to get the magic going, is the tiny CamRanger unit and their free iOS app.
Here’s Fujifilm’s new XM-1, a compact mirror-less body set to go up against the likes of Panasonic’s GF series cameras. It’s a 16MP box which can take all of Fujifilm’s x-System lenses, but which weighs in at just grams, or just shy of 12 ounces.
Tablets are pretty impressive, but they still can’t quite effectively replace a desktop or laptop computer. This Cult of Mac Deals offer makes your iPad that much more effective a replacement option.
This 3-in–1 adapter will help bridge the gap between tablet and fully functional computer. Most importantly, the 3-in–1 iPad adapter cuts out the middle man when uploading photos to your iPad, saving you a ton of time. And Cult of Mac Deals is offering this little device for only $19 – shipping included – so you can save a ton of money as well!
Lightroom 5 is now officially official, and you can grab the final version from Adobe for $150 (there’s a one-month trial built in if you want it). Should you upgrade from v4? Probably. Unlike Photoshop, which adds more and more flashy-but-pointless features just to keep people upgrading, Lightroom is still young enough that the new features are super useful and – ironically – they also make it less and less likely you’ll need to resort to Photoshop to polish and fix your images.
VSCO Cam has already become one of our favorite camera apps on the iPhone thanks to its film emulation effects and clean interface, but a big update for the app is making us fall in love all over again.
Visual Supply Company just released VSCO Cam 2.0 on the App Store and it comes with a huge batch of new features, including new presets, more efficient editing, and separate Focus and Exposure rings that give you more control when shooting pictures.
Best of all, Visual Supply Co. dropped the price on VSCO from $0.99 to free so there’s no reason for you not to give it a whirl. You can pick it up from the App Store now, or dig into the full list of new features after the jump:
The iPad is pretty great for photographers, but in typical Apple fashion, if you want to really use the device then you keep knocking up against crazy and annoying limits. The most obvious of these is probably the whole iPhoto/iPhoto problem: two apps, for Mac an iOS, that share a name but little else. They certainly don’t share their photos.
So what would I like to see fixed in iOS7? Here’s a list, complete with some suggestions for making things better
Remember when it seemed like some special future high-tech magic to edit video in the web-browser? Now it’s almost as mundane as composing an e-mail inside Safari. But Pics.io is about to let you edit RAW photos in the browser. The site is currently in private alpha testing, but the promise is of fast online RAW editing on your iPad.
Oh man, those guys at Everpix sure know how to have some fun. *Nerd* fun, that is. When they;re not busy making my favorite photo-looking-after-and-looking-at app for the web, Mac and iOS, they’re adding little nuggets of gold like the new Mac Memories app. And no, it has nothing to do with RAM. Unless “you”ewe” take lots of pictures of male sheep — ba-dum-tish!
The iPhone has quickly become the most popular camera in the world simply because it’s the camera that’s always on you. Even though the iPhone’s camera doesn’t have anywhere near the same features and tools as a DSLR, that doesn’t mean you can’t squeak out some extra performance out of your iPhone to get pictures that look like a pro shot them.
Long exposures are a basic staple of most DSLR photographers, but thanks to some awesome apps for iOS, iPhone users can join in the fun too without having to spend hundreds of dollars on gear. In this guide we’re going to teach you about all of the gear and apps you need to take long exposure photos with your iPhone.
A couple of weeks ago, we told you about an upcoming iPhone app called Analog Camera. Developed by Realmac Software, maker of popular to-do app Clear, Analog Camera is a gorgeous app for taking pictures and quickly applying Instagram-like filters.
Now that Analog Camera is available for download in the App Store, it’s time to decide if it belongs on your iPhone’s Home screen.
Remember those cool glass filters that act like a real-life Instagram for your real-life camera? They’re finally ready for pre-order, kinda.
PhotoExif is an app that lets you add EXIF data to photos shot with a film camera. You can dial in aperture, shutter speed, focus distance and focal length, along with notes about your photo, and when you get the photos back, freshly scanned from the lab, you can add the info to the digital images.