All Droid, all day

I spent an entire day with my Motorola Droid as my only camera. Minimizing equipment choices is a good creativity spur for me. Occasionally I will spend a full day with only one lens or with just one compact camera, etc… Trying to keep things fresh.

 

 

 

 

Retro Cam app for Android camera/phones

I have been having a great deal of fun lately as well as recharging my creative thinking by shooting with a few photography apps available for free for my Motorola “Droid” camera/phone. I wrote about the FX Camera app in a previous post. This post discusses the Retro Cam app.

Retro Cam simulates several styles of old film cameras. The choices include Barbl(cheap German rangefinder), Little Orange Box(mass produced “toy” camera), Polaroid(with several choices of “look”), Pinhole and Fudge(another “toy” camera look). All camera choices include the ability to select black&white or color output and rectangular or square framing. All also include some degree of “vintage” film effects such as scratches, frame edges, fading, enhanced or reduced saturation, etc… All image files produced are quite small(580x580 pixels for my favorite square framing option) but are quite adequate for on-line sharing and web page illustration purposes.

Except for the very small file sizes produced, I think this is a great app and I am using it more that others I have been exploring. I harbor a deep fondness for vintage cameras and still occasionally use a twin-lens American-made medium-format Cirro Flex from the late 1940’s and a Russian-made medium-format Kiev60 from the 1970’s. Both cameras use square framing. I also love shooting with my Lensbaby Composer on my DSLR, which reminds me of shots from antique large-format view cameras. With the new Android camera/phone apps, I can pick and choose from the various styles at will or just shoot them all in sequence and sort out my favorites later on the computer.

In conclusion, Retro Cam is a fun and easy to use app for mobile Android camera/phones. This app adds variety and interest to photos, effectively camouflages some of the short-comings of the naked built-in camera and produces files that are easily e-mailed or uploaded to an on-line photo album.  Last but not least, it won’t cost you anything to try it out.

Book review: "Contemporary Landscape Photography"

Contemporary Landscape Photography is a new book by Carl E. Heilman II. It is published by Amphoto Books which has a large stable of photography book titles. Suggested retail prices for the 176-page volume is $24.99 and it is available new through Amazon.comAmazon.com for $16.99.

This is a well written and fully illustrated book covering all aspects of landscape photography. All photographers from beginners to experienced professionals will gain something to add to their photographic arsenal. Starting with a review of equipment choices and features and progressing through development of a personal vision, it then moves on to the possibilities of location and lighting and ends with post-processing techniques. Topic coverage is thorough, in-depth and inspiring.

Heilman includes his personal thought processes and reasoning at many appropriate spots throughout the book, making this much more than just another how-to manual. The illustrating photos are well executed and appropriate for topic. The printing is crisp and clear on heavy coated matte paper stock.

Contemporary Landscape Photography would be a welcome addition to any landscape, nature or wildlife photographer’s bookshelf. We all need a little review of the basics, reminder of more advanced techniques and injection of inspiration now and then. This book is just the ticket.

Florida beach photography

“Florida” and “beach” go together in most people’s minds, whether residents of the sunshine state or visitors on vacation. Even most vacationers to inland destination areas of the state such as Disney in Orlando plan to fit in at least one day on the coast. This post has some tips to help you get the best beach photographs possible.

The bright sand and sun of a Florida beach can cause the same exposure problems as snow. Many camera meters will try to under-expose, leaving the sand looking drab and the water too dark. Use the exposure histogram when available and know how to use exposure compensation and/or manual exposure to get the proper brightness. A polarizing filter can help make swimsuit, umbrella and sky colors pop. Use flash for people pictures to lighten facial shadows.

Remember composition basics. The rule of thirds works for subject placement within the frame. Diagonal, converging and s-shaped lines all work to draw the eye into an image and add a sense of depth. Having a strong foreground subject is another great way to imply depth in a photo. Be careful with lines and objects breaking the frame edges, which can be very distracting.

Try to add some subtle excitement to the shot. Wait until a wave in the background is just starting to break to trip the shutter. Wait for a sea gull or pelican to fly into the frame. Try a slower shutter speed(if possible) to catch the ripple of the wind in a swimsuit, towel or umbrella.

Add interest to shots by using an unusual viewpoint-place the camera at sand/water level(but watch out for waves). Use bright colors as focal points and take advantage of local architecture and vegetation for subjects and backgrounds. Detail shots imply a sense of place and involvement. Don’t be weather shy-stormy beaches can be very dramatic.

Finally, try to protect your camera. There is almost always at least a light breeze at the beach an anything exposed will become coated with salt. Keep the lens cap on the lens whenever the camera is not being used. Try to keep the camera itself out of the wind as much as possible. Be aware of waves when near the water line. Carry a dry cloth and/or blower brush in a pocket or case for cleaning/drying lenses and removing sand.

Android cat composite

 

I took a real day off today(at least most of it), did a little recreational reading and spent a few hours playing around with a couple of free photo apps for my Android phone/camera. Since the old black cat was being cooperative, I was able to cycle through almost all of the various options available and get direct, side-by-side comparison shots. This type of experimentation gives me a basis for deciding when and for what subjects I would use any of these variations in "real world" photography. At any rate, the cat and I both had fun and I will now be keeping a sharper eye out for more of these apps.

FX Camera app for Android phone/cameras

FX Camera is a free app available for android mobile phone/cameras. FX makes a variety of different and interesting photo effects available while also down-sizing the file size for easier and faster on-line sharing. I think of it as a third-party upgrade equivalent to the “picture modes” available on most compact digital cameras and DSLR’s.

+Toy Cam mode gives options for color-biased cross-processed simulations, high contrast, vivid single color renditions, warm tone and monochrome. Framing can be set for rectangular or square. Severity of vignettes and pinhole(round) can also be set.

+Polandroid is a Polaroid simulator. The main choices are vintage, faded, aged or monochrome. Rectangular of square framing can be chosen as well.

+Fisheye has only two settings to choose from-round or full-frame.

+Symmetricam splits the frame either vertically or horizontally and creates a mirror-image double.

+Warhol makes four single-color posterizations of the image.

+Normal gives choices of monochrome, sepia, negative or solarize.

I found the Fisheye mode most interesting and quite convincing. Both the circular and full-frame images emphasize and enlarge the central portion of the frame while proportionally distorting the edges. The middle of the image seems to bulge forward while the edges retreat into the background. As with any “real” fisheye lens, much more effective for some subjects than for others and easily overdone.

The Toy Cam is also a mode I will use for some subjects to add interest. I am a fan of vintage cameras and particularly liked the effect produced by the monochrome-medium vignette-square frame settings in combination. The ”look” is similar of some old medium-format film TLR’s I have used.

This app adds a lot of choices for phone/camera images where there were none previously. I would have no problem leaving a Holga or Dianna or CirroFlex TLR at home, saving the film and processing money and carrying just my phone with this app. The image files produced are quite small for prints but adequate for on-line use. And it is really difficult to argue with free.

Try black and white for emotional and visual impact

When inspiration and creativity seem to be hiding in the bushes it can be difficult to break out of a photographic rut. As the days go by and the images get duller, enthusiasm starts to wane. These are the times when we need to dig deep and do something different to break the patterns of habit. Going so far as to make breaking the pattern a habit can reduce those lackluster photographic spells to a bare minimum.

One of my personal “pattern breakers” is to shoot a day or two of black and white(yes, with digital). The best way to do this with a DSLR is to set the camera to record both RAW and .jpg files set to “black and white” mode. Some older DSLR’s and most compact digital cameras won’t have this feature and it will be necessary to shoot only black and white .jpg files. While not as good for ultimate image quality, .jpg’s serve the habit-breaking purpose of this exercise just fine.

Actually shooting in black and white mode, rather shooting in color and converting after the fact, serves more than one purpose. Obviously the most immediate reason is to get an immediate, on-the-camera-back preview in black and white. The effect of traditional black and white colored filters is visible right away.

A second reason for shooting in black and white mode is to really make the break mentally away from color and into a different thought/vision space. This is very important for creativity and thought stimulation. You will find yourself making images in black and white that just would not work in color. This is one of the points of the exercise.

My favorite tool for making the final image is Adobe Camera Raw when starting from a RAW file. It does a great job and makes it possible to fine tune every color density range. If Camera RAW is not an option, my next choice is color channels. Channels is similar to Camera Raw but with fewer color range adjustments. As with color editing, everyone will eventually develop their own personal favorite “look”.

There are many reasons that black and white photography has never gone completely out of style. When all of the color is taken away, what is left can have much more emotional and visual impact. Color can be used for impact but can also be a great distraction from what the photographer is really trying to communicate. Think of becoming proficient at black and white photography as adding another language to your visual communication portfolio.

How low can you go?

Photography, like most art, benefits from brutal and ruthless editing. How much can be cut out in order to focus attention on the main subject? Removing as many possible distraction and detractions as possible from the frame results in a photograph with much more impact.

So, how low can you go? How simple can a photograph be while communicating the photographer’s intent to the viewer? The answer is: much simpler than many photographers think.

There are many routes to simplicity and maximum visual impact. Controlling depth-of-field with lens aperture to eliminate background distractions is common. Bright spots in the background, even if very de-focused, also draw attention and need to be controlled. Colors can be distracting(hence the emotional and graphic impact of black-and-white photography) and can often be controlled by careful choice of viewpoint(remember that monochrome images can be blue-and-white or red-and-white as well as black-and-white). Lines and shapes that break through the edges of the frame can draw attention away from the main subject and lessen impact. Clutter(aka “too much stuff”) within the frame makes it difficult for a viewer to figure out what the main subject of the photograph is supposed to be.

Great photographers use the same editing process for every frame as writers use for every article. Avoid giving too much information at once(keep each frame and each article focused on one subject). Remove all clutter not contributing to the intended idea or emotion (i.e. visual “clutter”, “fluff” adjectives, more than one point of focus, etc…). Always know before tripping the shutter what the main subject of that frame is.

Tripods are a great editing tool for photographers. Using a tripod slows down the process of making a photo. More attention can be paid to the edges of the frame, to the background and to the content of the frame. Depth-of-field can be checked. Point of view can be minutely adjusted for the most impact and fewest distractions.

Make a habit of using these techniques and more “ooh’s” and “ah’s” will come your way. Photos containing just enough information to get the intended across to the viewer have much greater visual and emotional impact than photos containing too much information(remember the old Police song?). These ideas are what is really behind the old maxim “if you want better photographs, get closer”.

Imgur for Android makes photo hosting easy

The following article is a guest post by smart-phone expert Craig Walkup.

 

An aspect that I have always felt has been lacking in the mobile world is the ability to upload photos to photo hosting sites easily and seamlessly. Now one of the best options I have seen for this comes to the Android Market in the form of Imgur for Android.


First things first, if you have never heard of Imgur, you need to know that it is one of the best and simplest photo hosting sites on the internet. Where most hosting sites have all kinds of limitations, from forcing you to create an account, to limiting what you can do with photos after you upload them, Imgur has none of that. You can literally go to their site, hit upload, pick your file, and watch as your photo is quickly uploaded, then presented to you with links for HTML codes, message board codes, and even direct image links. You also have the option of creating an account if you want to, which will simply hold on to all your uploaded photos in a simple page so you can go there and find them easily by thumbnail. I had been using Imgur for a while, and was elated to find out that someone had made a real app for the Android operating system.


This app is as easy as the website to use. Upon opening the app, you will be taken directly to the pictures you have already uploaded in your account, along with buttons at the top to refresh the album, a camera button to open the camera, and an upload button to upload a picture from your phone. If you don't have an Imgur account, the screen won't have any pictures on it. I suggest opening an account, as it keeps track of everything you've uploaded, and you can completely manage the files from the app or from the website.
When you click to upload a photo, it will being you to your gallery screen, where you choose what photo to upload, then it will ask you if you want to upload it under your account or anonymously. Another neat thing about the app is that it integrates itself in to the operating system, so when you take a picture and click the share button, imgur comes up as an option along with text, email, facebook, twitter, etc. This is an excellent app for any Android user wishing to use photos between their mobile device and the internet.


Imgur for Android is available in the Android Market as a free app. Make sure if you search for it, you download the one called "Imgur for Android"
developed by Colin Edwards. The other ones that come up are poor applications. There is a download version for this app if you feel like supporting the developer, it is $1.99 but doesn't seem to include any added functionality, except preference in future feature requests.


Imgur: http://imgur.com/


Imgur for Android:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/imgur-for-android/com.imgurforandroid


Craig is a contributor for iPhone repair techs at iFixyouri.

The Lensbaby

The Lensbaby company makes a very interesting line of lenses. The latest and greatest incarnations have interchangeable optics and a variety of accessories available. Three current models are all variations of the very first: a tilting lens for SLR/DSLR cameras with basic, old fashioned optics. The images produced by a Lensbaby are sharp in the center with progressively more softness, optical distortion and color aberrations towards the frame edges.

The size of the central “sweet spot” is controlled by the aperture. Lensbaby apertures are physical disks inserted into the front of the lens using a supplied tool. No disk in place corresponds to approximately f/2 and full-stop disks are supplied up to f/22. At f/22 nearly the entire frame looks reasonably sharp.

The placement of the “sweet spot” is controlled by the tilt of the lens. When the lens is straight the sharp area is centered in the frame. When the lens is tilted to the right, the sharp area moves to the right.

The “Composer” model I currently own has a ball-and-socket arrangement to control the tilt and is very easy and intuitive in use. There is a locking ring to hold the lens in position for repeatability. I have also used the older “IIIG” model, very similar to the latest “Control Freak”. The IIIG/Control Freak is like a view-camera bellows-and-lens on an SLR. It is more complicated to use than the Composer but also slightly more versatile.

There are as many reasons to use a Lensbaby as there are photographers. One I know uses his “Muse”, the base-model Lensbaby, as a substitute for a toy camera like a Diana or Holga for street shooting. I have seen excellent portrait and wedding work with Lensbabies from nationally known professional photographers. I love my Lensbabies because they are fun and they produce images that can’t be made using modern lenses or editing software.

When I mount a Lensbaby on my DSLR, I am suddenly using a 100-year-old folding-bed view camera with a hand-ground, uncoated doublet lens. I almost always shoot a Lensbaby at f/4 or f/5.6 to get a distinctive and distorted softness around the edges. Contrast is quite low and highlights are smeared into the shadow areas. I usually shoot in aperture-priority automatic exposure mode and often dial in -1/2 to -1 stops of exposure compensation to tame the highlights.

Occasionally I will want only the tilt function for focusing reasons. Using the f/16 or f/22 apertures nearly eliminates the edge softness and distortion. While certainly not the quality equivalent of a Canon or Nikon tilt/shift lens, a stopped-down Lensbaby can produce surprisingly sharp images. I also use my models on extension tubes for macro work and with a tele-converter for more reach, both with good results.

Available accessories include tele, wide and ultra wide adapter lenses that screw into the front filter threads. Internal optics choices consist of double-glass(sharpest), single-glass, plastic, soft-focus and fish-eye. These accessories provide a lot of versatility and choices of “look” for the final image. This is why Lensbabies have become so popular and lasted so long in a tough photography market.

Transmitted light photography

One of the best ways to achieve great color saturation, show internal structure and get a distinctive look in a photograph is to take advantage of transmitted light. This is light that passes through a translucent subject rather than light reflected from the object. This is accomplished by using back-lighting: the light source is behind the subject. Framing tightly to exclude edges eliminates the flare, diffraction and over-exposed background seen in most back-lit photos. Think of shooting stained glass on a sunny day from inside a dark building as opposed to the same stained glass shot at night using flash. The colors have a rich glow and depth not seen in a reflected-light image of the same subject.

An added bonus, especially for nature photographers, is the visibility of the internal structure of the subject. All of the veins of a leaf and the varying thickness of flower petals become apparent when the image is made with light passing through the subject. The result can be very interesting photographs indeed. Even quite ordinary subjects such as the pages of a book can become more interesting by using this technique.

Green leaves, brightly colored autumn leaves, glass panes and bottles, paper and clothing can all be photographed with transmitted light to bring out internal structure and rich colors. Any subject that is at least slightly translucent and large enough to fill the frame is fair game. The less translucent the subject, the brighter the back-lighting must be(or the dimmer the ambient light) to overpower the light reflected from the side facing the camera. This technique should be part of every creative photographer’s arsenal.

Finding subjects is easy. Look towards the light source. During mid-day, this might mean getting low to the ground and looking up. At dawn or dusk the solution is to look towards the rising or setting sun. Indoors, try placing the subject between the camera and the light source or placing the flash behind the subject facing toward the camera.

Exposure is a straight forward affair. If the subject fills the frame any automatic setting should give a correct exposure. If the subject occupies a smaller are of the frame, exposure compensation might be needed to correctly expose the subject while allowing the background to be over-exposed(as in more traditional back-lighting). Experiment with exposure whenever possible to get the most pleasing results.

Creative Zooming

Zoom lenses are popular with most photographers because of the added versatility they offer compared to fixed-focal-length(prime) lenses. A zoom lens allows the photographer to choose the point of view and then vary the perspective/background by changing the focal length and distance to the subject with a single lens. Zooms also let photographers change the subject size in the image and/or the framing without physically moving to get closer or farther away from the subject.

In addition to the conventional selling points, zoom lenses offer important creative possibilities not available when using prime lenses. One creative use of zooms is to change the focal length during a long exposure. The result is a subject centered in the frame appears to be exploding or imploding depending which direction the focal length changes. This technique has endless possible variations all starting from the same point.

A slow shutter speed is required, preferable at least ½ second or longer. Enough time is needed to smoothly change focal lengths during the exposure. If a sharper main subject is desired, part of the exposure should be at a constant focal length and only part of the exposure zoomed. Another way to get a sharper main subject is to use flash. The long shutter speeds required can be achieved by combinations of: low ISO speeds, small f-stops(f/16-f/22) and use of polarizing and/or neutral-density filters.

This technique is best accomplished with the camera locked down on a solid tripod. Hand-holding will produce much less predictable but possibly more interesting results. Unlike the usual compositional advice, zooming during exposure normally looks best with the main subject centered in the frame(that is where the explosion/implosion lines converge).

Every photographer should experiment with all of the variables to find the results they prefer. Once that result is achieved this is a very repeatable technique. Always try variations for different subject matter. If using flash, try both first-curtain and second-curtain synch to see the difference and decide which is preferred. Try zooming both short-to-long and long-to-short-the results will not be the same.

Another variation of this technique is to shoot many exposures at slightly different focal lengths and combining all exposures into one image(this could be done on one frame of film). The result will be a “stepped” zoom look without the streaks of a continuous zoom. This is also best done with the camera on a tripod to keep framing and focus constant.