A few weeks ago I discovered an app called Manything. It’s an app that uses an iOS-device camera as a Surveillance Camera.
The installation process is really easy. You just install the app on the device that you’re using, and on the device (-s) that you want to use as the surveillance cam, and off you go.
When Manything starts you can connect to the “surveillance phone” and watch a live stream, but not only that. Every time a person moves in front of the cam you can have a signal sent to you, together with a clip of what the cam “have seen”.
This must be one of the easiest download-decisions if you have an old iPhone or an iPad lying around at home.
Click on the images to go to Manything:s homepage.
Apple is marketing a new app each week. An app that will be given away for free for a limited time. This week the free app is Spark Camera. After Thursday it will be back on normal price level ($1.99)
App Store Best of 2013 and Apple Editors’ Choice
Spark Camera supports iPhone 4S and higher.
Shoot, edit and share beautiful movies in seconds with Spark. Here’s how it works:
•Press & hold anywhere to record, release to stop
•Do this as many times as you’d like to create multiple clips
•Slide to change filters during playback
•Tap the music note to add a song from your library
•Tap the save button to save to your camera roll
•Share on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, iMessage, or email!
Spark lets you to record, enhance, and share life’s best moments through beautiful HD videos. What ignites a spark in your life? A gorgeous sunrise, an afternoon with friends at the beach, a kid’s smile… whatever it may be, the world is full of inspirational moments; capture them with Spark Camera.
Features:
•Take as many Sparks as you’d like
•Create HD 720p videos
•Add music from your music collection
•Apply high quality filters
•String together up to 45 seconds of footage
•Share via Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, iMessage, and AirDrop
•Delete the last clip captured if you want to reshoot
•Have unlimited Sparks in progress
•Save to your Spark gallery as well as your camera roll
Final Cut
• Import videos from camera roll
• Rearrange clips
• Delete any clip
• Trim beginning or ending of clips
During the time of this blog I’ve now and then written reviews about best photo apps for iPhone / iPad. Some of the apps have been about the editing part, while others have been filter apps and so on. There haven’t been one app that has it all.
Now we’re close to that; the new version of Photo Toaster brings together almost all of my apps into one.
The apps that I’ve used most frequent has been Photoshop Express, for reducing noise, and handling levels like exposure, temp, tint, saturation and so on. 645 Pro for B/W. Snapseed and Photo Editor for harder effects and so on. All these features are now available in one single app – Photo Toaster.
Even though I think that Photoshop Express still is better at reducing the noise, Photo Toaster is “good enough”, and I guess I can say that about all those features. The benefit of keeping all of those features into one app is higher than the workflow of using several apps.
And on the topic of workflow. I really like that shortcut to the “recent edits”. Great small feature which saves a lot of time.
This is quite traditional filter-app The difference between this and most of the current filter-apps may be that there are fewer filters to use, and filters that are the opposite of subtle.
I’m not the biggest fan of using filters, but when I use them I want to use them in a way that it really shows that filter’s been used. With that said, this app contains some really nice ones, if you like to use filters.
If you download the free app you’ll have to live with some ads, but I don’t think that they are too annoying.
The test photo is a photo I took with my iPhone 5. Below it, you’ll find the same photo after the Vintage app is used, and at the bottom you’ll find two screen shots.
Some thoughts about iOS7 after using it for one month
Since we’re developing apps for iOS I’m part of the beta testing team that will use their coming upgrades before they are released, and report issues back to Apple, to have them corrected.
This new upgrade is both a big upgrade, at the same time as it’s not. It’s big in terms of GUI, the icons are “flat” now instead of “floating”/3D. I really don’t know if I like this more than the old one. I’ve got used to it, but at the same time I miss some of the old beautiful icons. It’s a small change in the overall usage.
One new feature is the possibility to have more than one screen in each icon-folder, but at the same time there are fewer icons in every screen. Both good and bad there as well.
The camera has been upgraded and I think it has gotten better with live filters, easier access to functions and some new nice features as “square” for all instagrammers (my nick is btw on instagram is @pedrohansson).
What I thought for almost 24 hours was a big flaw in this new OS, was that I couldn’t reach spotlight to the left of my home screen. With over 600 apps installed that it was a downgrade. But of course there was a new way of doing that, that actually is better. Wherever you are in your iOS-screens you can just put your finger on the screen, hold it down for a short time and drag it down. Voila! There’s spotlight.
The new fast access screen (that you access by dragging your finger from the bottom upwards) is also a highly appreciated function that should’ve been there years ago.
Siri seems to have had a major upgrade. A more personalized feeling and I think a better understanding of follow-up questions. It’s starting to be really impressing.
What is really nice in the new iOS is the multi tasking screen where you can reach all apps that currently are running. This screen is now a full screen with “live shots” from each and every app running. Great GUI!
What’s more to say? Well there are many many small changes here and there and I think this is a really good new iOS. I just wonder if it’s enough to keep the Androids behind.
I will continue to use iPhone since my whole home is built around it, AND it’s always working which I think is the number one feature with the iPhone. You just start it and use. No need to turn off GPS, no need for “app killers” since they are running out your batteries and so on. So Apple, I will stick with you for a while more, but I hope we will see some new cool, mind blowing functionality, in the future, as we were used to in the past.
Lapse It is an award-winning full featured app for capturing amazing time lapse and stop motion videos. It is easy, fast and intuitive.
No need for expensive photography equipment, you just need Lapse It.
If you like to try out new photo apps for your iPhone / iPad you might enjoy some paid apps that are currently free for a short period. Click on the name of the app for a direct link to each app.
A typical Photo Editor app, with quite a lot of functionality built into it. Even though it says that the app used to cost $21 and now’s out for free it’s not the full truth. I checked the history of the app and they increased the price on the 10:th of July from $1 to $21. Maybe a good advertising trick. Anyhow, it seems like a good app even though I’ve not tried it out that much yet.
If you like to experience with apps in your iOS device, maybe FX Photo Studio may be something for you? Since it’s free for one day, it may be worth a download, at least for checking it out.
Who would’ve thought that part of an Oscar Award winning movie would be made by using an iPhone? Well now it’s true.
Yesterday the Swedish Movie, Searching for Sugar man was awarded an Oscar at the yearly film festival. As almost every film production this was also a costly one. At the end of the project they ran out of money, but as true artists they found a way by using a traditional iPhone, together with the iPhone app 8 mm Vintage Camera.
As an experiment I’ve set up a page on Facebook. The page will be a way to be noticed when there are new things published on this blog. It may also be a better way to share thoughts and ideas in a better way?
One of my first posts on this blog was about which iPhone Photo-apps I preferred. And since then I now and then have posted and reposted that list.
Instagram
(link to app-store) – From my previous post
If you like filters and sharing images with the rest of the world you’ll love Instagram (my nickname on Instagram is @pedrohansson). I’m surprised how creative and actually really beautiful images that are shared at Instagram. And many of those just using their iPhone (1) What I think separates Instagram from many other “filter-apps” is their strength as a company. You can feel the quality.
(1) A portion of the images at Instagram are shot with professional equipment
Perfectly Clear
One of the downsides with “phone-photo” is usually noise, and dealing with the small sensor. With this app I’ve rescued many images that sometimes get to dark, with to much noise, and so on.
It’s not a traditional photo app with ton’s of filters and picture bending operations, but it’s a great tool to use to enhance images.
I think that almost everyone that’s interested in taking pictures with the iPhone have come across this app. In my opinion it’s one of the easiest out there to use, and it comes with quite a lot of features as well.
I downloaded Snapseed quite a long time ago (in technology terms) and I immediately liked the GUI. Professional and really easy to use at the same time. I can’t say that this app is the best in terms of amount of filters or in number of parameters you can change, but I think it’s one of the best apps in quality and GUI.
Startscreen in Snapseed
Photoshop Express
(link to app store) – From my previous post
I guess Adobe don’t need any further presentation. In the image-industry they are one of the biggest, and the Photoshop-software have been around for quite awhile. With Photoshop Express you get one feature that I think is necessary if you’re keen on getting the noise out of your pictures, Noise Reduction (this feature is actually the single feature that I use in this app but Noise is almost always a problem when you’re using mobile phone cams so I use it on almost every pic I share).
Below you have the same picture, with and without the reduce noise function in Photoshop Express.
iPhone-image of Visby sunset without reduce noise function (Click image for large version)
Same picture as above, but now with reduce noise (Click image for large version)
A note to using this function is that, when you reduce noise, also loose details so the result will, as always, differ depending on what you want to show. Photoshop is free but you have to spend a few bucks on getting the Reduce Noise Function
One of the apps that I’m using the most. The iPhones built-in functionality for HDR is quite good but this app is so far ahead in terms of control and image quality. If you don’t know what HDR is and are interested in getting some new ideas for your photographic session I suggest that you look into it. In short HDR is using several exposures (over- and under exposed) to create one image. By using several exposures you can use the lighter information in the under exposed image and vice versa. HDR-apps can also being used for creating motion and ghost-like effects.
Another side-effect with HDR is that you can find colors that otherwise aren’t possible due to over- and under exposure-difficulties.
A side effect of using two images is that you need keep the camera absolute still, otherwise you get some blurry effects.
This is, together with ProHDR and Photoshop Express the photoapp I’m using the most. I started off with using the “junior-version” but upgraded to the full version later. What I really enjoy with PhotoToaster is that it has some really nice filters to enhance the picture without making them look “too funky”. Focus on many of the filters are almost like a pre-set Photoshop app.
The last app on this list is PowerCam. This is app that I only use when I wan’t to do Tilt-shift images. With Tilt-shift I don’t just mean the effect when things will look like a miniature world. I use it more frequently when I wan’t a nice bokeh (from Wikipedia: the blur,or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image). This app does that better than any of the other I’ve tried on the market.
During the last year I’ve experienced quite a lot with using an open shutter while walking with the camera hand-held. To be honest I’ve created many many bad photos while experimenting, but a few of them I’ve really enjoyed and for every day I learn a bit more when to use this technique, and when I shouldn’t.
One of the things I’ve learned is that composition will be even more important because I won’t be able to use depth of field as I would do on a normal photo. I think it’s also important to remember the lines, and where the eye will move along the photo when you’re using blurry techniques.
For those of you that aren’t so into the technical parts of photography, the shutter functionality is to open and let the light into the camera lens, and then close again. This will then create the image. For obvious reasons; the longer the shutter is open, the more light there will be on the camera lens.
With an open shutter in this case, I mean when the shutter is open many seconds.
If you’re using your iPhone for this purpose, I can recommend the app “SlowShutter”
This is an image I created last week while walking in the forest, that I think turned out pretty well. The shutter speed in this case was 3 seconds. What I really enjoy with these types of photos is that they can keep your imagination busy for a longer time than a normal photo. In short, I think they last a little bit longer.
I’ve just logged in to the app Soundtracking on my Spotify account, right after I’ve got the news about this new music and image sharing app. I think the idea behind the app is really good; to instantly and easy share your music among your friends straight from your mobile or from within Spotify and add your own Instagram pics attached to your suggestions.
My user name in the app is (of course 🙂 ) saarimner; so if you wan’t to find your first friend there just add me.
As you might have discovered in the screen capture above I didn’t figure out that I should have deleted the first image from my first choice 🙂
If you’re using Spotify you’ll find the app under the app finder on the left hand side. It’s currently down on 28:th place in the app list, but as it’s featured in the app suggestions so I guess that may change rapidly.
For me it sounded a bit strange at first to mix your music suggestions with your images, but the more I think about it, I guess it’s all about creativity and I think they’ll actually fit quite well together.
Soundtracking – Screen Capture iOS
In the iOS app you find all the functionality you’re searching for easy accesible. If you’re used to use apps like Shazaam for capturing music around you, you’ll find a way to that as well in the app. On the downside, if you don’t have a Spotify account you’ll just have the possibility to listen to previous or buy the songs from iTunes. Other than that I really think that this will be an app that I use quite often to discover and share new music and fitting pics to it.
If you currently are a user, or you try it out for the first time it would be great to hear you thoughts around it.
Saarimner.com 
