iPhoneography (pt.1)
One of the main reasons I picked up the iPhone 4S was because of its new camera. I am a bit of a photobug and an app addict. As such, I quickly started trying and buying a slew of the apps being offered in the Photo & Video section of the iTunes App Store. This can be more daunting than it may sound as there are literally hundreds, most of which are not worth your time.
There are two main types of photography apps. There are apps that primarily center around filters and having fun with photography, the biggest examples being Instagram and Hipstamatic. Then there are apps that enhance the iOS photo taking experience, the two big examples are Camera+ and a newer entry, Camera Awesome. Those are some of the more well known ones. I've tested quite a few different apps, my personal favorites being Hipstamatic and a relative uknown called King Camera.
I'm going to look at quite a few different iOS photography apps. I won't lie, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with this post. It's been sitting in a draft state (in one form or another) for a month or more now. I finally decided to make it a fairly extensive guide to iOS photography. I will note that I've only tested the following apps with the iPhone 4S. I only make that distinction because it does have a better physical lens than the previous iOS devices so keep that in mind if your running an earlier model iOS device.
Another thing I struggled with was where to start. What App should I get into first? It was kind of daunting until the obvious smacked me in the face so hard it hurt. Camera. Yep, the built in, default camera that almost everyone took their first iOS photo with. That's where I have to start. That's the baseline. Camera is, for better or worse, what all these apps are trying to enhance or improve upon.
I'll start with a few basics then we'll start looking at some different apps.
One last thing, I'm going to add a pros/cons to the bottom of the app articles so if you want a quick idea of what a certain app is about start there.
(more after the jump)
iOS Photography Basics (or Camera)
The default.Main Interface:
1. Flash: You can choose to set the flash on, off or auto. Some of the more advanced apps will let you turn flash on a continuous or "always on mode" (most often denoted as a flashlight).
2. Options: Most apps will let you customize quite a bit here. Most often options will look like a few gears or cogs. Using Camera as our example we would be able to turn on a 3x3 grid (rule of thirds kids) and turn HDR mode on / off from this menu.
3. Camera selector: This allows you to shoot using the front facing or rear facing camera.
4. Focus / Exposure: Tapping on the screen will tell Camera where you want to focus. This is also the area that will be used for exposure settings. If you tap and hold you can lock the AE/AF. Most of the other apps we will be looking at allow you set different points for focus and exposure allowing for greater control over the final photo. This is one of Camera's greatest weaknesses.
5. Camera Roll: This is where you can view your previously taken images and do minor editing. Most of the other applications we will be looking at will allow you to save to Camera Roll as well as their own in app version (the name will vary by application). Using Camera you can only perform basic editing, red eye reduction, cropping, basic color correction. Again, another weakness and one of the reasons you may want another app on your device.
6. Shutter: Pressing this button will take the photo. Some of the other apps may have modifiers like a timer, anti shake (image will only capture when device is stable) or sound (creating a loud noise will cause the shutter release) instead of the normal shutter button. Also worth noting is that Camera allows you to use the volume up (+) button to take a picture. Apple has been cracking down on third party apps using this feature so it is missing on most of the other apps we will be looking at.
7. Shooting mode: This allows you to switch between photo or video shooting modes.
That's Camera in a nut shell. Again, it's decent for a built in app, but if you want to get a little more serious (or fun) with your iOS photography - sometimes refered to as iPhoneography - you will want to explore other alternatives.
Pros:
- Built in.
- Allows image capture using Volume (+).
Cons:
- Seriously lacking in features.
Gallery:
King Camera
Devloper: Applications Saycheezzz.com
Price: Free ($1.99 in app unlock).
View in iTunes here.
King Camera is a bit of a Swiss Army Knife of photography apps. That might sound like it has more substance than style, but believe me, it has both in spades.
Main interface:
1. Flash: Like Camera we can chose on / off / auto, however, KC also has the option for always on.
2. Shutter modifiers: Timer, anti shake, noise or burst mode.
3. Big button mode: Enabling this option will cause the shutter to trigger when you click anywhere on the screen. Useful when holding your device at an odd angle.
4. Timelapse: King Camera also allows you to create full on timelapse videos. The quality can be adjusted. It can produce timelapses as high as 720p. Here are a few examples of ones I've created using KC (the only editing was the audio being added in).
5. White Balance Lock: Lock's the current White Balance.
6. Exposure Lock: Locks the current Exposure setting.
7. Grid: Enable a 3x3 grid (similar to Camera's).
8. Settings: You can adjust some of the basic options in here as well as view some handy instructional videos put together by the devs (here). Depending what mode you're on you will see an additional settings menu. For example when using timelapse, there will be another settings icon next to the shutter button (11) with more specific options for that feature.
9. Camera selector: This allows you to shoot using the front facing or rear facing camera.
10. Photodesk: Similar to Camera, taping on this will bring you to the area where you can view / edit your captured images. With KC it's called Photodesk (more on this after).
11. Shutter: In this exmaple there are no modifiers (like anti shake) turned on so this would be the default shutter icon.
12. Shooting mode: This allows you to switch between photo or video shooting modes.
13. Zoom: Here you can increase the digital zoom from 1x up to 4x. Typically speaking you want to stay away from digital zoom if at all possible. Not just with iOS apps, but with any camera. A better technique is to crop your picture to highlight what you wanted to focus on after it is taken. iPhone 4S has a pretty decent 8MP censor so you can get a decent crop if you need to.
14/15. Focus/Exposure Rings: If you tap and hold on the screen two rings will appear. The bigger green ring is for focus and the smaller yellow ring is for exposure. This allows you to chose different points to focus / expose.
Just from the interface comparisons you can already see that King Camera can do way more than the built in Camera App. You will also notice a menu bar running down left side hiding a portion of the viewfinder. Not to worry though, a swipe to the left will hide the bar. Swipe right to reveal it again.
That's the basics to taking pictures with King Camera, so now we'll have a look at editing picutes using Photodesk.
Photodesk
As mentioned, Photodesk is where you will process your pictures after taking them. There are two main areas to use, the Quickmatik and the Promatik. Quickmatik allows you to quickly adjust or apply filters to an image. Promatik allows you to customize a picture in any way you want. You can create your own Promatik looks and save them as Quickmatik setting for quick application in the future.
Once inside Photodesk you can tap on an image to select it. You will have four shortcuts in either corner. Starting top left and going clockwise we have:
Q - Quickmatic. Quickly adjust a photo. More details below.
P - Promatic. Advanced photo processing. More details below.
I - Info. Displays a very detailed list of settings used for that photo. Including F Stop, shutter speed, ISO setting, focul length etc. It also has processing details (Quickmatic, look selected, how much you applied a certain filter etc.) as well as image dementions and geolocation.
C - Copy. This allows you to quickly copy the look (filter) of a picture. You can then tap on another image, and tapping C again will now give you the option to paste the look onto that picture.
Quickmatik
One of the things I really love about this process is that you might find a filter that you like but maybe want to add a bit of an orange hue to it, no problem. After adding the Quickmatik look to the photo, you can then open it up in the Promatik and tweak it even further. This is where King Camera truly gets amazing.
Promatik
There is way to much going on Promatik to effectively cover it all, but I'll do my best.
1. Crop, Flip, Rotate: Allows you to, well... crop, flip and rotate your photo. Has constrained cropping for selecting a specific size to crop (1:1, 5:7, 8:10 etc).
2. White Balance: Allows you to adjust the White Balance via a slider that goes from blue to red.
3. Exposure and Contrast: This allows you to adjust several aspects of your photo. I'm just going to list the options (*all options are adjusted via a slider):
- Exposure.
- Contrast.
- Blacks.
- Brights.
- Shadows.
- Recovery.
4. Saturation and Tints: Allows to adjust the saturation level of the image. You can adjust all at once, or select to work with red, green or blue separately.
5. Intensifier: This is basically a quick "make my picture look better" option (similar to the Awesomize option in Camera Awesome).
6. Colorizer: Allows you to apply a colour filter to your photo. This is where you can really start to go nuts and tweak your images and create your own custom filters.
7. Light Leaker: This allows you to add light leaks for that vintage feel.
The following options aren't shown in the screenshot above, but they would be further right (I will continue to number them in order since that will look nicer :)
8. Texturizer: Allows to add effects like scratches or film grain.
9. Vignette: Obvious, allows you to add a vignette. Once again great if your going for a retro feel for an image.
10. Color Borders and Frames: Allows you to apply borders and frames to your images. A lot of old film print frames and borders, once again, great for that vintage effect.
The Promatik is a powerful post processing solution, but it could use some better labeling.
The Promatik is a powerful post processing solution, but it could use some better labeling.
Free vs. Paid
Like some of the apps I'll be talking about King Camera has a free model with an in app upgrade (HD Pack) available to remove some restrictions. The free version allows you to use all the features, but it limits the size of the picture you can export to Camera Roll and it watermarks your pictures. Keep that in mind if your testing it out. The upgrade costs $1.99 but is often on sale for .99 cents. Out of all the apps I've tested I feel this is among the most reasonable. You can test all the features and if you think you will seriously use the application you can upgrade for a reasonable price.Sharing
I know a lot of people like to be able to share pictures from inside the app itself, so in brief, King Camera allows you to share your photos to Instagram (via export), Facebook, Facebook Pages, Twitter, MMS, Email, Flickr and Dropbox from inside the app.Conclusion
King Camera offers more features than any other photo app I've tested, but above all else, all the features are implemented very well. None of the features listed are simply check box features, they are all fleshed out and fully functional. The amount of control Promatik offers is absolutely amazing. The developers are also very involved in King Camera's continued development and can be easily contacted for questions, suggestions or feature request here. I would like to see better labeling (inside Promatik and on the Focus/Exposure rings being prime examples). That being said, KC is free to test out, so I can't think of any reason not to at least give KC a try.Pros:
- Free to try.
- Separate focus and exposure points.
- Quickmatik / Promatik
- Lots of shooting modes (including time lapse).
- Ability to save Promatik looks to Quickmatik.
- Good developer support.
Cons:
- Small learning curve.
- Would benefit from better labeling.
- You will need to pay to remove watermarks and export in full resolution.
Gallery:
*It's becoming clear that this post is going to get out of control so I will break it up into (at least) three parts. Part 2 (coming soon) will look at Camera+ and Camera Awesome. Part three will look at Instagram and Hipstamtic.
Feel free to leave comments, request or suggestions.
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