Good news for Instagram lovers: The quintessential social photo sharing platform has announced the addition of two new tools, color and fade, to the in-app editing capabilities. These new tools build on Instagram's version 6.0 release last year which added a number of creative controls to fine-tune your images and eliminated the need for other photo editing apps for making basic adjustments.
If you haven't heard of the app Phhhoto you're certainly not alone. Phhhoto is a mobile GIF/cinemagraph/image sequence creating and sharing platform that was released last year on iOS and will be coming to Android in the future. As of this week it now has over a million registered users and is really starting to take the world by storm. I'll admit I didn't really take it seriously myself until I saw Jeremy Cowart post a couple Phhhotos. After having messed around with it for the last week I can honestly say it has me pretty excited. I'm on Phhhoto and here's why you should be too.
This week Instagram released an all new photo collage app to the masses called Layout. Similar to their last development, Hyperlapse, it's completely separate from the original photo sharing application. Though I am glad Instagram is branching out into new ventures, it feels as though this one might be a complete waste.
We share over 1.8 billion photos per day, and thanks to the ever-growing technology in cameras paired with the expansive world of social media platforms it's become increasingly easy to add the title "photographer" to the resume. Apple has searched high and low for the world's absolute best photographers and their work that spans the planet. The "Shot on iPhone 6" World Gallery features photos from creatives spanning 70 cities in 24 countries, and brings the mobile photography community front and center proving again that the best camera is the one that's with you.
This morning VSCO finally added the long overdue, batch editing feature in the VSCO Cam 4.1 release. Available to download now from the Android and iOS markets. Along with adding Copy + Paste, they have also added the undo feature into the edit mode.
Having been on Instagram ("IG") for over four years now, it's been incredible to see the evolution from a basic photo taking, filter adding iPhone application to the world's fastest growing social network. Since its purchase by Facebook almost three years ago, IG has fought its way to the top. IG has added feature after feature, competing directly with other social networks, like Vine, to stay ahead. This weekend, Instagram is taking it's last shot to finish them off and it makes me so very happy!esw3
Last night's episode of "Modern Family" was both hilarious and very well filmed. Using nothing more than iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks, each character used FaceTime to interact with one another in a first-person selfie view. We are all familiar with various movies and television shows using iPhones to snap quick scenes here and there, but this episode went even further by using it as the basis of the entire episode; with genius I might add.
We have all seen the comparison from one iPhone to the next as the newest tech is announced and the previous model is shot off as outdated and useless. This time we look at the evolution of mobile shooting and the tech that brings us into a new era of photography. Looking all the way back to the first iPhone and the quality of image versus the newest flagship from Apple, the iPhone 6, it's remarkable how far we have come and it excites me to see where we can go from here.
Since launching their two mobile photography lenses last year, the Moment team in Seattle has been working hard to improve other aspects of the mobile photography experience. They have revealed their newest creation, the Moment Case, which works in conjunction with their mobile app and current two lenses. With the Moment team’s success with using Kickstarter on their last project, they have decided to turn back to the site to fund the Moment Case as well. The best part is, it’s available for order as of today, and lucky for me I had the pleasure of being the sole individual outside of the Moment team, to test the prototype case prior to today’s launch. However, it’s currently only available for the iPhone 6, which is making me wish I didn’t pick up the 6+ a few months back.
You've already mastered sneaking your selfies by the window to grab that natural soft light, but now with this smartphone accessory you don't have to work around the sun's schedule. Lenovo's new Selfie Flash is exactly what it sounds like. A 3.5mm headphone jack mounted light designed to illuminate your face for the front-facing camera.
When people walk through my living room studio, they are puzzled that I do not own or rent a permanent studio space. What many do not know is that when I’m contracted for a commercial assignment, about 80% of the time I must travel to a location or shot at the client’s home base. And, in many cases that requires transporting several 9 foot seamless backdrops and a whole lot of equipment. I don’t have a giant bus to haul all of my studio gear, so it’s been a trying experience to find the right tools to efficiently pack and tote my mobile studio.
Each year over 150,000 people flock to Las Vegas for CES, the world’s largest consumer electronic showcase. Major tech innovators from all over the world kick off the new year by showing off their latest and greatest gadgets and innovations to the public. This year, SanDisk unveiled three new products that are designed to increase your productivity and give your workflow a boost.
Back in September, Fstoppers announced the news that Panasonic's Lumix CM1 would be coming into the world boasting a 20-megapixel camera paired with some gorgeous Leica glass. Now we have word that the phone along with its sexy glass partner will be coming to the US this summer. Will this finally be the mobile device you ditch your iPhone for?
You read that right. It was rumoured late last year that Google was playing around with the Android camera API to include raw capability, and then we reported that this feature was rolled out with the latest 5.0 Lollipop update on many Android devices, but now we finally have an app that lets us access this feature and use it to our hearts content.
Yes, the instant print camera popularized by the one and only Polaroid is back and in a new form factor for 2015. The long awaited Socialmatic doesn't use film but rather snaps and shares your photos via the web and social media options along with delivering nifty adhesive prints of your photos. Wrapped in an Android based OS that shares to Facebook, Twitter and of course Instagram, I'm interested in seeing how people respond to its release come January.
If you've been longing to make your photos a lot more interactive, there's a new app launching today that’s set to cure your itch. The mad scientists at Fyuse have come up with some incredibly cool spatial technology that blends photography and video to create a unique and interactive experience, all from your iOS or Android device.
For an app that brings the hipster out in everyone, Instagram showed it can really grow up today. Five new filter updates almost wouldn't matter. So what? We have a million other apps and editing tools and already sometimes too many Instagram filters. But today's update brings something that Instagram has lacked from Day One: subtlety.
For a long time teleprompters were considered bulky, unweildy, and often required you to be tethered to a laptop or other control station. In the last few years, more affordable options that used wireless technology and compact mounts began to hit the market. Now, "The Parrot" might just be the most compact system I've ever seen, and it uses a device that the majority of us will already own: a smartphone.
It's been an absolute pleasure seeing friends and colleagues getting chosen for social media campaigns and commercial photography jobs all around the world as a result of sharing their talents via Instagram. With mobile media teams popping up around the country bidding for projects with companies like GE, NatGeo Wild and beyond, it's amazing to see their work featured across the web and in print media. My pals Scott Borrero and Ravi Vora have teamed up with Jeep to create this awesome behind-the-scenes video about a trip out to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to shoot for their new Grand Cherokee. The results are just captivating.
Shooting for the majority of my career with nothing more than an iPhone and various mobile devices, it's a struggle to find that same look and feel of high-end flash photography without going to my DSLR and speedlights. Enter a new addition to the world of mobile photography with Lume Cube. A powerful compact flash alternative that reaches 1,500 lumen and can fire up to five at once with one touch of a mobile app.
Smooth video is critical for a professional touch on any video shoot. Currently, there are a number of stabilization options from traditional and expensive Steadicam systems to simple weight-balanced gimbal-based rigs like the Steadicam Merlin. Arguably, none do the job more intuitively, however, than the BeeWorks 5 Camera Stabilization and BeeWorks' special sauce, the Kinetic Remote.
Sony has been on fire as of lately and has shown no signs of slowing down anytime soon. They have pushed the boundaries of a mirrorless camera system with their highly regarded a7, a7R, and a7S, and now seem to be pushing the limits of mobile photography. Yesterday Sony announced the Exmor RS, the world’s first stacked CMOS image sensor. Boasting an impressive 21 effective megapixels as well as 192 autofocus points and 4k video capture, Sony’s new sensor may be a gamechanger in the mobile photography market.
Over the past couple of decades, technology has changed every aspect of modern life both at work and at play. We now live in a digital era dominated by high-end digital cameras, mobile phones, smart tablets and even intelligent watches. However, what we often forget is that each shutter click on these devices captures a slice of history, a moment which felt significant enough to pull out our gadget and press that all-important shutter button. Most of these images stay rooted deep inside our device’s memory never to be viewed again. That is until now, where next month we see the release of ZenCam, an application which enables intelligent printing for portable devices.
The great team at Artifact Uprising has created a strong list of tips by some of the top mobile photographers on Instagram. Having been engulfed in the mobile photography, or iPhoneography, world for almost two years I have found that in the end the camera you use has nothing to do with the quality of your images you create. Just to clarify, by quality I mean the moment captured and the purpose behind the shot, not the pixel density. These guys truly are proof that the best camera is the one you have with you.
I’ll never forget the email; I was on a plane somewhere over the Florida coast, on my way to the Bahamas for the Fstoppers Workshops 2014. Just before I left the States, I had signed on with the artist consulting firm Wonderful Machine. The first step in preparation for a press release was to tear my website apart. The critique was tough and they slashed it hard… here I am in one of the most beautiful places in the world, feeling a truck load of anxiety. For years, I had thought I had a clean and straight to the point website, but it turns out I needed to strip it down even more.
Johnson and Johnson has recently released a new app called "Donate A Photo" with a rather simple premise. For every photo you upload the company will donate a dollar towards a charity of your choice. Now you can turn all those selfies and pictures of your cat into donations that help make the world a better place.
Instagram just celebrated four years since launching in the app store bringing inspiration and encouragement to many creatives in that time, especially photographers. If you were not aware, each weekend they host something called the Weekend Hashtag Project or WHP for short, choosing a specific topic for followers to shoot within that theme all for a chance to be featured that next Monday on their blog and to be seen by millions of viewers.
Mobile photography accessory maker Olloclip have debuted their new 4-in-1 Photo Lens for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The new 4-in-1 lens has been redesigned to work with both front and rear facing cameras, and adds a few other new features.
Announced this morning to kick off Adobe MAX, Adobe has released a series of applications for mobile devices that are designed to increase productivity, especially when on the move. They were able to show me some of these pieces of software during a briefing last week, and I must say, these look to have incredible potential for photographers, videographers and graphic designers.
Having just started in photography two years ago I have a strong passion for creatives willing to share their passion and tips with the community. Fstoppers included, its one of the reasons I found all the information I needed with little to no cost starting out. Skillshare is launching an exciting series of classes highlighting how some of the best photographers in the world do what they do best, take incredible photos and share them with the world.
Photographer Lisa Bettany, creator of the Camera+ and MagiCam iPhone apps, put together a fascinating and thorough comparison of images coming from every generation of the iPhone ever created. With insight into low-light performance, macro capabilities, overall sharpness, and how Apple's own image processing algorithms seem to have changed over the course of time, the results are certainly interesting.
If you're on Instagram and have been immersed in the community they have built, you have most likely come across Bethany Olsen and Cory Staudacher feeds by now. Both photographers from Seattle met through mutual friends via the social network and eventual became an instant hit while sharing incredible photos across the Pacific Northwest gaining over 500,000 followers combined.
We've featured ESPN photographer Brett Wilhelm's work before as he's taken us through numerous one-man setups for his events. This time, Wilhelm gives us a great video covering everything you need to know about wirelessly transmitting your images in the field with the Nikon system. From connecting to FTP servers through your iPhone or local wireless network to explaining the advantages and disadvantages between the WT-5 and WT-4, Wilhelm makes sure you'll be ready to shoot anything in the field for instant transmission back to your editing team.
The old photographers’ saying, “It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer” sounds like a self-serving flattery when it comes out of the mouth of a photographer, yet has never been more accurate than today. Its ironic how, as a professional photographer, I posses the knowledge of manipulating the most sophisticated gear and cameras available, yet when I shoot an image on the iPhone the resulting image is an embarrassment. Rushing to my defense I’ll utter each time, “I’m a terrible iPhone photographer…” So when I see amazing images, shot with the iPhone, I’m impressed with what can be achieved.
With the rise of smartphones and lack of expandable storage locally, many manufactors have been creating storage solutions with options to access over a wireless network connection. While this isn't anything new, it appears as Western Digital is releasing a one-step solution for photographers needing to backup SD cards on location.
If there is one thing we learned this weekend concerning Jennifer Lawrence and others, it’s that even the most seemingly safe photos are not safe at all. We happen to be amongst two eras. One where cameras are more frequent than ever, and one where privacy is disappearing rapidly. Here are some tips to keep those two things separate.
Pictured above are the two lenses currently available from Moment that I stumbled across while browsing Kickstarter and immediately knew I had to have. The 60mm Tele and 18mm Wide are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, while maintaining the sturdiness and incredible optics of products ten times their size. The following are my first impressions after they landed on my porch.
Photographer Lorenz Holder takes us on a behind the scenes look into seven top smartphone photography tips and tricks. Walking us through things like "The Driveby Pano" and making your own macro lens with a simple drop of water, you can see how the innovation in photography has grown in the mobile world.
Though there are other programs out there that say they can quickly cutout objects from the background via masks and leave you with a clean end result, I've tried a few of those programs and they just don't seem to cut it. The process to create these masks also seem very awkward. Now you can quickly create (pretty darn good) masks on your iPad using Photoshop Mix, a mobile offering from Adobe we told you about earlier this year.
DSTRUX launched a new iOS app of the same name yesterday that changes the way content owners control their images' usage across the web. A universal Snapchat of sorts, DSTRUX brings private and controled viewing of images to anyone with an Internet browser.
After years of seeing "Please, No Photos of the Art" signs in every museum across the country over the years, you might find it interesting to hear that the bans have finally started disapearing, and even photo-taking promoted for the sake of social media advertising. The National Gallery has finally opened the floor to promoting photos by mobile and amateur photographers and encourage the idea to take photos of the art and post those images to social media platforms. This is a pretty big deal considering the stance on the issue for so long was very anti-photographs.
Smartphones have undeniably taken over our lives in the past few years and most of us carry one everywhere we go. One of the most-used features on a modern phone is the camera, and it's being used all the time. In many cases, more than one person is taking photos or videos of what is going on and each person gets different angles and maybe a different part of the action. There has not been an easy way to edit it all together, but Disney Research announced the development of an automatic editing tool that takes the different videos from a scene and intelligently combines them.
I’ve always been enthralled with first person movie scenes, games and music videos. Clocking countless hours with Duke Nukem 3D in my parent’s basement on an old Packard Bell PC planted a seed that forever changed me. To this day I think The Prodigy's breakbeat electronic hit “Smack My Bitch Up” is one of the greatest first person videos of all time.
Keeping your photographs organized by means of keywording is not a new idea but a new app is changing the idea of keyword organization. Polymo lets you add your keywords before you shoot, and adds all of the photos into its own "smart album."
Last year Mercedes-Benz USA (@MBUSA) ran a very successful social media campaign using Instagram and some of its top influencers to spread the word about the new CLA which you can read about here. Now, they are at it again with a new approach on the much anticipated Mercedes GLA. What better way to advertise than to hit social media with some absolutely stunning adventure photos?
DJI has been a major player in the quadcopter arena for quite some time. While there are MANY other brands out there, DJI has set out to make flying easy, especially for those with no experience. Now it will be even easier to start flying thanks to the addition of Autonomous flight. They call it Ground Station.
Earlier this year, Nikon unveiled a 3D photo booth that used a system of multiple DSLRs to render a 3D model of a subject. Just months later the technology to do so now fits in your pocket — free.
It's no secret that the majority of the photography and art community tends to lean towards Apple for many of their services. Google is hoping to convert a few of us with the announcement of Android 5.0 L this past weekend. Adding RAW support, full manual controls, and any other features to the camera system might make Android the best option for photographers everywhere.
We all have a half-dozen or so USB thumb drives laying around. You know, the ones you bought to replace the ones you thought you lost, but then found a week later? Maybe they were free at a trade show? I had my fair share and decided to do something about it: I created my new favorite and totally portable live-work "SSD." Considering I just needed one, $16 accessory, it all seemed pretty reasonable to me.
