Mobile

Anyone installing the latest Instagram update will be able to make full use of two brand new features. The first is live streaming, which allows you to broadcast simply by hitting the Start Live Video button when on the camera menu. The other allows for "disappearing" images to be exchanged over Instagram Direct, reminiscent of the format that Snapchat made successful.

It’s impossible to deny the rise of video in recent years. Even on the high street, many shops are replacing print campaigns in favor of TV screens with moving advertisements that showcase a larger range of their products. With video, even though you lose the subtlety of capturing a single moment in time, you can share so much more. So what’s the compromise? A new micro-video app by the name of Polaroid Swing combines movement with moment in a one-second clip to create what it calls “interactive photographs.”

If you weren't aware, there is quite a market for mobile lenses within the photography community, and sitting atop the pack is a little company called Moment. They came bursting on the scene about two years ago with the plan to bring high quality glass to the mobile photography market. Here are my thoughts on their brand new super fisheye lens, the Superfish.

Are you using Instagram Stories in your marketing? Are you wondering how photographers are using Stories? With new features like tagging and Boomerang being added this week as well as the possibility of links being added in the near future, Instagram Stories is quickly becoming a great tool for marketing that every photographer should take advantage of. Here is a list of ways you can start using Stories for your business today.

Kirk Mastin and Mastin Labs are the creators of some of the better known (and more highly regarded) sets of develop presets for digital images to emulate the look of film. Kirk has been working on a mobile app to achieve similar results on the go for a while now, and that app has finally been released. Meet Filmborn.

Everyone might not be familiar or privy to the changes that Instagram has made over the last couple years, but one thing is for sure, they are doing some great things when dealing with brands and how they feed ads to their consumers. Next week, they will begin to roll out a feature in which select brands will be able to tag specific products for people to click through and purchase with one click, all in-app.

Depth of field fakers rejoice, Apple has just released the official build of iOS 10.1. This update notably includes the heretofore beta Portrait Mode for owners of the iPhone 7 Plus, allowing users to simulate depth of field effects on photos taken with the 7 Plus' new secondary camera. The update is available now via over-the-air download or by updating your phone via iTunes.

Eastman Kodak and UK-based Bullitt Group yesterday announced a new smartphone which capitalizes on image-making. The 21-megapixel Kodak Ektra comes with a 6-axis optically stabilized f/2 front camera which sports a 26.5mm equivalent lens and uses a 1/2.4-inch Sony Exmor RS IMX230 sensor.

I know that all of the iPhone 7 hype is on the portrait mode and DNG file capture that the new camera has, but I was particularly interested in another aspect of iOS's photo capability. Having been stuck on a Nexus 6 for the past year and a half, I missed out on a lot of the new tricks that the iPhones were offering. Specifically, Lightroom Mobile's new raw file support, giving it similar editing capability as the desktop version of Lightroom.

What happens when you throw together a shoot with two fashion models, one photographer, and an iPhone? We went ahead and found out for ourselves. As a professional photographer, the most popular question I receive on a daily basis is, "What camera and lens do you shoot with?" I also hear "My camera isn't good. What camera and lens should I buy?" When asked that question, I always make sure to emphasize that great light trumps great gear every time. That inspired me to do put down the D810 and practice what I preach. And what better way than to break in my iPhone 7 Plus?

Background blur has been the mark of the pro almost exclusively since the digital revolution began in the early 2000s. That polished and premium look is now coming to the world's most popular camera, which until now has been beholden to the physics of tiny sensors. Professional photographers may have more to fear than just fear itself.

For most, light painting photography is out of reach. Usually requiring a DSLR setup, most photographers don’t want to spend the time, energy, or coin to create dynamic images painted with light. But, for those who love the idea of using concentrated light to add flare to their images with little to no effort, Pablo is here. The new app for iOS helps even the most amateur photographer create long exposure photos and video at the touch of a screen.

The world's most popular camera is the iPhone. That isn't news anymore, but it does highlight a number of interesting points about how people consume photography these days. Firstly, if people have a camera on their person that's readily available, they'll take pictures. Although this is somewhat obvious, it does draw the eye to one of the drawbacks of DSLRs and ILCs: size. They are both invariably too big to have on your person at all times, but what if that could be overcome?

Astrophotographers have a tough job, balancing the use of electronics and star-gazing apps with the ability to keep their eyes adjusted for the night sky or the dark ground that surrounds them as they shoot. I have wrapped my phone in red cellophane plenty of times. While some apps (many of which were recently pulled) allowed for changing the bluish cast of your device's screen to something more amber, Apple's iOS 10 update is the first time the company has included a way to make everything on your screen an actual shade of red.

Adobe recently released a new version of its Lightroom Mobile app that takes advantage of the raw image support in Apple's just-released iOS 10. Taken on an iPhone 6S running the developer GM seed of iOS 10 (10.0.1), these images show just how good your mobile photos can now be. You'll need to have the latest versions of iOS 10 (running on an iPhone with a 12 MP camera) and Adobe Lightroom Mobile to do this yourself, but we're providing comparison files for testing purposes for those without such access. Tell us what you notice.

Adobe has announced the 2.5 update to their popular Lightroom Mobile app. The new update adds the ability to shoot directly to Adobe's open source raw file format, DNG, avoiding the compression and data loss inherent in standard JPEG files. To capture in DNG, users will need a device running iOS 10 that has a 12 MP sensor, such as the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone SE, and iPad Pro 9.7. When available, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will also support capturing in DNG format. The latest update is available in the App Store at the time of this writing.

Musicbed, the popular music licensing platform for creatives looking to perfect their stories while supporting musical artists, has announced an all new app for iPhone. Touted as not “just some update,” the app has been completely rebuilt to share the same experience of the new Musicbed website that was launched earlier this year. With the Musicbed app you can bring your synced wishlists with you, discover new music, and collaborate with others to find the perfect sound for your shared project.

Some things are too good to be true. But every now and again, the world offers you an opportunity to feel like you got the lucky ticket for two on an all-expenses paid vacation to Disneyland. This isn’t quite that good, but I don’t know many people who would say, “No,” to a free iPhone, let alone one that can make you money. Here’s how you can have cash left over after upgrading to an iPhone 7…

Last week Apple unveiled the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, the later featuring a 28mm wide-angle and a 56mm “telephoto” lens, and both sporting a faster f/1.8 aperture with a 12-megapixel sensor. At today’s Titans-Vikings game, Sports Illustrated photographer David E. Klutho shot some of the first images with the iPhone 7 Plus before the phone’s September 16 release date.

Apple just finished their keynote announcing the new iPhone 7. The new 7 and 7 Plus include some pretty awesome (sounding) camera upgrades that should be another step forward for mobile photographers and videographers.

Developing an idea for a memorable photoshoot is not an easy task. It involves concentration, creativity, discipline, managing skills, and much more depending on the type of photoshoot. Often, we start with a barely visible image in our head. But having a strong sense what we want, will help us develop it into a final, achievable visual. An inspiration is a crucial part of this algorithm. Everything can serve as an inspiration: from a dress to a hair color you saw on someone; from music to a movie you watched last night; from a color at the shop counter to a tree in your backyard. When you have something realistic to build your theme upon, things get easy. But what do you do when you have no idea where to shoot it? Your mobile phone can be your savior here.

We're live now, come humor me as I mock the company that takes all of my money!

Back in July of 2016, Adobe released a major update to Lightroom Mobile for iOS that allows it to work directly with any and all raw files supported by the desktop version and to also sync them seamlessly with the desktop. But what does this actually mean for real-world use? What problem are we actually solving? Let's go on a trip with epic travel photographer Elia Locardi and find out.

The FTC seems to be continuing its watchful eye on sponsored posts via social media as influencers and celebrities get paid to post about their favorite brands. So beware if you are one that is taking products or collaborating with a brand as an ambassador, or simply as a partner. As photographers, many of us bring on relationships with companies and camera brands without knowing the rules fully. Not disclosing these partnerships can result in fines from the FTC.

The latest list of inductees to the 2016 class of the International Photography Hall of Fame reads like a who's who of top tier photographers and industry pioneers. Gracing the list are the likes of Annie Leibovitz, Sebastiao Salgado, Ken Burns, Tom and John Knoll, Ernst Haas, and Steve Jobs. Wait, what? Steve Jobs?

A few months ago we shared that Instagram began to roll out some pretty powerful analytic tools called "Insights," though as many of you might have gathered it's not available to the masses just yet. Select users have their hands on the tools currently and they are able to track things like impressions, total reach, clicks to the link in your bio, and even what percentage of your followers are male or female. The tools expand further down into regions of the world your followers are from, including the exact city. Here is how to get them right now, for free.

A team of researchers recently placed study participants in different situations such as a bus tour, a museum, or a simulation of a live event. Some participants were allowed to take photos, while others were not. The team consistently found that those who were allowed to take photos enjoyed the experience more and showed higher levels of engagement with the material.

This is a wild claim to make. The camera is one of the most used apps on the iPhone, and most of the photos shared online are taken with one. So, why would this app beat the iPhone’s camera app? According to the video, Microsoft Pix is a smart camera, and looking at the features, it seems like they might’ve developed something quite great.

Great news for mobile editing fans! Lightroom for iOS and Android has taken a large step forward today, making editing on the go more versatile and capable than ever.

A major update is now available for Creatic, the free iPhone photo editing app. In Creatic 2.0, users now have access to many more editing tools, a preset manager, live filter camera, and a newly designed discover tab for browsing and interacting with the community. After using it for a few days, I found that there’s actually a surprising amount on editing control in this app not found elsewhere.

Instagram is a really cool thing; it's chock full of amazing work that inspires. It's also a great place to connect with the people who make that work. However, when people create fake connections by following and unfollowing, I get quite annoyed.

As photographers, we have a never-ending, ever-perpetuating growth of photos piling up on our hard drives. Inevitably, whether that work is professional or personal, our photos end up taking space on cloud storage accounts that we keep upgrading whenever we reach the limit. But what if you could cut the size of these files in half without losing any visible quality? You could save a lot of headache, not to mention, money.

Now, I'll be the first to say I'm not an avid snapper. I don't broadcast a lot on my channel, but I do enjoy when I have a few minutes to kill to see what a few of my crazy friends are up to that do post daily or in some cases hourly, and I do very enjoy the fact that other than the random filters and stickers, the videos and photos are generally unaltered, and it seemed to almost be an honest window. However, Snapchat is now offering "Memories," or the ability to post or save photos to the app in order to post or repost them later.

If you're one of the hundreds of millions of people who uses Snapchat every day, you've probably played with its lenses that transform your face into all sorts of humorous, interesting, and horrifying things (trust me, I face-swapped with a clock once, and I looked like a Dali disaster). Making all that magic happen takes a lot of math and computing power, however, and the process is fascinating.

SnapDragon is the name of a processor made by Qualcomm. The company just released a short film titled "Lifeline" and a behind-the-scenes video where the Academy Award-winning director, Armando Bo, runs through the plot and how they used a mobile phone to create the timeline and tell the story.