iPhone camera apps

iPhone 4 Built in Camera App

/ General / , ,

Whilst I was away I tried out both the Camera+ app and the built in camera app. The Camera+ has lots of options and other “good things” for making creative images, editing, sorting etc. The built in camera is much simpler but it does have an HDR setting dessigned to deliver better quality images. I set the camera to save both the composite HDR image and the “standard” image for comparison. I was very pleased with the results especially in very difficult lighting.

The first images are the standard shots, the second are in HDR

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Sat Nav App for my iPhone

/ Outdoor Gear, Technology / , , , , ,

Darren from Absolute Electrical Group (http://www.absoluteelectricalgroup.co.uk) recommended to me a free satnav app for the iPhone. Free – it cannot be very good – can it?

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/navfree-uk-roi/id391334793?mt=8

Navfree for UK and ROI takes a while to download and install as it includes the maps so you can use it when offline. When you first run the program you need to go to the Navmii Store, (the shop icon is built into the app), to download the free postcode database. Also available is a safety camera database – this you have to purchase, but it is a bargain,

I tried the software out this morning on the drive from Aviemore to Carnforth and it did as good a job as my Toyota built in satnav – with some additions.

It’s portable so I can also use it in my wife’s car.
One of the navigation options is UK postcodes (something that the Toyota satnav lacks).
Another navigation option is that you can use Google to search for your destination – this needs a data connection.

Using the software is very intuitive and it only took moments to load my destination and set it to navigate. The verbal instructions were very accurate and there are a choice of voices. The map display was clear and easy to understand with only a glance. There is a choice of 2d or 3G and day or night illumination.

The tracking to roads of the car icon seemed accurate as far as I could tell, not being able to stare at screen whilst driving. The vehicle speed is displayed and this too was reasonably accurate – as was the ETA displayed on the navigation screen.

It was also very easy to add destinations to the Favourites list.

Even after such a short test of the software I would recommend anyone with an iPhone to give Navfree a try. It got mebto Carnforth!

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Titaniun Mug Lid

/ Outdoor Gear, Walking / , , , , , , ,

Once upon a time I didn’t worry how much weight I carried when out in the hills, now every gram counts. However I also enjoy a stop and a fresh hot drink and may be some hot food when walking and so I bought a Crusader brew kit – an excellent bit of kit, but heavy and lacking a proper lid (you cannot count the plastic drinking lid as it cannot reliably be used for cooking). A friend of mine who runs an engineering and maintenance company (The Little Frog Group) made me an aluminium lid for the Crusader mug. Two things the lid helps with, it shortens boiling times and it stops debris falling into the pot – a hazard when trying to shelter the mug and stove from the wind.

This got me thinking to make an even lighter brew kit. I have a Titanium stove and an MSR titanium mug which could be used as cooking pot. So once again The Little Frog Group made another lid, this time for the Ti mug.

One of the great things about the Vargo Triad XE Titanium Stove i that it can be used with meths or solid fuel tablets – but the problem with the solid fuel is that it leaves a residue on the outside of the pot. So if I used my mug as the kettle with solid fuel then it is probable that the smoke would taint the mug making it unpleasant to drink from. In my camp kit I had a beaker with a lid which fits nearly exactly into the mug and makes a reasonable cup for this brew kit.

Add to this my brew kit pouch (an mp3 case from a pound shop contains tea bags, milk powder etc), a small Light My Fire spork, a couple of 2 in 1 coffees, a lighter, four solid fuel tablets inside the stove, 2 50ml bottles of meths and some paper towels all in a “Brew Kit” stuff sack (bought many years ago from Footloose magazine) and I have a pocket sized (it has to be a big pocket) brewkit.

I dropped this kit into a WWII gas mask case – I have had since I was at school when it was not collectable but surplus, so mine is worn and stained – with a 600ml Sigg bottle of water, some biscuits and tinned fish. I have a 40cm by 60cm sheet of heavy duty plastic sheet, folds up small and gives me somewhere dry to sit. I also pack a very lightweight emergency kit which went in the haversack. Memory-Map on my iPhone, in an Aquapac took care of the navigation (an it is my camera) and an 8GB 3rd generation iPod Nano, full of podcasts and audio books, completes a very light walking kit.

Had a very good walk along the Speyside Way on Sunday, headed north out of Aviemore, did about 12 miles and had hot tea with my luch and more tea later in the day as the light was fading. It was windy and the foil wind shield was essential and raining – you can see the rain on the sit mat and on the bag.

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IPhone Camera Sample Image

/ Photography, Technology / , ,

River Ness – iPhone 4 photo cropped but no other processing. I used the Camera+ app (here) rater than the built in camera. The Camera+ offers lots of features but one of the best is the way it holds the images on the “Lightbox” and from there you choose to save or delete them – it is a good way of getting rid of the rubbish shots before committing them to the iPhone Camera Roll.

However the quality of this image is not as good as I would have hoped for (I did check out online examples of iPhone 4 photos before buting the phone) – so I will try the built in camera for the next shots.

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Smartphones

/ General, Technology / ,

I got my iPhone 4 just before Christmas – and it was not an easy purchase. I had set up many iPhones both 3s and 4s and iPads and really liked the interface and the hardware but the thing in the back of my mind is that you never own the iPhne it always belongs to Apple and it will work how they want it to work. I am an extreme user of PDAs and have been for many years using them in preference to laptops in my job and personally as first, ebook readers and later as videos and audio players and most recently as my camera and hill walking navigation device. Would the iPhone do all these things for me.

Now audio is not an issue – unlike many I have always thought iTunes was a reasonable product and have used it successfully with my iPod Nano. It manages the podcasts and I have it set to manually manage music allowing me to load audio books and drama into the Nano as playlists. I now use the automatic setting for managing music to the iPhone and create playlists in iTunes which I then select for syncing.

A trip to a friend who already owned an iPhone 3GS and an iPad answered several more questions. The word processor and spreadsheets could be handled by Documents ToGo – a program I was familiar with from previous Palm PDAs. My company uses DropBox extensively and I was very pleased to find Documents ToGo and DropBox so closely integrated.

That left Memory-Map. I have a large investment in maps both 25k and 50k which work on my PC and on my Windows Smartphone – would they work on an iPhone. To test this I bought a copy of Memory-map and tried loading my maps onto his iPad – and they worked.

Ebooks were next – I have a huge collection of ebooks and text files – I could use ereader again but I have become fed up with not being able to purchase the books I want from their web site because I live in the UK. A search on the Internet, and I discovered Calibre and Stanza.

So I was ready to go ahead and buy and iPhone. Within hours of getting it I had my business critical Contacts and Calendar synced and the iPhone linked to DropBox.

I spent some of my Christmas holiday getting to grips with more of the software. I am now on holiday in Scotland and the Lakes so I will have plenty of time to test the iPhone out.

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New PDA – Phone – GPS – Camera…

/ General /

In a previous post I discussed the tech stuff I carry when walking or just for work – and especially the number of devices and chargers I have to pack. Well just before Christmas I got an HTC Touch Pro – and it was great to have only one device in my pocket – which does everything.

I got the extended battery pack, which is essential if you use it as much as I do and want to get a full days use from it, the supplied slim 800mAh battery is just not good enough. I also added a 16GB memory card.

Great Points

  • Excellent camera, which includes a flash light, exposure compensation and auto-fucus.
  • The ability to photograph documents and even business cards – very useful for me as I am always losing bits of paper when I am at work, and as a Director in BNI I get dozens of business cards each week.
  • The keyboard is very useable – and illuminated
  • Exceptional screen – it is small, but sharp and very easy to read. I can easily use the Memory-Map navigation software on it, edit word documents using TextMaker and read books.
  • The supplied RSS Hub application is very good – downloading content in the background when there is  data connection – and even able to download on request podcasts – which can then be played from the application or saved to the storage card.

I hve always thought that the Windows media player, supplied with Windows mobile devices, lacks flexibility. On previous PDAs I have used the free TCPMP player – but that does ot work in WM6.1, so I bought a copy of its commercial replacement Core media player.

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