iPhone photography

Last photo on my iPhone 4

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I am about to swap my phone over to an iPhone 5. So having used the iPhone 4 to both take the photos and post articles to my blog for the last two years – this is probably my last photo and post using it.

The phone has been reasonably reliable – except for the reoccurring speaker issue, so I have bought an AppleCare Plan with the new phone just in case I have a similar hardware problem. I have been pleased with the phone and after we get it serviced Diana is going to start using it.

Why change? I really wanted the better camera the iPhone 5 offers.

I am writing a series of articles for the Octagon website about changing and setting up an iPhone – read more here. and watch out for the first photo and blog post from my iPhone 5.

Last photo on my iPhone 4 Read More »

Overnight trip to the Old Man of Coniston

Next weekend I am planning a backpacking trip to the Lake Dustrict, with a couple of friends, to walk up the Old Man of Coniston with an overnight camp – depending on the weather. (Click on the map for a larger version).

Old Man of Conniston

The main reason for going away is to spend the weekend taking photographs – so we are taking a tripod with us and I am going to try my hand at some video on my iPhone. I have a bracket to mount my iPhone on a tripod.

iPhone on a tripod

This weekend I have been sorting the gear.

  • I will get to try out my second inflatable pillow!
  • I am going to take my MSR Pocket Rocket stove with a 100g cannister – I have not yet used it on an overnight trip
  • I am going to test using a Molle water bottle pouch to carry my lunch and brew kit – fixed to the hip belt or compression strap on the Golite Jam2

Molle Water Bottle Pouch

  • I am going to pack the titanium meths stove and 50ml of meths in the Molle pouch – for hot drinks whilst walking

Food for the trip

We are going to start walking after lunch on the Saturday

Saturday

  • On the trail dried mango slices and salted cashew nuts
  • Instant white coffee – I can make a brew whilst waiting for the light to change for that perfect photograph

Evening meal

  • Smoked Sausage
  • Tortilla x3
  • Onion Gravy
  • Instant custard and chocolate chip cake
  • Tea

Indian tea (with milk and brown sugar) wafer biscuits
Hot chocolate, wafer biscuits

Sunday

Tea and biscuits  whilst still in my sleeping bag

Breakfast

  • Cereal bars
  • Breakfast biscuits
  • Crackers and jam
  • Apple flakes
  • Tea

On the trail dried mango slices and salted cashew nuts

Extras

  • Boiled sweets, apple flapjack bar
  • 2x instant peach teas (use hot or cold)
  • 15ml of dried milk 2x sugar packets 2x pepper packets 1x salt packet 1x tomato ketchup sachet
  • 1 oz Southern Comfort
  • Tissues

Emergency Food – Glucose tablets

Water

  • 1l in my CamelBak for the walk – this should be enough for both days as we are not walking far
  • 1.3l for evening meal
  • 0.7l for breakfast
  • 0.9l for extra cups of tea and cleaning

I am going to store some water in the car so I can drink before setting out and on my return.

 

Let’s hope the weather is good enough!

Overnight trip to the Old Man of Coniston Read More »

Yesterday’s Photo

The photo I posted yesterday as part of my “Photo a Day” project had been post processed to give the final image.

The original image was taken with Camera+.

Dandelion Original

Although I have got a copy of 645 Pro, which is a good camera replacement app for an iPhone, I find Camera+ so much quicker to use and it returns great images. In this situation the dandelion was moving in the wind so being able to shoot at the moments it was still was essential, as it was nearly half of the images I took were blurred.

I used the Apple Picture app to sort through the images, firstly to delete all the ones where the framing was off or they were blurred and then to select the final image I was going to work on.

I was pleased with this initial image – it shows the detail of the seed head against a vague green background but I wanted to see if I could bring out some of the details and improve the impact of the final image.

This meant using my favourite iPhone image processing app Photogene2. One of the features of the app is that you can save your own custom image filters – and this I have done.

I have created a low exposure, high contrast mono filter, that creates an image similar to those I used to regularly print in my black and white “wet” darkroom, but on the way to creating this filter I also saved a version of the effect but without applying a grey scale to the image – so it is still colour. It was this filter I decided to apply as it would emphasise the white seed parachutes and reduce the influence of the backgound. This I think it did with good results.

Dandelion Processed

If you click on either of the above images they link to full size versions (2592 x 1936 pixels) so you can examine the details.

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