If you have an iphone and you like photography, you NEED these apps

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The iphone is an incredible device.  Its gone far beyond a phone.  Its a hand-held computer and for an artist, its a tool, an extension of the minds vision.  I use it in many applications, my favorite two being music and photography.  I have dedicated an entire section of my blog to photographs I have taken with my iphone 4.  http://johnriveraurbanmusic.squarespace.com/urban-art/  Will it replace the point and shoot?  The debate is ongoing but the numbers don't lie and the numbers are indicating that it will.  It is so much easier to have your camera, your walkman/boom box, your phone, your calculator et al, in one thin, smooth, sexy glass container.  Its all there, and the iphone's specs are very impressive with one caveat.  Here are the specs for you geeks:

5.0 Mpixels (2592 x 1936)

1/3.2" back-illuminated CMOS sensor

4:3 aspect ratio

35 mm film camera crop factor: 7.64

Low ISO 80 (or better)

3.85 mm lens focal length

f/2.8 lens aperture

Autofocus: tap to focus

   The caveat is 'digital zooming'.  I don't really think it works, there's too much 'noise' in it, in other words, its grainy. 

    Now,  these specs are very respectable, and by itself, the iphone can take a good picture.  But there are apps which make this camera, a GREAT camera.  They are a 'must have' if you want to be an exceptional iphone photographer.  And I'm going to tell you about 3 that I think are really cool, useful, and in my case, invaluable.  

                                                                 The Apps

   The first app that I want to talk about is Pro HDR.  Its $1.99 at the App Store.  Which cracks me up because people talk about 'app money' like its money spent on a TV or something and a $12 app (OMG!) is an astronomical fee.  But I digress.  Pro HDR allows you to take a pretty good facsimile of an HDR photo. HDR stands for high dynamic range imaging.  cool.  Ok, what it does it take two pictures, a light one and a dark one, and then blends the two, combining all the range of light in the image.  You can take a direct shot using the app instead of the iphone camera, or you can load from your iphone photo library.  Once the shot is taken or chosen, you then have 5 tweaking options- brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth and tint. So though the app gives you a pretty good HDR image, you can change it just like you have your own personal photo studio.  Which brings me to app 2.

    ProCamera, $2.99.  The price raises the eyebrows of savvy app customers.  I suppose the difference is jumping from a Chrysler 200 to a Mercedes.  But only in the 'price' :).  They're both great apps. Actually ProCamera is too complex to go into here with any detail.  You have 2 modes, expert and regular.  Its a fantastic app.  You can adjust the 'white' balance, which is basically exposure, as well as the focus by dragging 2 boxes around with a finger swipe.  Once you get the desired look, you use the white balance button and it locks in.  You can take the shot by touching any area on the screen as well as fast multiple shots.  You can also shoot video with the exposure you desire by using the same locking boxes.  There is also an album option where you can load pictures from your album and apply cropping, rotation, color and light adjustments and effects like sepia and other vintage modes.  There are so MANY things you can do with this app, its really like having a professional studio at your fingertips.  As a matter of fact, there is so much you can do with it that they have created another app called iCademy which is a user manual for ProCamera!  

   The last app I want to mention is AutoStitch.  A bargain at $1.99.  This is how it works.  Lets say you are in downtown LA, or in the outback of Australia.  Perhaps the Gobi Desert.  For my example I'll use LA. You want to take a shot that encompasses a sweep of the city buildings but one shot won't get it.  So you take 5 pictures, each one overlapping where the last one leaves off.  Then you fire up AutoStitch and go to your library and load the 5 shots. You hit the 'stitch' button and it creates a panorama.  A beautiful panorama if you've got a good eye! You can then crop it by touching the crop icon.                                                                                               

   Of course all the photographs you create by using these apps can be saved to your phone library or you can email them or upload them to facebook.  They all have these options.  Your artistic imagination is the only limitation to what you can now do.  I'm now going to take you behind the screen in the Wizard of OZ and tell you how magic is done.  In the picture at the top of this article, I originally took 5 shots of LA with ProCamera.  I saved them to my camera roll.  I then loaded them into AutoStitch where I created a cityscape panorama.  I then cropped it and saved the crop in my camera roll.  I then loaded that into Pro HDR and adjusted the exposure.  Saved it again in my camera roll.  Then I loaded that into ProCamera and used the lab to further adjust the contrast and then put it into one of the effects to give me the final high contrast black and white city panorama!  A lot of work, yes, but worth it.  You can view a high quality enlargeable version in Urban Art.  What used to be a series of darkroom processes, or a series of lens on a digital SLR and then using a professional lab or Photoshop can now be done in the palm of your hand.

   Iphone- not your dad's phone.  Or the flip phone you had 5 years ago.  No, its finally playing in the big leagues.  And if you get these apps, so can YOU! 

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