Two more great iphone photography apps

  

   As I said in a previous article, the iphone is an amazing device.  Actually, I think I mentioned 'incredible', but amazing will certainly work.  One of the reasons it is so amazing is its user-friendly adaptability. There are over 350,000 apps currently to chose from!  Right now I'm going to tell you about 2. 

   Since the iphone 4's camera is so advanced for a 'simple' phone, it lends itself well for upgrades and adaptations.  These apps truly turn a good camera into a great one.  However, most cameras these days multi-task.  Not only do they take still shots, but video as well.  And that is what I'm going to talk about first.  Video.

   Yes, your iphone 4 can take pretty decent video.  But what do you do if you want to make a MOVIE?  Well, you download Splice of course!

   Splice is a video editing app.  A movie maker!  Lets say you went on a vacation to the North Pole.  And you took 10 cool videos of Polar Bears eating baby seals, Polar Bears chasing your friends with the intention of eating them, and a great video of the Polar Bear giving up and taking a nap on an ever dwindling supply of ice-bergs.  What do you do with the 10 clips?  You load them into Splice.  And you make a movie.  Splice enables you to chose wither you want 'landscape' or 'portrait'.  Chose landscape, portrait when enlarged gives a thin shot with huge boundaries, not good.  However, it gets better!  You then have the option of composing a title and chosing a soundtrack from your itunes library or other sources.  Splice will only take one song or piece of music but it gives you the option of raising or lowering the volume by scrubbing through the clips you chose.  That way, in the clips that have dialog, the music will be background music, or silent and in the dramatic shots, you can bring it into the forefront. But Splice is not limited to video only.  You can add stills as well, and edit how many seconds you want them to run.  

   In between clips and shots, you also have the ability to insert transitions, fade outs, fall left, fall right etc, and also audio which you can record using your iphone's mic.  All of this can be edited and viewed in a timeline and also previewed.  

   When you are satisfied with your movie, you can then render it into your camera roll in hi def.  It can also be shared on facebook etc.  One feature that is very impressive with Splice is its rendering speed. Its very fast, which is a very good thing!  That, and it is very intuitive, that is, easy to learn.

   Ok, so now you have your movie on your camera roll and you want to email it.  Problem is, its too big a file.  Most likely.  So what do you do?  All the videos on my site, Urban Life, were shot with my iphone 4 and cut with Splice.  And every one, unless made with stills only, were over 100mb!  Not a small file.  So I recommend Photo Transfer App.  

   Photo Transfer App is the fastest way to get your videos and all of your photographs onto your computer, or you can do the reverse.  Load from your computer to your iphone.  This is done with your wireless, ie, WiFi.  As anyone who's owned an iphone can testify, it can be infuriatingly time consuming to synq your photos to your computer.  Before I discovered Photo Transfer App, I would synq my pics and invariably would come up with dupes.  MANY DUPES.  Not only that, sometimes you just want to download 1 special picture and the only other option was email.  Forget video.  And really forget a movie, its just simply too big.  

   So with PTA, once in the app and on the PTA page on your computer, you simply browse through your camera roll, check the pics you want to download, select the file destination on your computer, then hit 'send'.  At which time you hit 'refresh' on the PTA page on your computer and the download begins.  It can do numerous pics, but only one video at a time.  And if you've made a movie with Splice, that one file can be 150mb so its a very valuable app.  The last impressive feature of PTA is, like Splice, the small amount of time required to complete the task at hand.  In short order, you have your movie downloaded to your computer and then its on to You Tube and you're GOOD TO GO!  The whole world can now see how you saved an entire family of baby seals and your friends from hungry Polar Bears, and you'll be a hero!  

   Get these apps, They're really useful and FUN!  If you like this article, hit the LIKE button! 

Get out there and GET IT!

   I've got a great friend who I've known for 20 years.  Damn it, he's younger than me and he's always kicking my butt out there to do stuff!  Cool stuff.  Adventures.  Not that I mind, keeps me sharp.  On my fiftieth we climbed Half Dome, up and back in 10 hours.  Some people do it in 2 days.  So anyway, I asked him to give some words of inspiration to my readers, especially older guys who've seen too many couches, too many potatoes and too much TV.  For those who live the 'Urban Life', you have to keep in shape, you have to keep your soul as well as your body in shape.  Cars, bars and rich food take their toll.  This is what he told me:

   Hello, my name is Craig Koenig and I've know John, the proprietor of this web site for about twenty years. I was excited when he asked me to share my thoughts but I was perplexed when he told me the topic was fitness. For you see, I am not an athlete or fitness expert. I am an average Joe, husband, father and I work at a stressful job that requires a great deal of my time. I enjoy an occasional beer, I have a sweet tooth and I like to sit and watch TV with my family. However, i have been fortunate and have had a few noteworthy accomplishments in my life. I have ridden numerous challenging cycling events (centuries, double centuries, the Death Ride and a 24 hour mountain bike race), competed in several triathlons (including an Ironman), raced numerous foot races (a marathon PR of 3:30), finished several adventure races and dragged my carcass to the top of some of Yosemite's most technical and majestic peaks. I have shot competitively, fought competitively, hold several black belts, surfed the greatest surf breaks in California and generally tried to experience life to its fullest. And there lies the one piece of advice that i'm comfortable giving, find your zeal, live the adventure, have fun and blow all those preconceived notions of what your capable of, away! Change your paradigm and realize if one person can do it, than you can do it to, the sky is the limit. Make a list of all the things you think would be cool to accomplish then find the one that makes you say, "im not sure if I can do that one". That's the one to set your sights on.

   When you realize that you don't have to win to have fun, it becomes alot more doable. The prep work alot less daunting. I have a friend who had never completed a triathlon. He was at least one hundred pounds over the weight of the heaviest triathlete. He made the mistake of telling me, "that looks like fun". A year later he completed Ironman Couer D'Alene after loosing over 100 pounds. Not only did he finish but had a great finishing time and an enjoyable experience. He focused on the fun, the sense of accomplishment and the adventure of participating in the event. When he first started training, salesmen at bike stores ignored him and salesmen at running stores smirked when he told them his goal. Screw the naysayers and their preconceived notions. Realize there are idiots everywhere and don't let them get you down. Surround yourself with "can do" people who are fellow life adventurers and understand the love of trying.

   You must also humble yourself. Most accomplishments that are worth challenging yourself with involve a certain amount of expertise in their field. There is nothing wrong with being a beginner, in fact its quite liberating. Novices enjoy an advantage in that their learning curve is significantly better. Think about it, the basics of most skill sets are learned quickly and the finer aspects are only mastered after a great deal of effort and time. Take advantage of this and learn from the best. When I took up fencing I found an Olympic Medalist to train with. I thought it was extremely cool and I learned from a man who had been there done that and I didnt need to relive any mistakes he may have made on his road less traveled.

   Remember the goal but don't focus so intently you forget to enjoy the process. The culmination may be months or years away, the preparation is here and now so enjoy it. When changes to your mind, body and spirit start surfacing, remember its the effort put forth up to this point that allowed those changes to happen.

   This is probably getting too long, so let me recap. FIND YOUR QUEST, no boundaries, if one person can do it, YOU can do it. Then get out there and find people to support you and some semblance of an expert to help you (even if its in books or magazines). Enjoy the process and reap the rewards, even if they are secondary. Think of how awesome it will be on your 100th birthday telling your great grandkids how you accomplished this incredible feat!

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