Swimming in a Social Pond: June 2010

Before we go further, I'd like to say that all photos in this blog post were taken, edited and uploaded with my iPhone 3G.

Chase Jarvis, a rather decent American photographer, makes a bold statement "the best possible camera you can own is the camera you have with you"

At first I thought, "aaah that's a nice quasi intellectual statement reserved for pseudo intellectual facebook status updates" till I really started thinking and realising the truth and genius behind the statement.

Each year I found myself buying more and more expensive camera's with all the fancy lenses and complicated settings, yet I ended up shooting photos using the auto settings or leaving the bulky fragile camera locked up at home during trips.

The one thing I always have with me is my iPhone, whether I'm in the pub, in the toilet (not that I use it while in the toilet, well you cant prove a thing officer.) or on a walk in a remote part of the world. It's always there, that comfortable weight in my pocket.

At first I thought the camera on the iPhone can never live up to the expensive mega camera lying locked away in my cupboard. There in lies the issue "locked away in the cupboard"

A friend, Sebastien Degardin, introduced me to an iPhone app called " best camera" by Chase Jarvis" and it changed the way I think and take photos for ever.

Since downloading the app I have taken hundreds of photos and been featured a number of times as "photo of the hour" on the app's website.

As mentioned, the photos I take never touch a computer, I take them, edit them and upload them all with the iPhone 3G.

Apps I use to take the Photo's
Depending on the subject matter I use one of two apps:

For non panoramic I use the iphone's built in camera app
For panoramic photo's I use the phenomenal 'pano' app by Debacle Software

Apps I use to Edit Photo's
I then make some adjustments using:

Chase Jarvis's "best camera app" this use to be my favourite app but it hasn't been updated in months and other apps are starting to by-pass it feature wise. But it still is a very decent app.

It allows you to do some basic changes in regards to colouring, exposure and contrast.

The app also allows you to upload your photos to the app's website where other users can vote on your photos.

It's a decent website but needs some serious overhauling to bring it in line with other photos sharing sites.
I also use the "Photoshop" app, the app is free and is quite limiting in what you can do. I mostly use it to crop and straighten my photos and make some minor exposure and saturation changes.
The last app I use and I'm sure there are better apps out there to achieve this is the "sketchbookx" app, this app allows you to have multiple layers and merge them into one, I use it to watermark some of my photos (I often forget or cant be bothered to do this)

Apps I use to upload photos

Flickr app to upload to my flickr account
Chase Jarvis "Best camera" app to upload to facebook and "best camera" website
Tweetdeck to upload to twitter
To transfer between devices I use photo transfer app. This is probably one of the best apps I have ever used and allows wireless transfer from and to multiple devices and computers. Especially between iPhone and iPad.

These days I dont even bother taking a camera with me as the iPhone does a fantastic job.

Well that's about it I think, all I can say in closing is remember "the best camera you own, is the one you have with you"

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