Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
If you like photographing plants and flowers, you might also want to learn what they’re called. I sure know I can never get enough of shooting them, and I’m always curious to discover their names so I can learn something more about them.
But did you know your iPhone’s native camera can help you identify them? It’s as quick as taking a photo, and it doesn’t require any additional, third-party apps.
“Does anyone have an iPhone charger?” a person asks in a panic. Others shrug their shoulders because they have a house full of chargers – but they’re all USB-C. This is no longer going to happen. Well, at least not in Europe.
The European Union has reached a landmark agreement that wants to unify various consumer electronics and make them feature a USB-C charging port. Yes, this includes the iPhone and AirPods, and it should happen by 2024.
Have you ever felt like someone is spying on you through your phone? Well, they just might. In a recent video, security researchers from ZecOps have demonstrated a scary malware that makes it seem like your iPhone has been shut down and rebooted. But in reality, its camera and microphone remain up and running without any indicators, enabling hackers to on you.
When we think of online privacy, we typically think of social media, editing, browsing or shopping apps that open our private lives up to the potential world. Or, at least to advertisers. But these aren’t the only things we should be worried about, as this report by the folks at Surfshark illustrates.
Amongst the eighteen types of apps that Surfshark looked into, including social media, shopping, streaming, dating, and various others they delved into image editing apps. And the amount of data that each one captures might surprise you. For example, did you know that VSCO tracks your search history and wants the info on all your contacts?
Well, this is kind of a surprise, but also not. It’s not surprising that Instagram (and Facebook) would be capable of trying something like this, but it’s a bit of a surprise that they actually went through with it. According to a new iOS 14.5 notice in the Instagram and Apps users are promoted to ask permission to track user data on the device to improve ads.
The initial statement seems all well and good, but when we get to how Instagram and Facebook say they use this data, one of the arguments given for both apps is to help keep it “free of charge”. Oh yes, that’s right. The “It’s free and always will be” philosophy of Facebook (and apparently other companies it owns) has apparently morphed into “It’s free as long as we get our way”.
Apple has launched a new service that lets you automatically transfer your photos, videos and albums from your iCloud Photos library over to Google Photos. Transferring them does not remove them from your iCloud account, but instead sends a copy of them over, allowing you to use your Google Photos storage as a backup for your iCloud.
There are some caveats, though. While the usual .jpg, .png, .webp and .gif files will transfer just fine, along with some raw formats, there are other raw formats that cannot be transferred, along with shared albums, smart albums, photo stream content, live photos and certain metadata.
The whole cloud backup thing has been a hot topic for a while now as various services have been simultaneously killing off unlimited storage while others have been bringing it back and trying to outdo each other to win over your business. Amazon Photos is one such service that offers unlimited space as long as you have a prime account – including your raw photos. But it seems it’s not backing up everything – even if you think that it is.
Reddit user /u/somebodytoshove posted to /r/photography noting that the auto-save feature of the Amazon Photos iOS app has not been uploading the .raf files from his Fuji mirrorless camera. It thinks it has, and it looks like it has, but when you look at the uploaded files, they actually contain only the jpg preview.
I figured it probably wouldn’t be much longer until Apple officially released ProRAW. It popped up in the beta only a few weeks ago, and Adobe already supports it in their new M1 version of Lightroom, so it seemed quite obvious that it’d become available at any moment. Well, now it is. Apple has released iOS 14.3 which provides ProRAW support to the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max.
What this change is, in reality, is that Apple’s standard iOS camera app lets you shoot DNG raw files now, too. iOS has actually had the ability to capture DNG raw files for a while now, but you were reliant upon 3rd party camera applications like the camera built into the App. Now, it’s native. But also works in conjunction with Apple’s computational photography features.
With all the goings-on at Google and people looking for alternate cloud storage options, sometimes it’s easier to just be your own cloud. I use Resilio Sync for this, but that does usually mean building up a dedicated PC. The Amber X wants to simplify that process with an inexpensive cloud-storage-in-a-box solution that lets you store your data and retrieve it anywhere.
Amber X is currently running on Indiegogo, where it’s long since passed its goal. It has a couple of days left to go, with pledges starting at $129. But we’ve got you a special link that’ll let you get your hands on one for just $119 – about the same cost you’d pay for a year of Google Photos or iCloud for the same storage, except there’s no subscription with this!
Sony has launched a new Visual Story app for iOS aimed squarely at wedding and event photographers. Or at least, ones that shoot Sony cameras. It allows for easy editing, gallery creation, cloud storage and web delivery solutions to get your images to your clients as quickly as possible.
Visual Story is a free app for Sony & iOS users. It utilises automated image transfer from compatible Sony mirrorless cameras to the cloud, after which users can instantly edit and deliver digital albums to their clients. And to help you with camera metadata and image selection, it uses AI to help pick your best images.
FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!