Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
My friend Bill just returned from a family vacation in Costa Rica and shot lots of photos and video on his iPhone, including some killer shots of breakfasts with local monkeys.
No surprise that once he got home, he checked his iPhone storage and found that it was 98% full. Just a few more snaps, and he’d be totally out of room.
His solution? “I’ll just put them all on iCloud, and then delete them off my iPhone,” he told me.
We had a death in the family this week, as my brother-in-law Michael Stroud passed away, after a three-week hospital stint.
There are many parts of the grieving process, of course, and one big one is revisiting memories, with photos and video.
San Francisco isn’t the most visited U.S. city. In fact it’s no. 5, after New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Orlando, attracting 3.3 million visitors yearly, per the World Atlas.
But it happens to be the most photogenic, IMHO, with more photo eye candy per square mile than its competitors.
Think about it—the New York Empire State Building or the Golden Gate Bridge? Disney World or Cable Cars?
As you know, there has sadly been a raft of camera thefts in San Francisco of late, putting a spotlight on places you might want to think twice about hauling expensive camera gear with you the next time you visit.
The news reports on the thefts usually aren’t very specific about the exact location of the heists, so I thought I’d simply point them out here, in a little more detail, before you, like me, get victim to camera theft in the city.
Once upon a time, I used to spend hours in the darkroom, making elaborate double exposures with negatives. Then, in the digital era, I started making them in Photoshop, which took so little time, and could be done in minutes.
Now, anyone can do easily do it in seconds, with any smartphone. And it’s a whole lot of fun. Have you tried it?
One of the most popular photo seminars in the world happens every December, when hundreds of photographers flock to the tiny town of Socorro, New Mexico to document the migration of some 20,000 birds en route to Mexico.
Could I pull it off with just an iPhone?
It doesn’t seem that long ago that we tried to revive wet smartphones by sticking them in a bag of rice and hoping for the best.
Now, most modern smartphones are “water-resistant.” If water gets into them, they won’t be destroyed, like in years past. Still, we’re not supposed to dunk them in the water. But try telling that to kids.
Common sense says you pick up the iPhone, open the camera app and just start shooting. That’ll work, but there happens to be so many settings and features hidden within these phones that stump way too many people, even some of us pros sometimes.
Thus, I was inspired to jot them all down and explain them one by one, with tips on what I think are the best settings for each one of my top 13. And I’m singling out the iPhone here because A., I’m an iPhone user, B. I think the 13 Pro is far and away the best smartphone camera on the market and C. if you’d like me to do a follow-up on Android, just say the word!
To begin, let’s assume you’ve updated to iOS 15, the latest operating system. Next, open the camera app. Here’s what you’ll see, and what I recommend.
For years, Apple’s iPhone Live Photos has been my favorite smartphone camera trick. But now the tricks are seemingly gone!
We’ve all been there. We’re trying to get great food shots in a bakery, but the brownies and cookies are hidden behind reflective glass. Our shot is ruined!
Or we’ve paid good money to go to an urban rooftop or another location for the best view in town, only we’re stuck behind glass. Foiled again! The glass seems dirty, but it’s not. Still, it’s ruining your shot by catching the daylight reflections, your image, and any other bright objects out there.
So what to do? Thanks for asking. Because we have a common-sense solution.
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