Sneak Peek: Viewfinder 3D Touch Shortcuts

October 16, 2015 by

Earlier this week I have received both the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus – the latter of which is the phone I’m using now. So immediately started working on updating the Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder. I find the 3D Touch feature a great addition, especially home screen shortcuts speed up my everyday life with the phone. And as you can see below, Viewfinder 4.4 will sport a home screen shortcut menu.

3D Touch shortcuts in the upcoming Artist's Viewfinder 4.4

3D Touch shortcuts in the upcoming Artist’s Viewfinder 4.4

The menu includes the three last recently used virtual cameras (and the option to create a new one if there are less than three recently used cameras), and a shortcut to quickly access the album.

I’ve also completed the bench measurements of the two phones plus the iPad mini 4, along with olloclip 4-IN-1 and Moment wide converters on the two phones.

More to come, so stay tuned!

Filed Under: My Apps, Photo Software Tagged With: , , ,

Great Crested Grebe Drying

October 12, 2015 by

Patience pays off in bird photography. I had been sitting at the bottom of the boat in full ghillie for an hour or so that morning, when a grebe surfaced just a few meters from the boat.

Grebe shaking off water and drying

Grebe shaking off water and drying

The bird’s colors accentuated by the golden morning light play very well against the sky’s reflection in the windblown water.

5DS R with the 500mm f/4L II and the 1.4x converter. Slight crop.

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Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder 4.3 Released

October 10, 2015 by

The latest update to my Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder app is now available on the App Store. The highlights of this update are improved iOS 9 compatibility and new wide converter lens support. While the former doesn’t need more explanation, let’s dive into the latter.

vf43widesThis is a screen shot made on my iPhone 6 Plus. You can see that Schneider iPro lenses are now supported, but the bigger news is Moment Wide lens support across the board.

The Moment Wide lens is a high quality 0.65x-class converter. It’s so well corrected that there’s no need for distortion correction in the software. It’s not a surprise that support for this lens was the most often requested feature.

The only thing that prevents it from becoming my favorite is the rather crappy attachment plates. The lens bayonet is simply sub par, and I don’t want to glue anything to my phone. So gaffer tape was used extensively during measurements and testing of this converter. Their case is light years ahead of the plates, but only available for the iPhone 6 at the time of writing.

The Moment Wide lens is now supported on iPhone 4/4s/5/5s/5c/6/6+, iPad Air 1/2 and iPad mini 1/2/3.

The complete release notes is available here, and through the “What’s New in This Release?” menu item from within the app.

Version 4.3 is a free update for existing Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder owners. Users of former Viewfinder Basic/Pro/Cine editions can upgrade for a reduced price.

What about the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus?

Since version 4.1 new devices are supported automatically using iOS provided angle of view data, so you don’t have to wait for us to complete the bench measurements. Sure, measured angle of views provide better precision, but you need to wait for that – as well as for wide converter support.

We have no early access to new hardware and must wait for general availability like everyone else. In our country the new phones just became available yesterday – and I had already ordered both. They are expected to arrive by the end of next week. Olloclip and Moment declared their clips as 6s/6s+ compatible, Schneider promised to say something by mid-October.

So you’ll have to wait for wide converter support on the new phones until the dust settles and we complete all the measurements.

Filed Under: My Apps, Photo Software Tagged With: , , , ,

A Fish Too Big

October 10, 2015 by

Slowly making my way through the summer’s crop of images from Lake Tisza. This is one from those outstanding days when you come home with a bunch of great photos.

A Fish Too Big

A Fish Too Big

For the record: the heron finally managed to swallow the fish. But it took 20 minutes or so.

Filed Under: My Photos Tagged With: ,

Noir Shot on iPhone 6 Plus

October 3, 2015 by

I have been using my iPhone as an image planning and visual note taking tool for the last six years or so. Actually this was the motivation behind developing the Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder (and its predecessor) app.

The Mark II introduced a feature that allows to save full resolution images along the simulations. I’ve added this as the cameras of the iPhones started to produce really usable images, and sometimes I would love to have a clean, frame line free, full resolution image from the iPhone, not just the screen-sized one. Yes, some shots turned out so good that I missed the opportunity to actually use them as real photographs. And I totally unconsciously started to use the iPhone as a real camera…

My Hometown at Night

My Hometown at Night

The above photograph marks the time when my iPhoneography started to be a conscious act. I had some time to kill before a dinner with a friend, but I just had the iPhone with me. No real camera, no chance to get the same light and reflections next time. So I tried my best to make images with the phone. And they turned out to be pretty good.

Side note: my hometown is Sátoraljaújhely, and no, it’s not as hard to pronounce as Eyjafjallajökull – or is it?

This time I shot everything in color – just because the Mark II saves color images. Another month had to pass until I found the Noir style in Photos, and a simple affair turned out to be a lasting relationship.

Lake Tisza Off-Season

Lake Tisza Off-Season

That affair was a cold, windy, overcast day, when I stopped by Lake Tisza just to look around. It was well before the summer season, the port still closed. I was sitting in the car, enjoying a very fine ice cream (yes I like ice cream even during the winter), and playing with the concept images shot a few minutes before. The result is what you see above.

Since then I’ve revisited a bunch of my former iPhone images (such as my hometown image), and converted them to black and white.

Thin Forest in the Matra

Thin Forest in the Matra

Of course one won’t print larger than A4 from these files, as at pixel level they are light years away from the image quality my DSLRs are capable of. But at small sizes, especially around A5 (think iPad mini screen size) they look wonderful.

Now I’m on the quest for a good presentation, and trying a couple of different printing methods. More on the results later.

Pier, Lake Tisza

Pier, Lake Tisza

And along with the output experiments, I’m looking into ways to improve the quality of captured images. There are tons of JPEG compression artifacts to overcome, and also the Noir style can be a very blunt tool.

But no, I’m not looking into existing apps to solve these problems, as I find this subject very exciting both as a software engineer and as a photographer. So don’t be surprised if I come out with a pro level iPhoneography app sooner or later. But at the moment just treat it as a rumor :)

Filed Under: My Photos Tagged With: ,

Eclipse Through the Clouds

September 28, 2015 by

When I was a kid, I had a dream of viewing the night sky through a telescope operated from the warmth of my room. Now I’m not doing just that, but also capturing the images of the current lunar eclipse.

Unfortunately clouds are eclipsing the eclipse… But this resulted in a rather unusual image of the partially eclipsed moon seen through the moving layer of clouds.

Eclipse Through the Clouds

Eclipse Through the Clouds

The Canon 5DS R with my 500mm f/4L IS II lens sits atop an Astrotrac in lunar tracking mode. The above image was exposed for 15 seconds at ISO 1600. The camera is controlled with my Kuuvik Capture app.

And still waiting for the clouds to part…

Update: they finally did part! Seeing is still less than favorable, but fortunately the camera captures more light than my eyes.

Blood Super Moon

Blood Super Moon

After shooting from the balcony, we headed out with my better half to the local cemetery. Yes, you read that correctly… Some may find shooting blood moon during the night in a cemetery somewhat intimidating… I had a specific image in mind, and although was not able to photograph that, the following image is a great one to close this eclipse session.

Eclipse Ends at Dawn

Eclipse Ends at Dawn

The next time a total lunar eclipse will coincide with a super moon will be in 2033, but don’t worry, there will be three total eclipses during 2018/2019.

Filed Under: Astrophotography, My Photos Tagged With: , ,
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