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!

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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.

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Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder 4.2 Released

August 28, 2015 by

avf2iconVersion 4.2 of my Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder app is now available on the App Store. This is mainly a camera and wide converter support update, with the enhancements detailed below.

New features:

  • Anamorphic acquisition format support for the Panasonic GH4.

Fixed bugs:

  • Typo in the German translation.

Added wide converter profiles:

  • olloclip 4-IN-1 on iPad Air 2 and iPod touch 6th generation
  • Schneider iPro Series 2 Wide on iPhone 6
  • Schneider iPro Series 2 Super Wide on iPhone 6

Added cameras:

  • ARRI ALEXA 65, ALEXA Mini
  • Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera
  • Fujifilm X-T1 IR, X-T10
  • Leica CL, M Edition 60
  • Nikon D810A, D5500, D7200, J5
  • Olympus Air A01
  • Panasonic G7, GF7, GX8
  • Pentax K-3 II, K-S2
  • Phase One XF
  • RED WEAPON
  • Sigma DP0 Quattro
  • Sony A7R II, Alpha QX1

Added backs:

  • Phase One IQ350, IQ360, IQ380

This 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.

A note on Schneider converters: this version adds support for the iPhone 6, as we haven’t received the iPhone 6 Plus case yet. So Schneider’s converter lenses on the iPhone 6 Plus will be supported with the next update.

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Artist’s Viewfinder 4.1 Released

February 20, 2015 by

Version 4.1 of the Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder is now available on the App Store. I already posted about one of it’s new features, frame highlighting. So let me walk you through the remaining ones.

To add support for new iPhones and iPads to the app we do a series of measurements in our lab to determine the angle of view of the device’s camera. This takes time, and can only be done after we have the actual device in our hands. That is, there used to be a gap between when you can buy a new iPhone and when the app supports it. iOS also provides this angle of view data, but it used to be less precise than our measurements.

FrameSizeAdjustmentBeginning with version 4.1, we’ll utilize the iOS provided data until we can do the measurements. On newer phones the iOS provided data is much more accurate than it was in the past. This way you could immediately use the app on new devices.

Should the iOS provided data be a little off, a new menu item allows you to adjust frame sizes in a +/-5% range in 0.5% steps. This adjustment is also available when the app is utilizing lab measurements, to give you a bit more flexibility.

The adjustment is stored per device type, so if you upgrade to a new one, the adjustment value will be reset.

With this release, we have well over 500 different cameras to choose from for your virtual camera setup. So finding your camera could be a daunting task.

camsearchVersion 4.1 introduces full text searching for both the camera and back selection screens, accessible through the search icon.

As a side note, I’d like to mention that we also streamlined backward navigation buttons by removing the text and just leaving the backward arrow. This goes better with the simple geometric forms we use throughout the app.

But back to the full text search function.

camsearchresultJust type the first few characters of your camera’s manufacturer and/or model name, and the Mark II will present a list of matching names. Simple as that.

In ALPA eFinder II camera search is only available if you had purchased the Camera Pack.

This version also brings wide converter support to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. We support the olloclip 4-in-1 on both devices, and the ALPA ACAM SWC on the iPhone 6. And still waiting for Schneider to make their iPro lens system compatible with the new phones.

The app now runs natively on new 64-bit devices.

We also have the usual bunch of new cameras, the full list of which you can see in the release notes, but I’d like to mention here that we added the ARRI/Zeiss Ultra Prime, Master Prime and Anamorphic lens sets as Real Lenses.

Version 4.1 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.

I’m currently working on updating the Handbook, which is planned to be available next week.

Update 2/24/2015: The updated Handbook is now available.

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Artist’s Viewfinder in the Update Magazine

February 4, 2015 by

Yours truly talks about the Mark II in Ebru TV’s Update magazine back at Photokina 2014.

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Frame Highlighting in Artist’s Viewfinder 4.1

February 3, 2015 by

This morning I have been field testing a neat new feature of the of the upcoming version of the Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder. The new feature is the ability to highlight frames.

Let’s jump right in. I’ve included a couple of previews from my test. Below is the first. Click it (or the others) for a 100% view. These screen-sized previews are quite large because I’m using an iPhone 6 Plus.

VF_00108

As you can see on the image, the “highlighted” frame remains a solid line, while all others will become dotted. This is a handy way to document your preferred lens choice right on the view itself. But it also leaves you all the what-if choices with other focal lengths.

VF_00128

By default you can highlight a frame by triple tapping inside it, just like the cardboard cutout-like frame mask works with a double tap. Or, you can even swap them, that is you can assign highlighting to double taps and frame masks to triple taps. Whatever works for you. But please note that these are two mutually exclusive things.

VF_00130

Frame highlighting will be available in version 4.1 of the Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder, planned to be released later this month. This will be a a free update for existing Mark II owners (and a paid one for Viewfinder Basic/Pro/Cine users).

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