Category Archives: Digital Photography

My Nexus 4 “Ordinary Things” photo series on Google+

"Ordinary Things" photo series.

“Ordinary Things” photo series.

I stopped posting regularly on Google+ on October 3, 2012. However, recently, I started posting near daily to a photo series I call Ordinary Things. Here’s why:

I bought a Nexus 4 phone to replace an HTC HD7 (Windows Phone 7) earlier this year. However, it was rarely used to take photos because I use an iPhone 5 for that function. The Ordinary Things photo series is a way to force myself to use the Nexus 4 to take photos and to learn more about both it and the Snapseed photo app (now owned by Google) – Most of the photos have some processing using Snapseed. So, it seemed like posting these photos to Google+ would make it an all-Google effort. You can find me on Google+ at:

Todd Ogasawara on Google+

In the MobileViews review queue: Slingshot phone camera stabilizer (a Kickstarter project)

The SLINGSHOT is a Kickstarter project that claims to: Stabilizes smartphone video . . . and more! The testimonials would have you believe this thing works magic and is priced at merely $14. And, to their credit, this product is actually shipping. The PR firm working with the developer asked if I would like to review one. So, I’ve been playing with it for about two weeks. But, I’m still not convinced it works (despite testimonials on its Kickstarter page that indicates I’m wrong). Will play with it another week or so before writing my conclusion.

Old low-end Eye-Fi card + camera + iPad + iPhoto = Photo fun

I have an old(ish) Eye-Fi Home Video 4GB SDHC card that I got as part of a promotion to buy 200GB of Google Docs storage space in 2010. At the time, the transfer was through my Mac (or PC) to Eye-Fi’s service and then to Google Picasa. The process was slow and, it seemed, not 100% reliable. So, the card got put away after a week or two of disappointing tests.

However, Apple’s new iPhoto for iOS (released last week) is such an amazing tool on my iPad (it also works on an iPhone or iPod touch) that I wanted to get photos from a digital camera to my iPad without using SD card readers. My guess was that Eye-Fi’s free iOS app would not work with my old low-end card (the model is not even listed on Eye-Fi’s web site). However, to my surprise it worked fine after following the simple instructions provided by the app itself.
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Excellent CNET Interview with Canon’s Chuck Westfall

CNET’s Stephan Shankland has an excellent (and lengthy) interview with Canon’s professional products technical advisor Chuck Westfall…

Q&A: Canon helps usher in the video SLR era

Stephen asked a lot of questions. But, the one I was most interested in was about including GPS capability. Westfall waffled on that one. But, it was encouraging that he said it would be sooner rather than later.

Canon’s soon-to-be-released Rebel T1i which is the first Rebel SLR to shoot video (let alone HD video though at “only” 24fps) is the SLR on my wish-list.

Podcast 21: Conversation with Derrick Story, Pro Photog and Author, About iPhone Photo Apps

The Internet is a wonderful thing. It gave me the opportunity to work with professional photographer and author Derrick Story for the past 7 years or so even though we have never met in person. Derrick was an editor at O’Reilly Media for much of that time. And, it was he who gave me the opportunity to write a bit for O’Reilly Media. He knew about my fascination with cameraphones even back then. And, I was thrilled when he asked me to write a handful of cameraphone hacks to his book…

Digital Photography Hacks

I remain fascinated with cameraphone in general until today. So, I asked Derrick to speak with me specifically about the iPhone and its photo capabilities for this podcast. Derrick provides some great information about using everything from the high-end (and expensive) Adobe PhotoShop CS4 to free and low-cost (99 cents to a few dollars) iPhone photo-related apps.

You can find Derrick’s own blog at…

TheDigitalStory.com

…where he often mixes in iPhone related photo information with other digital photography info. If you found this podcast interesting, you definitely want to check out Derrick’s own podcast. And, in particular, download the podcast he produced on March 17, 2009. He provides a lot of detailed iPhone photo advice in that particular podcast too.

MobileViews Podcast 19: Pangea CEO Brian Greenstone Sets the iPhone Dev Switch Story Straight

Pangea Software has developed software for the Mac for over 20 years. CEO Brian Greenstone recently got a lot of attention from a report that he stopped developing for the Mac to focus on the iPhone. However, it turns out that this report is not correct. He stopped Mac game development about 2 or 3 years ago but has continued to developed photography related Mac apps. His interest in developing games for the iPhone is real, however. You can hear him discuss his background in this 28 minute 25 second long podcast.

– You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
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