24/02/2012

Paris by phone

Having avoided camera phones for years, due to their lack of image quality, I have recently had to reassess my opinion of this medium. Several close friends of mine have been working with iPhones for some time and have produced some incredible results in conjunction with the instagram and hipstamatic applications. During a recent weekend visit to Paris I decided to invest some time in using the iPhone as a creative tool.


I was using the iPhone 4 with the instagram app, which is available for free at the itunes store. Instagram is an incredibly easy app to use with some great filters that can be added in post production. The term post production often implies spending a huge amount of time in photoshop tweaking an image, this is not the case with instagram – filters are applied in a split second and results seen moments after making an exposure.


Of the various free filters on offer, I found amaro, x-pro II, low-fi, earlybird and toaster to be some of the more effective. I also found the tilt shift effect added an extra dimension to certain images. It can be added in linear (lines) or radial (circle) format to any image in “post production”. The example above of the Eiffel Tower uses the linear effect whereas the image below utilises the radial setting.


Overall I am very impressed with the iPhone’s camera and resulting image quality. I have been totally seduced by the instagram app – it is highly addictive and offers up a myriad of creative possibilities for photography in the 21st century. I now know what iPhoneography is and why it has become so popular.


Unfortunately the iPhone is my wife’s, so I’ll have to get my own!
More examples here.

2 comments: