Tag Archives: Apple

Resisting the urge to hibernate

Posted by on October 24, 2012 No comments

FALL!

It’s Fall!  As we inch closer to winter I am feeling that bearish urge to close myself indoors and be super lazy while I eat all the things and put on my winter weight.

MUST RESIST!!!!

 

I am looking for the motivation to get out and take pictures.  Fall is one of the best times of the year to take photos.  The colors are amazing, especially around this area.  There are a few upcoming events that should prove fruitful.

The Passport MINI Halloween contest!  For the past few years the dealership out in Alexandria has hosted a “Dress up your MINI” contest.  This year the POD will be going as……..Yeah, I’ll post pictures after, don’t want to spoil it.  Should be fun though!  After that it’s off to Fredericksburg for the annual Halloween party!

In the meantime, on the gadget front. I gots me a new phone!  The old Thunderbolt was starting to get very old.  Early on I had flashed the ROM and the Radio on it so it could be updated and it would appear all of the updates for it have stopped.  No one seems to be supporting it any more.  It’s sad because for a while it really was a great phone.  The major downside to it was the battery.  I had even bought the extended battery for it, and that might get me through a full day.

With that I upgraded to the brand new [amazon_link id=”B009P5WWPC” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Razr MAXX HD[/amazon_link].  Sarah has been using the original MAXX and it’s amazing!  The battery can last 2-3 days with average use.  The new HD version did not disappoint.  I have been using it for about 4 days now and I need to remind myself that I don’t have to plug it in.  Ok, I am going to stop here because I may try and do a full review of the phone later this week.

In the meantime, here are some apples. (hopefully Apple won’t sue me)

Mobile Photography

Posted by on September 25, 2012 1 comment

The Apps

I have been traveling around quite a bit lately.  The thing that always goes with me is my photography bag.  (It’s contents are listed in the sidebar)  What doesn’t always go with me is my laptop.  You see, I have a behemoth of a laptop.  It’s an older ASUS gaming laptop that, while great for gaming, and processing photos, and everything else, is just HUGE!  I love it to death, but it’s just not a feasible option for simple travel.  Sure, if I am going to be someplace for an extended time, or have a lot of luggage I can take, it would make more sense.  So in most cases, I just use my iPad.

When I bought the iPad I have now, I knew I would be using it for photog stuff, so the 64gb size made sense.  I shoot primarily in RAW and that takes up a lot of space.  Of course, storage isn’t the only concern though.  I needed a few good quality applications to round out it’s usage.  I thought that I would post about what I am using and the process in which I use them.

The apps that I tend to use the most (for photography) are:

So, there’s all the tools, but how do you incorporate them into a shoot?  Easy!  Here is a play by play on how I would go about using all of these tools out in the field to Shoot, display, organize, process, and publish.

Release Forms

I have an upcoming project I am working on for a photo essay on Portraits. (subject to be explained at a later date)  I will be on location for the duration of the project and won’t have access to my PC until much later.  So I would go about the shoot, like usual.  Meet with the subject and discuss the plans for the project and their involvement.  If they agree to the project they would then fill out the release form in Easy Release and sign.  Then I would have them fill out the form I created in Numbers that asks them for information specific to the project. (Simple questionnaire)  It’s important to have questions in the survey that would identify them in the pictures.

Using my Nikon camera and lighting gear (supplemented by the SoftBox app) we would take the photos.  The Eye-Fi card would wirelessly transfer the JPG preview to the iPad, which would be standing nearby, to display the picture I just took (within a second or two).  This allows a larger screen to see framing, lighting, exposure.  I like the LCD on my camera, but sometimes it’s just not big enough to judge if I got the shot I wanted, or was just off. The downside to this is the time it takes to transfer.  If you are shooting at an event where speed is a factor, this is not a good solution.  Of course, if you at an event like that, you probably aren’t checking your LCD every few shots either.

Eye-Fi used as quick Preview

Softbox can show different colors or textures

Once the shots are done I import the RAW into the iPad using the camera connector. (it’s an important step to delete the Eye-Fi imported JPG’s to avoid duplicates).  Then I can use Photosmith to organize the shots into groups, flag the ones I want to keep/discard/etc. Now, I can stop here and wait for my PC to process photos, since when I get to it I can sync Photosmith to Lightroom and go from there, but, if I am going to be out for a while and want to get some work done quickly, I can proceed with processing.

Organizing and tagging like a PRO!

Using Photosmith I can identify the shots that I want to focus on.  If I shot in bracketed mode for HDR use, I would find the two shots I want to combine and open them in Pro HDR.  Adjust the levels, and save then move on to Snapseed.  For a typical shoot, I would just open in Snapseed. This allows me to adjust all my levels, colors, and balance.  I can do some selective adjustment as well.  If I need to use more precise editing, or want a more Lightroom type feel, I can use Filterstorm instead of or in conjunction with Snapseed.

HDR Editing on the fly

Quick Professional edits

Precise edits

Once editing is finished I can use the iPad to post to various social networks, email, and even my own website.  Using FlickStackr I can upload to Flickr directly, add all the info I need, tag it with keywords, location, and people.

Uploading and tagging on Flickr

So there you have it.  The whole process described above can be done, on the scene, in a matter of minutes.  (depending on shoot time)

Now, that’s not to say that this process doesn’t have it’s faults. You certainly aren’t going to get as accurate processing as you would with Lightroom on a PC.  As with all electronics, battery life is an issue too.  The Eye-Fi card adds a draw to the camera battery, and having the iPad up and receiving drains it as well.  Barring that, I love being able to set up, shoot, process, and publish all while on the road.

Harvest Time!

Posted by on October 17, 2011 No comments

This weekend we got to visit our favorite place to pick out pumpkins, Hollin Farms in Delaplane VA.  It’s not the shortest drive for gourd gathering but the trip out there is beautiful with all the trees changing color, and the chance to visit a farm and pull pumpkins right off the vine is something everyone should do.  They have a full corn maze, and lots of stuff for little ones as well as a pick your own section to gather fresh vegetables and herbs.  The main reason to go is for the pumpkins.  With 10 acres of pumpkin vines, even the huge influx of people at the farm couldn’t gather up all the awesome pumpkins that were available.  We took home 6 pumpkins (5 to carve and 1 for pie.)
 
The other great reason to head up there is for the view.  The scenery is amazing.  The trees in the area are all changing, the weather was perfect, and I was able to get a few really good shots.
 
Sunflower
Corn
Skull
Apples
I did discover a new area I need to work on though, Landscape shots.  I know that a lot of Landscape shots are better taken in the golden hour simply because of the haze, but I found that anything I was shooting in a distance to get a wide area just didn’t come off that great.  Well, there is always room for improvement right?

iPad Apps

Posted by on May 7, 2010 1 comment

So here is a list of what I have installed on the iPad so far.  Aside from this I have ported over my three essential albums of music, some episodes of Deep Space 9, the movie Sherlock Holmes, A bunch of pictures, and the D&D Reference books in PDF format.  As of right now, I still have 9.17gb free.  This list does not include the default apps that come on the device.

ABC Player – This one is for some of the full ABC shows that stream to the iPad.
AIM for iPad – Full AIM client with Lifestream
Air Hockey Gold – Air Hockey game.  Very cool, Works with 2 players too!
Beat the Traffic HD – Traffic App to show alternate routes
Captain’s Blog – Nifty LCARS style interface for a status updater.  Plugs into Twitter and Facebook for Updates only
Comics – Comics app that pulls from lots of publishers (no DC)
Dictionary.com – Dictionary and thesarus
DigiDrummer HD Lite – Drum Pad
Doodle Buddy for iPad – Drawing app for fun
Dragon Dictation – Speech to text dictation (uses online for conversion)
Draw for iPad – Another drawing app
Dropbox – Cloud based file repository
Epicurious Recipes – Cookbook
Facebook (iPhone) – Facebook app for notifications and such
Filterstorm – Photo Editor
Foursquare (iPhone) – Social checkin App
Game Table – Chess Checkers and Cards.  No AI, no rules.  Just the board and the pieces.
Godfinger for iPad – Cute game for playing God (Kind of like Black and White)
Goodreader for iPad – PDF Reader and file manager (kinda)
Google Mobile for iPad – Google Front End for all it’s services
Harbor Master HD – Neat game for guiding boats in and out of a harbor
Heads up: Hold’em HD – Head to Head Hold’Em game
iBooks – Apple’s e-book reader
iCARS Interface – Just a visualization to make the iPadd look like a PADD from Star Trek. Doesn’t really do anything
iMahjong HD – Mahjong game
IMDB Movies &TV – IMDB Front end for lookups to their database
Kindle for iPad – Kindle reader tied to our Kindle account
Marvel Comics – Marvel specific Comic book app
Netflix – Netflix front end for watching streaming movies and managing the queue
Now Playing – Movie app for seeing what’s in theaters and buying tickets online
Pandora – Music streaming app
PaperDesk LITE for iPad – Notepad app
Plants vs Zombies HD – Tower Defense game with Zombies
Pocket Legends for iPad – MMO kind of WoW-ish
Pocket Pond HD – Koi pond.  Top down view.
Real Racing HD – Racing game
Skype (iPhone) – Skype app for Voice calls
The Solitare – Solitare game
Tap Tap Radiation – Music Game
ThumDrum – Drum Emulator
Twitterrific for iPad – Twitter App
Virtuoso Piano Free 2 HD – Piano Emulator
WarChess – Chess game with AI and battle Animations
Warpgate HD Free – Space based adventure game
The Weather Channel iPad – Weather app
Wikipanion for iPad – Front end for Wikipedia
WordPress – Blog editor for my site
Yahoo! Entertainment – Entertainment news/Videos, and a TV Guide type interface

iPad Day one

Posted by on May 6, 2010 No comments

My soul is now sitting in a neat little jar on Steve Jobs shelf.  For my birthday Sarah gave me permission to get an iPad.  I picked it up on Tuesday night on my way home from work.  (yeah, I know my birthday isn’t until NEXT Friday but my inner Verruca took over.  I was orginally thinking of getting the low end 3G model just to have the capability to do OTA internet when I needed it, but after a long dialogue with myself I realized that, I have a 3G phone for things like that and that extra $130 could be used for better things! (Like buying my wife flowers for being nice enough to tolerate my gadget addictions.)  So I ended up buying the 16gb WiFi only model.  They way I figure it, I do a lot of cloud computing so space on the device isn’t really important to me since most of my files are already out there.

So, when I got home I connected up to iTunes and, after the long install of the updated iTunes (I guess I should have used it more) I managed to get my first batch of apps loaded and started the casual using!  So I want to break this down into a few catagories for what I would be using the device for:  Reading/Browsing, Media (Videos/Music/Photos), Games, Apps.

Reading/Browsing:
This is probably the main reason for getting the iPad.  While I have a smallish laptop, it’s still a pain to sit on the couch with it and read, not to mention being more upwardly mobile.  So with Sarah’s Kindle account and the Kindle app now allow me to access all the books she has been buying.  So now I can finish Lost Symbol while she can still keep the kindle.  So far the reading seems ok.  It’s not as easy on the eyes as the e-ink screen but not as harsh as a computer monitor.  The web browsing is awesome on the device.  Most of the news sites I read came through just fine, even with the lack of flash.  Many of the site that use embeds have been using you-tube, and since you-tube has started using HTML5, you don’t miss much.  As a side note on the browsing, I downloaded the app Goodreader for use with PDF’s and ported the PDF’s I have for D&D.  They look amazing!  Very easy to use and search through and easy to read!

Media:
I didn’t plan on using the media all that much on the device but it looks pretty good for what it can do.  The Netflix app streams perfectly, though I haven’t had enough time to sit and watch a movie.  Not to mention,  could just watch on the Xbox.  I loaded a few episodes of DS9 on it that I had ripped in for my droid, so the resolution is still 320×240, but they still look good.  For music I copied over the mandatory albums of Journey, The Cure, and Depeche Mode, but again, I have streaming audio on my Droid (and the Pandora app on the iPad is cool).  So honestly, while I may use it every now and then, the Media side of the device is just there.

Games:
The iPhone/iPad/iPod platform has started to hold it’s own in the gaming world, and the iPad versions of the games really shine because of the size of the screen and the power of the device.  I told myself that if I got an iPad, I would get the Plants Vs. Zombies game (HD version) and I don’t regret it.  On the iPad it’s exactly the same as playing it on the PC and it’s easy!  Outside of that I am sticking with the freebies until I find something that’s really good.  Even the free games run and look great.

Apps:
Ahh the other reason for getting the iPad.  As I have stated many times, there are a lot of developers of applications that are only doing work in the apple environment.  While Android is the “up and coming”, it’s still not there yet, and I want access to the available apps that are out there.  Yes, we have an iPod in the house, but that’s Andrew’s and he rarely lets me play with it. Given that I have my Droid, I will have access to all that is Android, and now that I have the iPad, I have access to all that is Apple.  There really are apps for just about anything too.  There is only one little problem….. The iPhone/iPod apps are very small.  the iPad has a beautiful screen and when you run the iPhone/iPod apps, it’s tiny.  Yes there is a 2x button that doubles the size, but the pixels look bad and often it makes the app blury.  Case in point, the Facebook app.  There is no native iPad app for Facebook so I get to use the iPhone one for notifications and photos, but everything else is through Safari.  The iPhone Facebook app just looks silly when stretched out to iPad size.

The last two nights I have been able to sit on the couch, browse my Google reader and catch up on my news sites, sit with the family while we watched TV, and occasionally look up some info.  I am very happy with the purchase(present?) and will be doing much much more with it in the future.

Trying to resist.

Posted by on April 4, 2010 No comments

So back in January we saw the announcement of the iPad and now the time of the tablet is upon us.  I wrote up a small preview back when it was announced and mentioned a few of the issues I have with the device.  Mostly it came down to some of it’s capability and it’s price, two things that I still hold as the primary reasons for holding off on buying one.  The problem is that there are so many reasons to check one out.

Let me explain.  I have a Droid, and before that I had a Blackberry Storm.  I am on the Verizon network and have no plans to change that anytime soon.  My phone plays music and runs apps and plays videos just finr so the things I would use an iPod for are all covered…..except the litany of custom iPhone and iPod apps that are available.  It would appear that since Apple was first to really grasp the App market mentality that many of the primary developers have embraced that as the high visability area to produce their applications.  Due to this, most of the more utilitarian and high quality apps are produced for that platform.  Not to say that there are not any good apps for the Android market, there are, but they are still playing catch up.

Because of this, I have been kind of yearning for the ability to make use of some of these apps.  Until now, the only way to acomplish this has been via the iPod.  Andrew has an iPod and I have toyed around with his for a while, but it would be wrong of me to monopolize it.  So, that means my option has been go out at buy myself an iPod touch.  But again, my phone does more of that and so getting yet another small touch screen device for only a little functionality doesn’t seem like a wise use of funds.

Enter the iPad.  So over the last 4 months there has been a lot of talk about what the iPad will be able to do, as well as an ongoing war between Apple and Adobe over Flash.  (FYI, for those interesting, I am in the Flash camp.  It’s damn hard to do things on the Internet without flash.) Other things that have gone on are all about showing how many new and cool things the iPad can do.  From Specific games designed for the larger screen to the ability to stream Netflix Watch now movies.  (Which personally, I think is huge.) So now we have a device that is 1/2 way between a netbook and a iPod, that has full access to all the apps available to the iPod and iPhone crowd.

Gizmodo has a great set of articles that covers why you should, and shouldn’t get the iPad.  I am still riding the “Not gonna get one” side of the fence, but from what I have seen as of late, it’s becoming increasingly difficult.  The biggest issue, of course, is still the price.  I can’t see dropping $500 on something like that just yet.  I also have a feeling that we may see a price drop within the first few months.  I have changed my original estimate of $300, to a good solid $400 for something of this worth.  So a simple $100 price drop on it would totally entice me to buy it.  It is just still too early to jump on the bandwagon and grab one.

But the gadget guy in my is screaming in the back of my head.  It’s gonna be a long month or two.

The iPadd, the only thing that may….may tempt me to get an iPad

Posted by on March 31, 2010 No comments

Gizmodo posted this today and I know I am not the only person to have thought this right out of the gate.  The PADD from Star Trek is the iPad from today.  It’s really that simple.  It would probably be better if you could do some more interacting with your household systems too but, you never know, there may be an app for that.  In any case, it’s stuff like this that may tempt me to think about maybe possibly getting one.

maybe.

iPad, or iPod-Maxi, take your pick.

Posted by on January 28, 2010 1 comment

It should surprise no one that I am not a huge Apple fan.  Heck I am taking a week long class on Windows Server now, but I am not completely against them either.  Without Apple we would not have the competitive market that is leading us into the 21st century.  No iPhone means we would all still be using flip phones because of how they remind us of Star Trek. (or maybe that’s just me.) I certainly would not be writing this post on my fancy touch screen phone while zipping along on the train.  Apple has done some amazing things for tech, but now it seems like it’s their turn to try and play catch up.

The tablet PC has been around for a long time.  I understand that most tablets are bulky, or the interface is a bit weird, but they keep changing and have progressively gotten better.  I have used a few tablets that feel great to use and do everything I need them to do and more.  Unfortunately I don’t see this iPad doing even 1/2 of them.  Yay, it can read books,  but my Kindle and any number of cheaper ebook readers can do that.  It plays games, but so does my Droid and my Xbox and any of the tablet. (one may argue that it plays iPod/iPhone games that my stuff can’t, we have an iPod in the house so I’m good.)  Honestly the only things the iPad has going for it is 1: a rabid Apple fan-base that will buy anything the almighty Steve Jobs produces, and 2: its size.  I will say that they seemed to have gotten that part right.  It appears to be sleek, slim, and fit right in the hand, but I would expect that from Apple.

So what would it take to make me like this?  Easy.
1: Flash Player. (Adobe has 10.1 working now…port it!)
2: Front facing web-cam.  (it would be the perfect video conference tool)
3: USB (why does it NOT have this?  oh right because then you could choose your wireless provider)
4: Hit below the $300 price mark. (seriously with everything that’s available that does the same thing, it’s just not competitive)

So there you go.  I am sure that many of you have other ideas about what it should have as well but there are r simple things that would make me more interested.  Until I see that,  I give the iPad a preview score of 6 oranges out of 10 apples.