iOS App review: Pocket Light Meter

• App Name: Pocket Light Meter
• Developer: NuWaste Studios
• OS: iOS only, not for Android
• Gear: Best used on iPhone
• Cost: Free. In app purchase if you would like to pay .99 or 4.99

Nuwaste Studios has created an app for the iPhone called "Pocket Light Meter".  Since I love new apps I downloaded this immediately and started using it.


The first thing I noticed was how easy it was to use. Open the app and the camera activates. Three dials or wheels are on the bottom half of the screen. One for  "Time" (Shutter speed), one for "Aperture" and one for "ISO".   There is a red square that is used to analyze the object you are photographing.  The red square moves to where ever you tap on the screen.  There is also two icons, a gear icon and a "use the other camera" icon. Along the bottom of the screen are "Save" and "Hold" buttons. 

Point your phone at the scene or object you are going to photograph and the app analyzes the scene and changes the wheels at the bottom of the screen to the proper settings to use on your camera to take a properly exposed photo.  The app is constantly analyzing the photo, adjusting time, aperture and ISO. You can change any of the variables and the app will adjust the other two settings for you. For example in the picture above, I chose an aperture setting of 7.1, the app changed the time and ISO settings in order to give you the right settings for your camera to get the correct exposure for your picture. 


The "SAVE" and "HOLD" buttons give you more choices.  Tapping on the SAVE button takes a photo of the scene you are viewing and saves it to the camera roll.  When you view the photo in camera roll you will see that the app has included the settings and location (if you allow the app to use your location) information. 

Tapping the HOLD button holds the current time, aperture and ISO settings so they won't change.  Tapping HOLD again releases the settings. 

The gear icon takes you to settings and other options in the applications.   Here, you can pay the developer for the app, either 4.99 or .99.  Of course the app is free, so if you find no value in using the app, then keep the free edition. But, if it helps you as it did me, pay the developer something, even if it's just the .99. 


The other settings are:

• Sound - On or Off
• Show Additional Data - On or Off.  Turn it on and the main screen shows exposure valuation, Lux and FootCandle which are approximations of luminance.  Quite frankly I don't know the meaning or have a use for these measurements.
• User interface - either keep the new update interface or switch to the old version.  To me, the old version is clunky and difficult to use, so stick with the current wheel version. 
• Exposure correction - adjust it up or down a third of a stop at a time.
• Shutter stops, aperture stops, ISO stops - these are basically the same settings for each, either full, halves or thirds. 
• Cinematic speeds - On or Off.  Adds shutter speeds for shooting video.
• Dropbox settings - You can link your Dropbox to the application so the photos you shoot on the app can be uploaded to the folder of your choice in your Dropbox.  I love this feature!

My overall impression of the app is that it works pretty good in sunlight.  I took some test photos using the settings the app gave me for different light conditions and the app performed well.  I took this picture of a small statue using the app settings:

The image came out good.  I'm happy with the results.  This photo was taken in bright sunlight. 


Overall I'm happy with the app.  Using it is easy and very intuitive.  This is a must have app for those photographers who are just starting out and have never used a light meter before. Not only is it a good app, it's a good training tool as well. 

In The Beginning...

I've been interested in photography for as far back as I could remember. I remember my dad using a camera he had bought in Korea during his time stationed there during the Korean War. 

This camera had all the bells and whistles for a camera from that period. It was so cool to me because it had several different lenses. My dad once said that this camera was so advance it could stop a fighter jet. Of course he was talking about the speed of the camera working in conjunction with the right film. This didn't stop me and my brother from having a good laugh envisioning my dad standing on a runway holding up the camera to stop an oncoming jet barreling down the runway.  

I tried to learn how to use the camera and even brought it to high school during my tenure on the school newspaper. I wasn't a very good newspaper photographer. Either because I was a teenager who thought he knew everything or because my dad didn't have time to show me I didn't know how to use the camera properly.   

The camera was returned to the closet and not used very much, if at all, after 1982. Everyone had Polaroid cameras with their pictures that developed immediately. Who needed such a fancy camera when you have your pictures develop right in front of your eyes?

The photography bug finally bit me for good in 2009 when, for our wedding anniversary, my wife bought me a Fuji FinePix s2000hd. This camera did it for me. I was so fascinated by all the different modes you could choose. It even has HD video recording capabilities.

Fuji FinePix s2000hd

Although I had read the manual and started using the camera immediately, I didn't have a full understanding of all the functionality of the camera. To learn more, I started listening to photography podcasts, especially the PhotoFocus podcast with Scott Bourne and Rick Sammon. They used words like aperture, exposure, ISO and white balance. Words that had no meaning to me.


Slowly but surely, I started understanding how to use aperture, exposure, ISO and white balance to make images. I applied what techniques I could to my Fuji and the images I created.  Learning photography techniques by listening to podcasts is a good start, but you really don't learn until you apply the techniques using your own camera. Only then can you put two and two together and have a "ah ha!" moment. 


My "ah ha" moment came when I was using the Fuji to take photographs of the small waterfall in our backward. I had been adjusting exposure on the camera, taking pictures of the waterfall. Exposure was one of the few features on the camera that you could control. There was no aperture adjustment because it's not a SLR camera. The first picture that I took of the waterfall with a fast exposure, probably around 1/500, was this one: 

When I reviewed the picture in the small screen on the back of the camera, I could see that the fast exposure produced a photo with a lot of detail. Water drops and splashes were "frozen". Ah Ha! So I thought, "What kind of results would I get if I took a picture of the waterfall with a longer exposure?" The result, probably taken with an exposure of around 1/100, was this picture: 

The water looked as if it was flowing over the rocks. No definition, no splashes or drops frozen, just the water flowing over the rocks. Ah Ha!

Finally I had an understanding of the relationship between movement, long exposures and short exposures. I finally understood to "stop that jet" you have to use a fast exposure. If you want to have that jet show motion and streak across the picture, a longer exposure is used. 

My enjoyment of photography has only grown since that time.  I soon moved up to a DSLR and fell further in love with photography.

Daughters Graduation: Challenging Shoot

I had the pleasure of attending my daughters graduation at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, California on Friday, May 25, 2012. 

I had to take photographs of my daughter walking to receive her diploma.  The pressure was on! 

Upon arrival at around 6:15pm local time at the LMC football stadium, the sun was still high in the sky and over my left shoulder. There was plenty of light to take good photographs.  While our seats in the bleachers did not give us the best view of the graduation proceedings, I felt comfortable that I would get good pictures with my trusty 75-300mm zoom lens.

I took plenty of test photographs to make sure the lighting was good.  I set my camera to aperture priority 9.0. As you can see in this picture of the LMC band there was plenty of light to make good images: 

The Flag and the LMC band in plenty of light

But a problem soon reared it's ugly head.  The graduates were taking too long to get into the stadium.  The shadows started creeping onto the field. With my aperture set to 9, my exposure started getting longer causes blurry images. So, I took my aperture down to 8 and still got exposures that lasted too long and producing blurry images.  

Since this was a very important event, I knew I had to get some good images. So, throwing pride into the wind, I set the camera to auto and let the camera decide the correct aperture, exposure and ISO. The camera choose 5.6 aperture, 160 exposure and 400 ISO.  After reviewing the images, I decided the camera had made the correct choice. I set the camera to manual mode and set the camera to these settings.  

The students had filed into their seats and, after a couple of speeches, the commencement commenced.  All the time,  the shadows kept creeping across the field, making it darker and darker.  To keep pace with the impending darkness, I turned the exposure to 125, then 120, then 110, all the while taking pictures.  I knew I had to about an exposure of 100 before I was going to get blurry images.  

In the end I was able to get good pictures using this method.  Letting the camera make the decision for me in a pinch was the right thing to do, because in the end getting the pictures of my daughter graduating was the most important thing.

But the story does not end there! 

As you remember, the sun was setting this whole time.  As the graduation ended, I took a look over my shoulder at the sunset and WOW!, what a sunset it was.  Beautiful cloud formations with magnificent color.  I was blown away at the photo opportunity.  Here's an example: 

I've heard this many times from many photographers, don't forget to turn around away from your subject and look at what is behind you. I was able to take quite a few pictures of a great sunset that made a great end to a great day!


Comments below are appreciated!

New app review: Facebook Camera for iOS

Facebook has taken their IPO money and built a new app called "Facebook Camera" Ok, that's a joke.  But the app does make loading pictures to Facebook via your iPhone a better experience. 

When you first open the application, you are asked to sign in with your Facebook log in.  If you are already signed in to your Facebook account, it will ask if you would like to sign in as that same user.  You won't be asked for this information again.  If you are not signed in, you will have to sign in.  And you cannot sign in with an account that is only used for Facebook Pages.  
The next display shows all the recent photo's (yes, just photo's. No status updates) uploaded by your friends to FB with any comments or likes denoted. Along the top edge of the screen is a camera icon used for taking pictures. Also, once you take photo's with the app they will be displayed horizontally, left to right.  Tapping on one of the pictures takes you to your Camera Roll and displays all the pictures that are available to upload to FB. Each picture has a small, grayed out checkmark in the upper left hand corner.  Tapping this icon allows you to select one or multiple photos to post on your FB page. Once you've made your selection, you can tap the "selected" button and your pictures are posted to FB.


I took a picture or two with the app and the picture i choose uploaded to my Timeline immediately, then asked me for a comment.  The usual choices are available on the screen: Location, Tagging, and what privacy setting the picture should have.  This screen also allows you to add more photo's to the current post from Camera Roll.


Taking a photo with the app is pretty straight forward.  You can turn flash on, off or leave on auto.  It has "tap to focus" and the option to use the back facing camera to take a picture of yourself. 


When you take a photo the app has some editing controls.  You can crop, rotate and "tap to tag" a photo.  You can also apply one of fifteen different filters: Contrast, Cool, Light, Emerald, Copper...etc.  For this photo I applied the Coffee filter that gives it a cool brown tone.  We will probably see the Instagram features in this menu.

  
The app only works with iPhone 3GS or newer, the 4th generation iPod, iPad2, New iPad.  However there is not an iPad version.  You have to use the default iPhone/iPod version on iPad.


Reviews on iTunes vary from five star "Pretty Great" to the one star "why?" And many people are comparing it to Instagram.  


My overall impression of the app is favorable.  It's quick, has some easy to use controls to edit and posting photos is much easier.  (Yes, I hated the FB photo upload feature.)   


If you use FB a lot and love posting mobile photos, then this app is for you.  

Why Seventeen magazine won't change.

A petition containing 26,000 signatures asking for change at Seventeen magazine was delivered to Seventeen magazine editor Ann Shoket this week by fourteen year old Julia Bluhm of Waterville, ME. 


Julia's request was simple. She wanted Seventeen magazine to publish just one authentic picture of a girl per month.  Not a major change, but still a change.


Ms. Shoket met with Julia and congratulated her on her effort.  She then told Julia that Seventeen would not be publishing one un-photoshopped image a month.  In a press release, Seventeen magazine stated "We feature real girls in our pages and there is no other magazine that highlights such a diversity of size, shape, skin tone and ethnicity."


I agree with this statement.  My daughter had a Seventeen magazine subscription and I do remember that Seventeen does show girls of all shapes and sizes, not just "supermodels".  


The real problem here is this; Seventeen magazine would never be able to change the mind of those who advertise in their magazine.  The advertisers who show unrealistic body images of girls are the ones that need to change.  Making the advertisers change their method is where anyone mounting a petition would really need to focus their efforts.


Advertisers know what sells.  Pretty girls sell products to girls who purchase this magazine.  Of course, this isn't just in Seventeen magazine, but basically in every ad that is in print, in TV commercials, on billboards and on other magazine covers.  Next time you are in the grocery store check the covers of all the magazines displayed for sale.  How many of them have unrealistic photoshopped portraits on the cover?  For that matter, how many of them have their covers blocked from view with only the title showing because of the material or picture on the cover?   


Does the way that advertisers market to people, especially young, impressionable girls and boys need to change?  Sure it does.  But until selling products using beautiful, photoshop corrected models stops working, there won't be any change.  


Share your comments below or tweet me @triolophoto.


Here's a link to the original petition started by Julia Bluhm: 
http://www.change.org/petitions/seventeen-magazine-give-girls-images-of-real-girls

Kyle Monk's work for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Kyle Monk is on a mission bringing attention through his photography to the illness of Cystic Fibrosis or CF. 


CF is a hereditary disease that affects the mucus glands.  The most common affect on the body is a progressive damage to the respiratory system and digestive system problems.  


Kyle has made many striking images of people with CF on his site.  View them here.  http://www.kylemonk.com/cf. 

Facebook Release Pages iOS App

I saw this story on Mashable last night (http://mashable.com/2012/05/21/facebook-page-new-app/).  I was so excited to see that Facebook had finally released an app for iOS to manage Pages for my business.  It's been very frustrating to not be able to manage my Triolophoto Facebook Page via an app and have to use the Safari (on iOS that is) browser to go to the Facebook mobile page over the web and manage the page.

I installed the app immediately and put it to the test.  My first impression? Terrible because it didn't work.  I had read many comments in the original Mashable story that people are happy with the application, so it must work.  


Here's how it works: When you tap on the Pages app, it switches to the regular Facebook app, asks who has access to your Page, Public Friends Only, Private.  This is a one time setup. Once the selection is made, you are switched back to the Pages application.  You then have full access to your Page. 


When I went through this process, I was getting the following error:  "You currently don't manage any pages".  Of course, I do manage a page, but I have a different sign on for my business on Facebook and keep that separate from my personal Facebook page. 


After many attempts, I thought I must be doing something wrong. I figured out I was.  In Facebook Pages, you have to add yourself as the admin of the page. That way you can use Facebook as an individual or switch anytime to using Facebook as your Page entity.  


To add yourself as the Pages admin, on your business Page click on "Manage > Edit Page" and then choose "Manage Admins" in the left column.  Add yourself as the page admin and then Save.  


Now that you are your page Admin, you can manage your Pages through your personal Facebook user id.  When I sign into Facebook, I can use it as "Carl Triolo", or I can choose from the drop down arrow next the "Home" in the right hand upper corner and choose to use Facebook as "Triolophoto".  


I hope this helps those of you who are having the same "problem".  Comments welcome below.


www.triolophoto.com

Looking at photography through a different light

While perusing one of my favorite sites, buzzfeed.com, I ran across a set of pictures taken by photographer Cara Phillips (http://cara-phillips.com) using Ultraviolet light.

The pictures on Cara's site are taken using a method called reflected UV.  The subject is illuminated by UV lamps that are coated with a filter that blocks all visible light.  The filters are made of quartz (fused silica) or quartz and fluorite. While regular lamps have filters that allow only the "long" UV light to pass through them, these filters only allow the lower, usually unseen, light rays in the UV spectrum to pass through while blocking "regular" UV light.

UV photography can also be accomplished by using a special lens UV filter (for example the Kodak Wratten 18A filter) which blocks all visible light and only allows the light in the UV spectrum through the lens.  Below are a couple of examples of when and how each type of UV photography can be used. 

Reflected UV photography is often used by dermatologists to show a client how their skin may of already been damaged by exposure to the sun.  The pictures below taken with the UV light exposes the imperfections in the skin that a dermatologist can then use to suggest skin treatments that may be necessary. The first two pictures are taken with regular light, not utilizing any UV technology.  The third picture taken with reflected UV light exposes the damage the sun has already done represented by the slight mottling on her skin: 

(photo courtesy http://www.skincarephysicians.com)

UV photography can also be accomplished by using a special filter (the Kodak Wratten 18A Filter for example).  The filter works by blocking all visible light and only allowing light in the UV spectrum to pass through the lens.  An example of a photo taken with this type of filter is below.  Police agencies can use filtered UV photographs to look for bruises or marks on the skin that are no longer apparent to the naked eye or do not show any longer in 'regular" photographs. The picture on the left below shows no sign of bruising, but when a picture is taken using a UV filter, a bruise is seen on the child's forehead and possibly his nose: 

(photo courtesy of http://www.crime-scene-investigator.net)

  

If you choose to try your hand at UV photography it can be expensive.  Almost all photography lens and filters are produced to BLOCK UV rays.  Finding the right equipment to allow you to take UV pictures can be an uphill and expensive battle.

Click on this link to go to the original web page containing the photographs taken by Cara Phillips that piqued my curiosity of UV photography:  http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathieus/ultraviolet-portraits-8q4

What are QR codes and how can they be used?

Quick response (QR) codes are a digital file, similar to the ubiquitous UPC code.  The QR code is a two dimensional bar code that can contain a variety of different information.  For instance, this QR code: 

QR Code for the URL www.triolophoto.com

when scanned with a QR code reader via a mobile phone or tablet will take you to my photo gallery, www.triolophoto.com.

Most mobile operating systems have applications that will allow you to scan QR codes which will read the encoded information.  I use the iOS application available in the iTunes called "RedLaser Barcode Scanner and QR Code Reader" (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/redlaser-barcode-scanner-qr/id474902001?mt=8).  This iPhone app was made by eBay Inc.  Not only does this application scan and read QR codes, it can also scan UPC symbols (handy to use when you are running to the store for just a couple of things) as well as create your own QR codes.  

QR codes have many different applications.  Let's say that you are having a party and want to embed directions to the party in an invitation.  Simply create a QR code and insert it on the invitation you are creating.  That way the recipient of the invitation can scan the QR code with their smart phone and have the directions to the party added to the map application available in their smart phone.

Another application would be to include a QR code on your business card.  Let's say you have a website that sells widgets.  At your last networking event, you handed out your business card with a QR code.  Now, everyone that has a business card can simply scan the QR code and it will take them to your website where you are selling your widgets.  

There are many different websites that allow you to create QR codes for free.  The QR code I created above comes from www.qrstuff.com/.  This site not only creates QR codes, but offers many different ideas for the use of QR codes.  

Android users can find QR code readers by going to Google Play and searching "QR Code".  

QR codes offer a quick and easy way to promote your business or event.  I'm sure we will be seeing QR codes used in many more ways in the future.