One of the advantages of a smartphone is that it comes with a decent camera. While photographers will always be a class apart, thanks to the advent of technology, us lesser mortals can also practice our camera-toting skills. We can work on photographs post-production, and in some cases, plan the pre-production, to make them look decent – using just our phones..
The Photographer’s Ephemeris
Ephemeris, says Oxford, is a table or data file giving the calculated positions of a celestial object at regular intervals throughout a period. The app, therefore, lets you plan your outdoor photographs, depending on how optimal the light will be at any given time during the day. TPE works anywhere in the world, which means you can strategise your shoots from anywhere at any time. Its features include times and direction of the sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset at the coordinates of your choice. It also provides the percentage of illumination and phases of the moon, even compensation for atmospheric refraction and elevation above the horizon.
A popular favourite, Instagram lets you take pictures and videos, apply filters, edit them as much as you want and post them online – on the Instagram feed, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr and other social media. Direct – one of its key features – allows you to keep certain pictures away from prying eyes. This week’s latest release – a standalone app called Hyperlapse for iOS – transforms long, unwieldy and shaky videos into one sleek timelapse video. Android faithfuls, await your turn.
VSCO Cam
The app is a sleek, efficient photo editor that provides you with a slightly more sophisticated set of editing tools than most other photo editing apps. Its goal is to complement your photos, not define them. Hence, less is more. Slightly more complicated to use than say, Instagram, the app is such that once you get hooked on to it, most others fade by comparison. You can become a part of the VSCO GridTM, which lets you follow photographers from around the world and view some of the most beautiful images online. Unlike the traditional social medium, however, there are no likes, comments and other similar plebian things to take away from the viewing experience.
Mextures
The app, available currently only for the iOS platform, is one of the fastest in terms of editing. With a pretty great non-destructive workflow, you can edit, save or continue working on your image from where you left off. Mextures has about 26 presets, more than 130 original textures, and lets you create ‘fomulas’ – a custom edit you can save and apply to different images of your choice.
