I received my iPhone 4 last Wednesday, one of the group to get them a day early from Apple.
Initial thoughts:
Overall, it is speedy but no hugely speedy over the iPhone 3Gs. I’d rate it at about 25% faster and that seems to be confirmed by a recent Ars Technica review.
The immediate tactile impression is that it feels like a block of glass. Very well made, very solid, quite refined, but I found myself not wanting to put it down knowing that it would be resting on the glass back. In fact, I felt a bit nervous until I found a case for it – a simple Incipio NGP case, already in stock at a local AT&T store. This is a great soft case if you are looking for something discreet which doesn’t add bulk and still offers some protection.
Once you turn the iPhone 4 on it’s all about the screen. The screen is drop dead gorgeous. For images and text I never felt the previous iPhone screens were bad (maybe off color a bit, etc.) but once you see the new screen there is no going back. The color is very accurate but more so photos on the iPhone 4 have a depth and level of detail that makes your draw drop. It’s rivaling what you get with a calibrated high-end desktop monitor. The experience with text is similar and it is, as Apple says, more print-like because it is so sharp and clear.
Call quality has jumped up a notch or two with crystal clear clarity on the phone end. In terms of signal robustness, I have had one dropped call in the six days I’ve had the phone. I was also able to listen to streaming internet radio via an app for much of a 3.5 hour drive from Washington, DC north this past weekend. I would rate this similar to my experience with the 3Gs.
The camera has been updated on the new phone. Still images are more detailed and sharper. Video takes a big leap forward, moving up to HD. My main video camera is a seven year old Panasonic which uses mini-DV tapes. It is not HD and I love the camera but it has sat on a shelf since getting video in the 3Gs. I don’t want to deal with tapes and, yes, I know that this is comparing apples and oranges (cel phone vs. dedicated video camera) but for me convenience has been winning out.
I was looking forward to seeing if the HD capability on the iPhone 4 will negate the need for a Flip camera or similar for simple video. It will. If it does for you will depend upon what your standards and needs are – but again if convenience is the determinant then the video on the iPhone 4 can fit the bill. The biggest drawbacks to it are that the camera is so light it can make getting steady video a challenge, the iPhone 4 video does exhibit some rubberyness in the image if the camera or the subject moves too quickly, and some greater control over color, exposure, and focus would be nice.
This was shot and edited on the iPhone. The edit was made using Apple’s new iMovie app.
An HD version of the movie can be found here (for a limited time due to bandwidth.)
Apple released OS update, v10.6.4, today. Word is that it adds tethered capability for the Canon 1Ds Mark III , Canon 5D Mark II, and for other Canon bodies. 10.6.4 also updates the way Aperture 3.x handles metadata, making it more widely readable in third-party programs.
I look forward to testing both of these changes. With tethering, Canon’s DPP and EOS Utility have been rock solid but since all my files end up in Aperture, it would be great to cut to the chase.
With metadata, issues have arisen due to inconsistencies in standards between programs. A case in point, Photoshop doesn’t handle metadata consistently between Bridge and CS4. With Aperture 3.x, neither Bridge nor CS4 read all of Aperture’s metadata but Bridge read much more of it. Regardless, it’s incumbent upon Apple to make Aperture as metadata friendly as possible – most images end up in Photoshop at some point (if not in-house, then when they reach the client.) So, the situation where CS4 deleted most of the metadata if an Aperture produced file was re-saved in Photoshop was unacceptable.
6/16: Metadata updates/corrections are confirmed. Export a file in Aperture, open it in Photoshop, and then open File Info via the File menu. Everything is exactly where it should be – IPTC, Description, Caption, etc.
For the moment I’m watching the iPad from afar. Already the owner of an iPhone and a laptop, the iPad is not jumping out at me as a necessity. You can’t tether to it when shooting without a laptop or a computer in the middle, so no benefit there. You can do what you can do on the iPhone, only larger, but also without the versatility of a laptop.
One area where it does show promise is as a portfolio but whether it can stand on its own or if it needs to act in concert with a printed portfolio is to be determined. The other area where it may have some effect is the magazine industry – potentially providing a new way for readers to view publications and a new way for publishers to present their content.
Some photographers and publishers are predicting a sea change, which when coupled with the video capabilities of new dslr’s or the Red camera, will drive motion to become the new still image. Witness the Alexx Henry videos such as this one for Viv magazine. When I watch it though – I just shake my head. Sure it can be done but how often and on whose budget? When I see the amount of work, the equipment used, and the size of the crews involved it’s hard to believe that this level of production is sustainable in any way.
Rob Haggart of aPhotoEditor.com has an insightful evaluation of the iPad and its implications for work, viewing photographs, and the magazine industry. Video samples of it in use as photographer’s portfolio and as a magazine e-reader are included.
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May 4th, 2010 – Update:
In addition to running aPhotoEditor.com, Rob Haggart is also the force behind aPhotoFolio.com. My site runs off his service. Rob announced yesterday that aPhotoFolio.com is the first portfolio web design company to release custom iPad versions of their members’ sites.
As seen below in the comments, regardless of where you fall on the iPad and its usefulness, having a site which re-formats itself to take advantage of the iPad is a smart move.
My web site is, as always, jonroemer.com. To see how it re-formats itself for an iPad, view it on an iPad, or get a preview of the iPad version by going to ipad.jonroemer.com. This forces your web browser, on any computer, to launch the iPad version. It’s not as functional as it is on the iPad (you can’t swipe to move through the images or the thumbnails) but it gives a clear sense of layout and the automatic reformatting.
One of the new features in Aperture 3 is the ability to create exportable slideshows. Images included can be still or moving and multiple soundtracks are supported. When you are ready to output you can choose the aspect ratio and export to different formats via presets (low res. to 1080p HD) or create your own.
It’s helpful to take a look in Aperture’s help file first to learn the lay of the land. Once done, it’s very easy. I tested this out creating a video for my daughter’s bat mitzvah, exporting it in 720p HD, and then running the video from my laptop direct into the hall’s HD projection system. It worked perfectly.
As with all things Aperture you can work from raws, tiffs, jpegs, or Photoshop format image files. Video included is similar but the controls are limited. You can trim a clip from within Aperture and that’s about it.
The video I created spans the past thirteen years. So, it covers the transition from film to digital. Still images in it run the gamut from scanned prints and scanned negatives (Nikon & Leica 35mm, Mamiya RZ) to Point & Shoot Digital (Olympus 2500L, Canon S2-Canon G10, iPhone) to DSLR (Nikon D1 & D1x, Canon 1Ds Mark I, II, & III). About half of the images are direct from raw files. There are three video clips included, the first from a Canon S2 and the last two from the iPhone 3Gs.
I used Aperture to do my edit, first gathering images already in the database into an album. I added the new scans and video clips. Then I started editing and ranking the images via the color tags (the 1-5 star based rankings were already in use and I didn’t want to disturb those settings.) I was able to quickly pare down the take from 369 images to 122 plus the three video clips.
Some of the preset export formats are *.m4v, Apple’s iTunes video format. If that’s the case and you want to use a more universal format you can open the file in Quicktime and re-save it. This will save it as *.mov.
All of the export options are video files. They can be sent automatically to iTunes and/or Apple TV, they can be shared online, or run via a computer to another device. They can also be burned to playable DVD but not within Aperture. To do that you need to open iDVD and add the movie file to a project within it.
*This is a 2/26 re-edit of this post. I first published it on 2/24 running the photos in color. Since then I came up with a b&w conversion I am much happier with – so out went the color.*
I rushed last weekend to complete some more work on the buffer project. I know I’ll continue when the weather gets nicer but I wanted to get some more images while the snow was still around. It seemed having the contrast would make the images more graphic and this past Monday onward the forecast called for warmer weather (40′s) and rain. Surely, the snow would be gone within a few days…
Well, we still have 6″-8″ left and now are due for 10″-16″ more, starting tonight and continuing into Friday.
Washington Road Fields
Washington Road Fields
Harrison Street, Millstone River
Harrison Street, Millstone River
Seminary Drive Fields
I have reworked the five images from the previous buffer posts (here and here) with the new b&w conversion.
Seminary Drive Fields
Seminary Drive Fields
Alexander Road Fields
Alexander Road Fields
Alexander Road Fields
Some equipment and software notes:
All of the raw images were processed in Aperture 3, some received additional work in Photoshop.
The b&w conversion was done in Aperture 3. I created a platinum-esque preset which tones the image and alters the tonal curve a bit.
The top five images are composites made with the Canon TS-E 24mm II lens, in each case combining three images into one.
I’ve been testing a new tripod head, the Arca-Swiss C1 Cube. It’s a joy to use – simple, very quick, rock solid, and an engineering marvel. Its built-in levels are quite accurate and negate the need to add a bubble level to the camera’s hot shoe. I’ve come to love the fact that it has two pan controls. One at the bottom and one at the top, above the leveling controls. This way you can orient the head with the bottom control first (a rough line up or if the head needs a different orientation relative to the tripod), level the head, and then fine tune the pan with the topmost pan control. Since the head is already level adjusting the top pan won’t throw it out of alignment.
Apple has just released an update to Aperture 3. You can access the update via Software Update in your System Preferences or as a standalone file from here.
Photoshop turned 20 yesterday – so it’s time to bring out a couple of quick stories.
I first started using Photoshop back with version 2.5. It was on a Windows PC in 1992 or 1993. Back then, if you bought a mid-level or higher scanner Photoshop was often included for free and that’s how I came to own it. While I didn’t dive in head first, I played with it for many years and initially used it as a tool to clean up and prep scans. It wasn’t until the advent of good digital cameras in the late 90′s, early 00′s, that it became integral to how I work.
I have two brushes with Photoshop greatness in my career. The first is indirect and occurred when Adobe Camera Raw came out. In spite of the all the hoopla over it I found it to be challenged at best when working with Nikon raw files. My comments led an extended email correspondence with author Bruce Fraser and to spending lots of time photographing a MacBeth ColorChecker so that Bruce could test the files and pass information along to Adobe.
The second was much more direct. One of the successive versions of Adobe Camera Raw had a bug or two in it. I found them and posted them on an Adobe forum. Shortly after I got an email from Thomas Knoll, co-author/developer/inventor of Photoshop, with an invitation to be a beta tester for Adobe Camera Raw. I did that for a couple of years, Camera Raw versions 2.2~3.3. After 3.3 the beta program seemed to fizzle out. Releases went right to public betas or whatever part of the program I was in was asked to do less. It was never quite clear since communication was often one-sided (from Adobe outward.)
By the spring of 2006 I was starting to use Apple’s Aperture as my main raw processor and it was time to move on. Regardless of all the shifting about with raw processors over the years (Nikon Capture, MacBibble, ACR, DPP, Aperture) as digital capture matured from an infant to a pre-teen (?), the one constant has been Photoshop for almost all work beyond the initial raw conversion.
