Taking multiple exposure images with the iPhone

Amongst my collection of cameras is a plastic lomo film camera. It doesn’t need batteries since there is nothing automated about it. There is no precision lenses or focusing. There is no setting shutter speed or F stop. If you forget to advance the film with the roller wheel, you can take an image over the top of another. Multiple exposure images can be a lot of fun. The fact that the camera view finder doesn’t go through the same lens the image is taken through means that producing two images on a single piece of film can be very challenging.

Today I found Fusioncam for the iPhone. At first glance, it looks like another photo app that mimic a film camera with buttons, image filters at point of the picture being taken and delays while image is ‘developed’. Cuteness aside, I was very excited to see that it handled multi exposure image taking.

The controls in Fusioncam are simple but get the job done. Looking at the opening screen, left to right. The ‘S’ is for logging into the Steply sharing social network. Next is the large shutter button with the camera type lever on it’s side. To the right is the camera flash control and the switch to take a single image or a multi-exposure. Leave the exposure switch to ‘1’ for your first shot, then move to ‘2’ for the second layer.

Along the bottom is access to your ‘settings’ area, the camera/gallery is for getting to Fusioncam’s saved images and the ‘?’ is for the tools description overlay.

If you wish to use the first image as an dual exposure top image on a second image, move the button on the far right up so it reads ‘2’. The initial image will show on the screen so you can look through it and see exactly how your Fusioncam resulting image will look. Snap the image when you have what your looking to create.

You may have noticed the lever with a small blue dot next to the big blue shutter button. In the above image, it is in the #1 position. Tapping it, you can swing it downward to two more positions. Each position changes the image at the time you take a picture with Fusioncam. The viewfinder image does not change when you move the lever from one position to another. Other than the arm, there is nothing else in the app to tell you what adjustment you made. Below are the resulting images 1, 2 and 3 in that order.

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Quick and free panorama app for the iPhone

There has been a few different Pano iPhone options I have been playing with over the last couple years. The first ones where high resolution but required you line up the images on the screen prior to taking the next image. Then, there were ones that acted like they were recording a little move which they flattened out.

A new (to me) option I installed this weekend is a winner in both the ‘speed of use’ and ‘User Interface’ categories!! The app, Dermandar (It means “All around” in Lebanese slang) is a Universal free app for your iPhone 4, iPad2 and newest Touch… the limitation for devices is because is automated magic requires the gyroscope.

Dermandar works in portrait view only for maximum vertical viewing area on the final image. Launch the app, aim at the area and hit the record button:

Notice the ‘ying yang’ looking art at the top of the Dermandar screen? As you turn your device around the halves come together. When they meet, the bottom dot on the symbol goes green and the next shot is snapped. It a very simple and informative way of giving the user a heads up. In the case of low light photos, just slow down a bit as you get near the joining of the halves to lower the risk of moving as the image is taken.

The image is immediately stitched together inside of the Dermandar app. You can sweep around the image with your finger. Pinch and double tap zooming is supported to look closely at areas of interest.

Recorded images are saved to your ‘My Gallery’ area. Images can be viewed later and shared online with others via the free Dermandar Web site. Your images do not need to be shared through the site though, images can be posted to sites as a large image. For a dynamic view, uploading the image to the site via the iPhone app results in a Web address to share instead of the actual image.

Along with viewing your own recorded images, you can see what others have posted online to share. Choosing the ‘Public Gallery’ from the Dermandar app, you can then drill down view the pickers at the top to view the ‘Latest’ uploads, ‘Trending’ and images recorded ‘Near’ you.

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Recording Video on the iPhone in HDR

If you follow any of my photography work, you know I’m a big fan of HDR. I have a pretty fair mix of all types of photography formatting, it is only that HDR is pretty noticeable so folks tend to remember those shots.

Over the last weekend, I started to play with the iPhone’s video capabilities. My previous iPhone movie work has actually been iPhone Photos using highly managed Ken Effects and image stitching.

I will work through several movie apps that I’m happy playing with so far. First up, Flare for iPhone (Careful, there are a couple apps called Flare) which makes movies with the HDR effect. This is not a filter app, rather an app that you use to do the actual video recording. You can see the HDR effect in real time as you record. It isn’t actually taking two images and merging them but the effect is pretty nice to get maximum impact of environments that respond to HDR.

When you start up Flare, there is a box just below the recording view which allows you to sweep through three different recording options. They are… well, I have yet to figure out the differences, and the developer didn’t take the time to explain.

Videos created with Flare are 640 x 360. The frames per minute recordings vary depending on the quality of your iPhone (requires iOS 4.1) where the iPhone 4 with free memory will hit 24 fpm.

Tapping the screen results in a focus box that you can move around to adjust your focus point. Pinch to zoom works very quickly.

To the right of the ‘Record’ button is a slider which will hide the box of options for the recording formats.

Panning around in my lower light yard with Flare, I found that the clouds refreshing was fast showing a HDR effect I am used to when photographing. The trees look like they had a hazy filter over them. When I lowered the camera to the grass, the trees and grass really started to pop… cool!

It was nice to see that Flare works in both Landscape and Portrait layouts. I say ‘nice’ as I was surprised when playing with other iPhone Video apps that only recorded in a single view.

In the lower corner of your recording view is a box showing an image of the last video you created. Tapping it will take you to a screen to view your creation. From this same page, you can return to the record area, Share and to trash a video.

When you are ready to share your creations, you have a pretty good list of options. Flare, via the Share button, will let you save your video to your iPhone’s Photo Library. And to the popular social sites: Twitter, Facebook, YourTube, Tumblr and Flickr.

I’ll post up links to the videos I shot, shortly…

For when a square iPhone photo isn’t able to tell the story

There are a few photo social systems that require your uploaded iPhone photos be square. It can be challenging to get the story told you wanted to when you have to crop parts off of your image to make it fit.

What if you could fill in the area around an image with whatever color you wanted so a wide or tall image would be square where it’s needed? Well, that is what the free app Squaready does on your iPhone.

OK… not a great example, but you can get the idea. You bring in a picture you have in your iPhone Photo Library. The buttons along the bottom of the Squaready (above the in-app ads) going from left to right is:

  • Choose a background color
  • Auto adjust the image to full screen
  • Auto Adjust to put the tallest/widest part of the image all the way to the edge
  • Center so that the background can be seen all of the way around the image
  • Rotate

The color picker is very extensive with all Web allowed colors. It is nice that Squaready shows the color background in real time making it easier to see the color impact.

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