Instagram and iPhone tools for photographers
I don’t use Flickr anymore, but if you want to keep up with miscellaneous snapshots I post online, you can find me on Instagram by the username daltonrooney. Unfortunately you can’t sign up for the service unless you have an iPhone, but you can still search for individual users via Instagrid. I hope you like dogs.
One of the features that first interested me in Instagram were the retro filters, but I’m definitely experiencing filter fatigue at this point. Every photo on Instagram looks like every other photo on Instagram. It’s great for casual sharing (see those dog photos, above), but I don’t think it’s what I’m looking for when I’m posting more serious photographs. I recently discovered Process, a simple image editing app for iPhone which gives more control over the application of effects, and I like it a lot. Here’s a recent iPhone photo that I edited with Process before I uploaded it to Instagram:
This doesn’t look too far off from the process I use in Lightroom and Photoshop for my “real” photos.
Speaking of real photos, I often use my iPhone to take test shots while I’m out with a film camera, so a lot of what I’m posting to Instagram these days are outtakes from the new series I’m working on. Another great iPhone tool I use is Viewfinder Pro (here’s a review on Luminous Landscape), which allows me to set up my shots on the phone before getting out the tripod and big camera. Viewfinder Pro is something I’d recommend to anyone using a camera which requires a lot of setup, as it has helped me find shots I might have missed otherwise.
One more bonus iPhone app for film photographers: The Massive Dev Chart. This app has a list of just about every film/developer combination in the universe and takes into account things like temperature and dilution to generate a film development profile for you that you can customize and save. I use this every time I develop a roll of film.
Here are a few more recent outtakes from Instagram:
December 19, 2011