Two Great Photography Ebooks

Now that the Xmas mayhem has subsided and the new socks, DVD's and Aftershave / Perfume are sitting neatly in the cupboard, you might be on the prowl for something to inspire you photographically in the new year? Well here's two great ebooks from a couple of top guys that will do just that? Patrick LaRoque and David Cleland (also known as Flixelpix) are both Fujifilm X-Photographers and gifted lensmen. They are also very generous when it comes to sharing their knowledge about photography. So for less than the price of a DVD, you can kick back with your favourite tablet or laptop and treat your eyes and mind to some great photography and knowledge. I'll start with Patricks as his was released first. Disclaimer: I'm friends with both of these guys. I shot the Freedom Through Photography campaign for Fujifilm UK and Millican Bags with David (and Andrew James) and Patrick is a friend and colleague from The Kage Collective. That said, I wouldn't write a blog post about these ebooks if I didn't feel they would be a great resource for the readers of this blog.

Patrick sent me a copy of his ebook a couple of weeks before it went on sale (for some feedback), and although I know his style pretty well, I was really excited to see 1EYE Roaming open up on my iPad. I love the minimalist look of the layout and the way Patrick lets both the photographs and the words breathe. If you're not a reader of Patrick La Roque's blog, you really are missing out. You'll never find a better match of great photography and well crafted words. 1EYE Roaming is all about Patricks trip to France and is split into two with the first part dedicated to the photos and the second to Case Studies. Each section of the first part has a page of text followed by all the photos from that area or subject (Paris, Trains, Port Leucate etc). The photos are given either a full page or almost a full page (Landscape) to themselves. Case Studies take up the second half and are a gold-mine of information on how Patrick sees and edits his photos.

This is David's second ebook. His first was the brilliant Long Exposure and if you haven't read it, David has a discounted price on his website if you buy both his ebooks. This latest offering is called Shooting Shallow and as the name suggests, is all about the art of shallow depth of field, wide open apertures and how to get that beautiful Bokeh (the creamy out of focus part of a photo). David has written an ebook that will be interesting to any photographer, but for the beginner this is an absolute must. Getting that shallow depth of field look is a big mystery to a lot of people that have just started taking pictures with a DSLR or Mirrorless camera. This ebook is packed full of information that strips away the big mystery for the newbee photographer, but still very interesting to the more advanced.

Both of these works are the kind of books that you can go back to again and again and I recommend keeping them on your favorite reader. Both Patrick and David have done a stellar job! Lets hope they do more.

Second Shootr v1.2

In March 1976 Francis Ford Coppola started filming a little movie called Apocalypse Now. Filming was set for five months, but due to all sorts of problems and delays it was three years before a version was first shown, a version that wasn't quite what anyone involved in the movie expected or the promised end result. In the end, it's arguably one of the best Vietnam Movies to come out of Holywood. So what does this have to do with an iPad app?

Second shooter is an iOS app that helps photographers get and stay Organized? It has been available for the iPhone and iPod touch for a couple of years now and it's a very useful app and the best of its type I have tried on the iPhone. Second Shootr 1.1.1 was released back in June 2010 with version 2.0 being mentioned on the SS blog as far back as Feb 2011. But there has been long gaps with only the occasional blog post to reassure users that v2 was on it's way and that it would include an iPad and desktop version that could all be synced together...it sounded perfect.

An update to Second Shootr has now been released and is available on the App Store, but it's not the promised v2.0, it's v1.2. The great news is that it's now made to work on iPad as well as iPhone and iPod touch and it takes advantage of the Retina Display. The iPad version is really nice and it's very tempting to start using it exclusivly. Entering data is so smooth and intuitive that you acctually enjoy typing in new client data.  Sadly there is no desktop version, but the apps makers say that SS v2.0 is still in the pipeline and will be coming in the near future. In fact their photography business Plinkk Photography has been put on hold so that more time can be spent on the big SS update.

So the big dilema for me and I expect for a lot of other uses now, as iPad & iPhone/iPod Touch versions can't be synced, is to go with one of three options.

1. Start using the iPad version, which is much easier to input data.

2. Ignore the iPad version and stick to the iPhone, as the phone is the device that goes everywhere with you.

3. Input data twice and use both devices.

Well done to the people behind Second Shootr for getting this great app finally on to the iPad, but please please give us the ability to sync between OS devices. A Desktop version would be the icing on the cake!

If you haven't tried Second Shootr yet, go to the app store download it...it could make your life easier! Well worth £4.99 (uk).

Fujifilm X-Pro1 & iPad :: A Night At The Museum

Four shots taken inside Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum in Glasgow (Scotland) with the X-Pro1, edited and uploaded to the web using an iPad. I used Nik Software's Snapseed to tweak the photos and Apple's connection kit to get the photos from the camera to the iPad. This is what I'll be using when I go to Italy in a couple of months. I'll also be using FilterStorm quite a bit. Anybody tried Photoshop Touch for the iPad?

iBooks Author

I don't remember ever getting butterflies in my stomach when using a piece of software for the first time, but that's exactly what happened with the new iBooks Author app. Apple have just changed the face of modern culture again with a bold move into the book publishing world, and a lot of publishers are about to go out of business....a lot! But just as the music world giants like Sony were scratching their heads a few years ago and not coming up with a solution for the dire state of the music industry, Apple have came in with a move that is to the publishing industry what iTunes was to the music industry. I hate to see business's going to the wall, but as Bob Dylan said "times, they are a changing".

Here's another quote, this time from Dane Sanders "we now live in a digiflat world". That means we are all on an equal playing field. I'm typing this blog post on my iPad in a play area while my kids are getting tired out (hopefully). I'll then upload it to my blog for free and you get to read it for free. We can publish what we like and we can look for and read what we like (at least until the men in suits ruin the internet).

iBooks Author is awesome! I've played with it over the weekend and it's really easy to get to grips with. There's a small learning curve, but it's mostly plain sailing, especially if you have used desktop publishing software. I put together a mockup of a documentary book as a way to get to grips with the app. The 'Sections' through me a bit at first. Sections are great for textbooks, but I just wanted chapters in my book, one per project. But once I found how to delete a section, I was off again. Another thing I'm trying to do is link text box's that I make and auto flow the text over a chapter, but I still haven't managed to figure that one out at the time of writing this post (leave the answer in the comments if you know). That said, it wasn't long before I had a couple of chapters laid out the way I wanted, complete with photos that popped up full size at the tap of a finger and embedded galleries that work by swiping the box on the page or tapping first and then swiping them full screen. One of the genius things about this app is that when you click on the preview button it sends the book to your iPad (as long as it's connected to your Mac using the dock cable). The book then stays on your iPad, which let's your friends and family preview your latest masterpiece before you publish it to iBooks. I should state that the app is for Mac only, but maybe a windows version is in the pipeline? I would be gutted right now if I was still a windows user!

When you want to publish your book you simply upload it to the iBooks Store and fill out the information required (which I believe includes tax forms). The financial deal is a 70/30 split, with the author getting the bigger half. If anybody reading this has published a paper book, you'll know just how great a deal Apple is offering.

The best way to great your head around this game changing piece of software is by playing around with it. Even if you only intend buying books in the new format, iBooks Author will give you the best insight into how these books work on the iPad. I can't wait to see some of the new and innovative books that come out on this format.

FilterStorm:: The Best App For Photographers?

There's a lot of great photography apps out there, but most of them are geared toward one or two features. Some lean toward shooting and uploading straight toTwitter, Facebook etc, some do tilt/shift and some only do black & white. Thanks to Apples camera connection kit, I can now take the SD card from my Fujifilm X100 and import the photos straight onto the iPad 2. I needed an app that could then resize the files to my blog sizes. I tried PhotoResizer, which did the job, but was a little sluggish and again a one trick pony.

FilterStorm is what the Photoshop app should have been like. It does a huge amount of different things and it does them really well. Apart from Settings, Load Photo Star Rating and Automations, The app is split into 4 sections, which are in the form of tabs - Export, Metadata, Filters and Canvas. Export does what you would expect, like saving back to your photos folder of sending by email, Flickr, FTP or Dropbox. You can also choose size and quality options here too. The Metadata tab is set for viewing meta and renaming photos by default, but click on Settings and you get whopping great 31 switches that let you turn on features like Keywords, Captions, Subject, Category, Location, Copyright, Usage, Contact Details...etc. The meta section really is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Canvas is where you can crop, scale, rotate, flip,straighten, Scale and add borders. This is another huge section. Filters is the place where we pixel pushers all like to be. It has Brightnes/Contrast, Curves, Hue/Saturation, White Balance, Sharpening, Blur, Black & White, Clone, Tone Mapping, Text, Noice Reduction, Noise, Redeye Brush, Colour, Vignette, Posterize and Add Exposure. The great thing is that it does them all really well.

This is the best i photo editing app that I have ever used, and I've tried plenty. The thing is, I've just checked on the Apple App Store so I could wright the price (2.39 UK) and saw that there is a pro version (8.99 UK) with even more features. My one gripe would be that if you have already bought the standard version, you shouldn't have to pay the full price for the pro version. That goes for apps that are different on the iPhone & iPad, if you buy it on your iPhone and the iPad is a more expensive & more powerful app, then you should only have to pay the difference and not the full cost. But all that aside, Filterstorm is the best app for photographers I have came across to date. It was made with photojournalists in mind (although photojournalists shouldn't need a clone tool). I'm going to buy the Pro version now, as there are a few features that I quite fancy (batch editing being but one). Filtersorm (iPod, iPhone & iPad) & Filterstorm Pro (iPad only) are available on the App Store. The photo above is from the Pro version.