While I’m all for the convenience of cell phone cameras, I’ve never been a huge fan of them. Honestly, I got my Nikon D50 SLR a little over 3 years ago, and it’s been pretty much glued to me ever since, even though it’s huge, and heavy, and my purse sizes have increased exponentially as a result. Since it’s so often with me, I’ve rarely had a reason to need my tinier, poorer quality iPhone camera, unless I want an instant gratification phone background or caller-ID photo.
I installed 2 new camera apps on my phone though, and now it’s addicting:
The first one, and a more frequently used one, is Hipstamatic. Which, at first, I was skeptical of because it sounds incredibly lame to me. I in no way qualify as a “hipster”, and the name makes me giggle. I may have recently come to love my Ray-Bans and the occasional plaid shirt, but I’m pretty solidly a Top-40 music listener (with the exception of people like The Monkees, who were Top-40 in their day) and I don’t have any pseudo-faux-super-intellectual “it’s cool because it’s like so retro” reasons for going to theme parks, or watching Full House.
But Hipstamatic is so.freaking.cool. because I like to take pictures, and I like playing around with the lighting on them, and I think making them older-looking helps hide the fact that most camera phone photos I take look super grainy. And I can click through different lenses LIKE it’s a SLR, but without having to carry around weird lenses and filters. I just press the little yellow button, and my photos look like this:
Welcome to Hollywood! What's your dream?
And this:
Enchanted Tiki Room...circa 1980??
Or this:
It's a moody, Baywatch-kind-of-day at the beach
The old fashioned-y vibe is a little California-y to me too. I think it’s because for some reason when I think about the Los Angeles of yester-year I either get visions of the 1930s/40s or the 1970s/80s. Is that weird? Maybe? Anyway, moving on.
The other app I got is called Pano — like the name sounds (sorta) it helps you make panoramic photos on your phone. It’s a pretty neat little app, letting you take a string of photos and then merging them together. It leaves a bit of a watermark from the last photo you’ve taken so you can line them up properly. I have a decent zoom lens on my Nikon, an 18-200mm, so I get a pretty good wide angle shot too. But still, it can’t quite get a panoramic view and since I’m not really ready to start investing in a lot of lenses yet (and rarely have a need to) this app is a great little parlor trick for me.
Here’s the entire Magic of Animation stage at Disney’s California Adventure (the app has a bit of lag time, so I was happy I managed to get it before our artist started moving around a lot!)
So now, both my Nikon AND my iPhone are getting worn out when I run around.
Ok, maybe using this app in a Starbucks is going a little overboard...
Tomorrow, be on the lookout for my Glee recap with *eeeeeeeeek!* Neil Patrick Harris guest starring!
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