The work being put into improving the iPhone's camera year-after-year is astounding. Continued improvements to Portrait mode, Night mode, Deep Fusion, and the new user interface are all great, but the fact that Sebastiaan has concluded that this year's version finally holds up to enlargement like bigger cameras is truly a testament to the engineers at Apple.
The best photo editor on iOS gets better.
From one half of the team behind my favorite iPhone camera app, Halide, comes an in-depth breakdown of what's changed in the new iPhone's camera. Sebastiaan talks about the strengths and weaknesses of the new camera (and its Smart HDR feature), as well as what they're doing to make sure that Halide continues to be one of the platform's leading camera apps.
Darkroom is my go-to editing app on the iPhone 8 Plus. The newest update introduces some truly magical editing capabilites for Portrait Mode photos. In addition to new filters that use the depth information of a portrait mode photo, the update has also given us editing tools for independently controlling the brightness, saturation, and blur characteristics of the foreground and background. I couldn't recommend this app more highly.
On the left is a normal portrait mode photo I took of my dog, Lucy. On the right, the same shot, but with one of Darkroom's P400 Portrait filter applied (along with some tweaks to the background blur itself).
Again, on the left, a normal portrait mode photo I took of my breakfast one morning. On the right, that same shot, but with P100 (and various tweaks) applied.
This update is simply another in a long line of great updates to this application. I can't wait to see what's next.
What would it take to convince you?
That is how Marius Masalar begins his Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II review. He does not go on to spend the next 1,800+ words simply telling us what makes the camera great, or where it might have warts. He does certainly does those things (and the informative bullet points probably do in fact make of the majority of his words), but its his images that convince. Marius tells us a story with his fantastic images about the kind of tool this camera can be when put into a talented photographer's hands.
He ostensibly calls this piece a review, and it certainly has many elements of that, but ultimately it is a love letter to a camera that, for the moment at least, has become a trusted tool.
Marius ends with this:
I’m done chasing the best camera. The "best camera” only makes the best photographs in the right hands, and as long as the camera’s capabilities exceed my own, I haven’t earned the right to upgrade. For at least this year, I’m happily settling down to master the tools I already have.
I don’t want better gear, I want better photographs. And that part is on me to accomplish.
As a photographer, who has thought many times about trying to express my own choice of the E-M1 Mark II (but this could certainly apply to any other camera or system that truly works for its owner), I couldn't and won't try to say it any better.
👏🏻
Part 2 of really great series about photography and software by Sebastiaan de With.
I previously linked Part 1 in December.
Peggy Dean at The Pigeon Letters:
As you probably know, Instagram's algorithm is a nearly unsolvable puzzle and right when we think we've solved it, it changes again. Staying in the loop is harder than ever, as many changes are no longer being regularly announced on Instagram's blog, but rather just being updated in a buried folder in their Help Center. There's some good and bad with these changes. How people interpret these changes is to each their own.
I generally tend to use Instagram as a personal tool for insipiration and fun. I have, however, casually wondered why some posts seem to reach more followers and deliver more engagement than others, this is fascinating.
The iPad is a unique workspace for editing photos. It takes the tactile immediacy of something like a Cintiq tablet and unshackles it from a desktop editing environment.
You can directly manipulate items on screen, make precise adjustments with the Apple Pencil, and do it all from the comfort of your couch, the seat of an airplane on the way to your next shoot, or wherever life takes you.
iOS 11 brought some really great improvements to iOS, and specifically to the iPad. This guide from Marius Masalar (@mostlymarius) on the Sweet Setup on what works, what doesn't, and how he does it, is a great resource.
Whenever I've tried to explain RAW photos to someone, I've more or less left it at: "Think of it as a digital negative". This is a much better explanation.
This is the laptop that I use every day at work. Marco is right, it's a perfect computer.