Over the last six months I have been turning my attention to Photography both as a personal development project and also as an education focus within school. There are massive learning opportunities within the whole area of photography. My interest in photography is no secret in school at in September I was approached by two pupils about starting a Photography Club.
Anyone who uses the Flickr photo sharing website will already be aware that the iPhone is one of the most popular cameras used in the 3000 photos uploaded each and every second. Well using Flickr on your iPhone has just become even easier in the form of a dedicated (official) flickr app.
Back when Apple announced that iPhoto 09 was going to offer the ability to “export to flickr” I have to admit I was more than excited. iPhoto 09 arrived and suddenly I realised that every upload session was going to appear on my left hand menu bar, for me a bit of a negative.
It would be impossible to have missed today’s release of Apple’s much anticipated Snow Leopard. I have just upgraded and other than the new desktop background I haven’t spotted anything different yet but as most of the improvements are under the hood I guess that is to be expected.
A number of blogs have listed the various applications to “have issues” and I have to say so far none of the applications I use daily have caused any problem.
One blog stated the Elgato Turbo.264 HD no longer works and to be honest this is only sort of correct. If you own a Turbo.264 HD you need to install Quicktime 7 (on the Snow Leopard DVD) as the new Quicktime X doesn’t offer customised exports. I realise this is perhaps a bit of a work around but I will make sure to post more information as I explore the new Quicktime options.
Facebook 3.0
Also this week Facebook 3.0 for the iPhone and iPod Touch hit the iTunes store. The upgrade not only introduces massive UI improvements but also :
- See your upcoming Events and RSVP
- See Pages and post updates and photos to Pages you administer
- Write Notes and read your friends’ Notes
- Upload videos from an iPhone 3GS
- Complete photo management (create albums, delete albums, delete photos, delete photo tags)
- Change your Profile Picture
- Like posts and photos
- See the same News Feed as the Facebook website
- Visit links in a built-in web browser
- Quickly call or text your friends
Flixel
On a personal note I have set myself a 12 month challenge to become a better photographer and so have set up a little photoblog at www.flixel.net to document my journey on a rather steep learning curve. I am aiming to post a new photo each day on there and would appreciate any feedback or advice from the experts out there. Why not subscribe to the RSS Feed.
It is difficult to miss the boom in the consumer digital SLR market, in additional to the iPhone these cameras currently dominate flickr (see the graphs).
Recent releases boast 15 megapixel sensors and high definition video all with the ability to interchange lenses offering endless possibilities for the budding photographer. Check out this macro hi-def video captured with Canon’s new 500D.
Although Lightroom doesn’t support direct export to flickr a ‘donation ware” plugin is available (from this website) that makes the export process really simple. To be honest this is one of the most sophisticated flickr export plugins I have seen.
It does everything from manage tags, to allocating photos to sets & Flickr groups.
One of the nicest non photo-related aspects of Lightroom is its ability to library files without moving them to a new location. If you have an iPhone or especially an AppleTV then you will know how great it is to be able to sync photos directly from your iPhoto / Aperture library.
Despite having a bit of a play with Apple Aperture I have found myself returning to iPhoto again and again. Perhaps it is the way it easily integrates with iLife and iWork or the fact the photo books offer more option who knows but I use it on more or less a daily basis.
