Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

Easy Release

A month ago quite a bit of buzz started to circulate with in the Twitter photography community about Easy Release (iTunes Link), a program that enables you to create model and property releases on your iPhone incorporating a digital signature of subjects and/or property owners. The potential immediately grabbed my attention and I approached the application publisher for a review copy. The review of the application was the easy part, but my background research on the acceptability of “digital signatures” in the form of an electronic touchscreen signature took much longer. Now that my research is complete here is the review…

Easy Release is just that… easy to configure, easy to use and easy to see its value. I give the team behind Easy Release a lot of credit as creating an application that is simple to use is quite a difficult task. The added perk to Easy Release is that it makes obtaining, logging and sending releases a very cool process. The out of the box thinking to obtain releases digitally is exactly the type of application I’ve been waiting for to maximize the business potential of my iPhone.

The Process (Ex. For a Model):

1. Click the “Plus” sign to create a new model or property release
2. Enter the “Shoot Name” and “Shoot Reference ID”
3. Enter Shoot location information “Shoot Country” and “Shoot Region/State”
4. Enter the Shoot Date
5. Enter the Model’s Name
6. Take a photo with your iPhone of your model
7. Enter the Model’s date of birth, gender and ethnicity.
8. Enter the Model’s address
9. Enter the Model’s Parent’s name if a minor
10. Enter the Model’s Email address and phone number
11. Enter the name of a Witness
12. Review the Release summary
13. Sign your signature (the photographer) with your finger on the screen
14. Let your Model review the agreement. They tap to agree.
15. Model signs the release using their finger on the screen.
16. Click to create a PDF of the signature and send it to your model & yourself via email

Fully written out the process seems long, but it takes only a few short minutes to complete.

Easy Release

Additional Features & Real-World Experience
The application allows you to customize your releases with a logo, specify a default language from 12 translations or add your own custom release text.

Of course it would be easy for me to just idly claim Easy Release is easy to use, but having tested this in the field I can attest that not one subject I asked to use the application had a problem or showed any confusion when reviewing the release or signing it. Logistically using Easy Release was much simpler than dealing with a paper release and fumbling for a pen. The convenience to email the release in PDF form to both the model and the photographer is also a huge time saver. Lastly and most importantly the biggest benefit was speeding up the process to obtain a signature.

Easy Release

What to Be Aware of…
The one weakness of Easy Release is that some stock agencies might not yet accept “digital signatures”. At the time I received my review copy of the application it was unclear to me if Getty accepted “digital signatures” in the form of an electronic touchscreen signature. Right off the bat I was able to confirm with Rasmus Rasmussen (@theprint) that iStock does not yet accept these type of “digital signatures” and prefers pen on paper signatures. I had to wait a few weeks to hear back officially from Getty as to whether “digital signatures” in this form were currently accepted. The response: “…the Getty legal team is reviewing this, but at this time digital signatures are not allowed on releases.” That being said the people behind the application are former Getty employees and are aware of this. If you’re outside of the Getty sphere and/or work independently then this is a non-issue.

Rating:

Easy Release is a solid application that is ultra intuitive to use. Not only did it live up to my expectations, it surpassed them. Whether you’re a semi-professional or full-time working pro photographer this is a must have application to have at your fingertips. For those that have been holding off on upgrading to an iPhone, this app alone might be reason enough to do so.

Technorati Tags: photography, release, iPhone, app, Easy Release, model release, property release

My photography has transformed over the past couple of  years thanks in part to the advent of photography apps on the iPhone.  Reference information, in particular, now available on iPhone apps has made a special impact. My iPhone now is a critical photography tool when I’m in the field. Always on the look out for great apps I thought I’d share a review of an  app series iFotoGuide (iTunes link) put together by fellow nature and landscape photographers Dan Baumbach and Bret Edge.

The iFotoGuide to date is comprised of location guides for Yosemite National Park and Arches National Park. Each offer information resources covering:

• Area Information
• Park Information
• Interactive Map
• Photo Locations
• Photo Gallery
• Sunrise/Sunset Times
• Additional Resources

$4.99 Yosemite National Park iFotoGuide	$2.99 Arches National Park iFotoGuide

Things I Liked and Didn’t Like

These apps have you covered when it comes to making plans to photograph these national parks. With in the “Area Information” section for example you have airport, transportation, lodging, campground, shopping, restaurants weather and important phone numbers at your finger tips. One noted absence that surprised me under “important phone numbers” was the lack of inclusion of regional resources to get road conditions. For example in the Yosemite app the CalTrans Highway Information number was missing to track when mountain pass roads are open/closed through Yosemite.

Weather information for each park is included in their respective app. Note that the “Weather” section will jump you to monthly averages. To get current conditions the app with an additional link will load Yahoo weather. Perhaps a personal preference I think I’d rather get the current weather first and click through to the monthly averages.

The Yosemite app includes a link to the Yosemite Cam page that loads with in the application. It’s just not possible to get enough of the Yosemite cams (unless you’re checking at night).

The Park information section covers the basics with wildlife, wildflowers, backpacking info and safety info. While the wildlife and wildflower sections are more than adequate it would be great to see in future versions more detail to fauna and plants species in each area.

The Interactive Map is a great feature allowing you to see example photos taken from various park locations. Small camera icons have been transposed to National Park maps so with a touch of your finger you can load photos to get an idea of what is possible. Each image on the Interactive Map loads with additional links to more detailed information and maps.  The downside to the Interactive Map is  that it’s impossible to do each park justice with the number of locations to photograph, but it does cover the major locations.

The Photo Gallery section also allows you to easily navigate additional information and maps. One thing that was mildly disorienting is that this section is a mixture of photos referencing subject and location. For example in the Yosemite app you might click a photo of Half Dome to read about a particular meadow and another photo of the same subject might tell you about Half Dome itself. Perhaps in future versions they’ll tighten this up to easily search of a quick means of seeing one or the other with in the gallery section.

The Photo Locations section does a great job of identifying photo subjects that are ideal to photograph  at sunrise, sunset or all day.  If you don’t have time to adequately scout these parks in advance this feature will prove to be a huge time saver.

The Sunrise/Sunset section of each app will give you a quick look at approximate times for sunrise and sunset for the 1st and 15th of each month. Helpful for general information it would be nice if the apps provided links that took you to a site that relayed specific information for a particular day. To be fair though this chart is more than enough if you lack connectivity in the field.

Rating:

iFotoGuide is well worthy of picking up for the price. For a version 1.0.x app it’s very well done. Easy to navigate, intuitive and full of great information. Some portions of the app aren’t as strong as others, but that’s normal. One app can’t do it all. On that note I’ll likely continue to use other applications that specialize in sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset calculations. I’m hopeful that in future releases more detailed information is added about wildlife and plant species. I’m eagerly awaiting to see what National Parks they add to the series next. For updates and additional information visit the iFotoGuide blog.

I consider myself lucky to have been include in a select group of folks randomly selected at the Adobe Photoshop 20th Anniversary celebration to receive a copy of Photoshop 1.0.7 for the iPhone. Thanks to Adobe’s Russell Brown for the creation of this retro application for the iPhone (or at least announcing the news of it… seeing as it was actually made by development firm named Corona).  So what’s the fuss about this app?

First let me burst most people’s bubble…

• This app is not a full version of Adobe Photoshop 1.0.7 and only provides basic levels adjustments. (No cropping, no image rotation, no resizing, no curves, etc.)
• Touch screen controls on the iPhone are quite clumsy to use
• It’s not being distributed beyond the select pool of people who were given the opportunity to receive it at the 20th anniversary celebration
• The app is not being further supported
• The app is tied to specific iPhones ID’s.

Now that I’ve laid the ground work as to why you shouldn’t be upset Photoshop 1.0.7 is not widely available let me tell you why it’s cool.

• For those who used the first or early versions of Photoshop the user interface is a real flashback
• The startup sound is another great flashback and reminds Apple/Adobe fan of Pavlov’s theory of conditioning.
• Adjusting levels by color channel (red, green and blue), in addition to a master adjustment is nice be able to do.

Really? That’s it?

Yup that’s it. This app highlights one function of the original Photoshop app. Nothing more and nothing less. Other photo apps that are currently available do tons more. This app hardly will become a part of my standard iPhone photo editing workflow. But if you’re a tech geek… meaning you grew up using Photoshop & old macs and still hoard old equipement and software (please don’t tell my wife) then you’d love this app. How long I’ll be inclined to show my buddies this app at bar-b-q’s and various tech events I don’t know. The shelf life might be quite short, but the inner geek in me loves it.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, Photoshop, Photoshop 1.0.7, iPhone app, iPhone, app, technology, photography, geekery, review

It hasn’t been that long since my first iPhone application post 11 Must Have Photography iPhone Applications, but there have been some great additions on iTunes as of late that you should definitely know about.

onOne dSLR Camera Remote Professional Edition
When I first heard about this application it definitely grabbed my attention. At the time it was only compatible with Canon cameras, but now it supports Nikon as well. I decided to take the plunge on this $19.99 app and try it out this past weekend for a photo shoot and it worked really well.  I mean really well. This remote works on a camera tethered to a computer and provides every function under the sun that a camera remote could have.  The LiveView and remote camera setting adjustment functionality is too cool for words. If the LiveView functionality isn’t worth the money for you there is a substantially lower cost version – dSLR Camera Remote Lite. By far this is the most expensive app I’ve purchased but it is also the coolest. Read more…

The advent of the app store has opened a large number of applications for niche markets and one of the most popular markets that developers have been targeting has been photography. The number of photography applications for the iPhone pales in comparison to the number of games that have been released, but what the numbers don’t reveal is the high percentage of quality apps versus junk available to photographers. Below are 11 photography related applications that I have on my iPhone and have been using even more following my upgrade to the iPhone 3G S.

Note: If you missed it see my Apple iPhone 3G S Camera Review.
Read more…

It seems like only yesterday that I first reviewed the camera in the original iPhone “Apple iPhone Camera Review: The One Thing Apple Isn’t Hyping“. At the time of the iPhone release 3 years ago I was not terribly impressed with the quality of the digital camera with in the phone and my opinion didn’t change with the lack of camera upgrade in the iPhone 3G. As part of the iPhone 3G S release the camera with in the phone has been upgraded and the difference between this generation and past generations is quite an improvement. Unfortunately not every short coming of the original iPhone camera has been addressed, but the vast majority of improvements warrant sharing another review. Read more…

I’ve recently put together a collection of iPhone photos in my gallery. Photos included are from MacWorld 2007 in San Francisco and some recent studio photography work of product shots. Read more…

So you use Flickr… what else is out there that is going to enable you to get the most out of it?

Thanks to Flickr’s API a lot of people have come up with some very interesting tools. As I’ve learned there are a lot of things to discover from GreaseMonkey scripts to external sites that enhance the Flickr experience. Below (in no particular order) are my favorite external sites that enable me to more quickly review the photos of others and monitor my photos.

Scout
A quick and easy tool to find out which of your photos are in Explore, but if you look closer on the site there is a larger set of Flickr Toys.

Darckr
A quick and easy way to see the current 20 highlighted images in Explore.

Note: You can authenticate by clicking on “Mine” at the top for an alternate view of your images.

Flickrleech
See in a very quick fashion via small thumbnails the top 500 most interesting photos for any day.

Flickr Grab
Flickrleech + Scout = Flickr Grab
The result is a quick way to see the top 500 most interesting for the day, your favs, the order of your photos based on interestingness and interestingnessly weekly.

Interesting Photo Builder (my photos as an example)
A neat tool to present x number of your photos in a one page display on black. Unlike the one page “On Black” toy from BigHugeLabs this application lets you present multiple images on one page.

A bonus tool for Flickr and iPhone users that I’ve recently discovered…

GetLeafLets
One of the many lightweight web applications provided is a Flickr viewer. It’s the best Flickr viewer I’ve found to date for the iPhone.

Know of another Flickr tool I’ve left out that I should have listed? Let me know what it is.

Technorati Tags: Flickr, tools, web, application, iPhone, Scout, Darckr, Flickrleech, Flickr Grab, Leaflets, GetLeafLets