MWC review, with a photographic bent

All the big announcements have been made, now it's a case of rounding up and winding down from the Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona this year. There have been a few new smartphone announcements and some interesting apps have come to the fore that might interest photographers. Here's a swift review.

Samsung Galaxy S5

The big news is that this one is waterproof. No more worrying about whipping it out to take a photo in the rain. The S4 had a decent 13 megapixel rear-facing camera, which has been bumped up to 16 megapixels in the S5. The front-facing camera still sits at 2 megapixels. It can shoot 4K video at 30 frames-per-second and comes equipped with HDR and selective focus functionality.

Post-shot focusing means that the camera takes two photos every time you release the shutter and you can choose from a background that's in or out of focus. Samsung reckons that the S5's auto-focusing speed is super-fast, at 0.3 seconds.

It also comes equipped with a reflector-integrated flash LED. What's that mean exactly? Supposedly it will ensure a wider field of view better, allow for better photos, whether day or night, and should mean that everyone in a photo, not just those in the centre of the frame, are illuminated by the flash.

The S5 is due to go on sale in April this year and will cost in the region of £550.

Sony Xperia Z2

This one is also waterproof. It also has a higher resolution count than the Samsung Galaxy S5, with a 20.7 megapixel, 1/2.3-type Exmor RS for mobile CMOS image sensor, and is capable of recording 4K video and enjoys SteadyShot image stabilisation, too.

The Z2 comes pre-loaded with a bundle of camera apps, including timeshift video (a slow-motion effect); creative effect; background defocus; AR effect (augmented reality effects); and Vine4. There's also a dedicated camera button to help when you're shooting underwater.

The Xperia Z2 should be available in March 2014.

The Nokia X-series

Nokia announced its X-series of phones, which run Android rather than Windows. The X, X+, and XL are budget phones and they appear to have cameras to match. There's nothing as exciting as the Lumia or PureView technology going on in these.

Lenovo's DOit apps

As well as a new tablet, Lenovo unvelied five new apps that aim to make your digital life easier by simplifying data management. Called the DOit apps, they break down to: SHAREit, SECUREit, SYNCit, SNAPit and SEEit. SHAREit, SNAPit, and SEEit (the proliferation of caps is getting tiresome now) are those of interest to photographers, with SHAREit there to transfer data, including images between devices easily.

SHAREit comes preloaded on all new Lenovo Android tablets and smartphones and can be downloaded for free from Google Play. Come February, it will also be available for download from the Apple App Store for iPhone/iPad, as well as for Windows PCs.

SNAPit and SEEit are intended to work in tandem: SNAPit being a camera app and SEEit the gallery app. The camera app gives you a selection of functions including panorama and burst mode; the gallery app lets you categorise photos with the help of facial recognition software and has the now-to-be-expected gamut of filters and effects. These, however, are Lenovo-only.

Most Innovative Mobile App: CamMe by PointGrab

CamMe is a gesture-controlled remote shutter release app for use with iOS devices. From a distance of upto 16 feet from the phone, you can raise you hand, make a fist, and trigger a three-second timer. You can also use CamMe to take photo booth-style selfies, with three shots arranged in a film-strip.

It's free to download from the App Store.

UK's most innovative mobile technology company: Seene

Seene allows you to capture, view, and share 3D images from your iPhone. Why might you want to do that, you ask? Well the Seene team see it as great tool to help with 3D printing, or as a superior means for people to view products online.

Seene is free to download from the App Store.

Canon's rumoured withdrawal from the compact market is no great loss

It is only a rumour, but there are suggestions that Canon will soon cease production of lower-end, sub-$200 point-and-shoot cameras. Given the steady erosion of compact camera sales and their inability to compete against the convenience and ubiquity of the smartphone, it's hardly surprising. It's also a step taken already by Olympus by Fujifilm. And just as we stated in the cases of both Olympus and Fujifilm, this is a good thing. By my count since January 2012, Canon has released twelve IXUS model cameras and ten Powershot A-series cameras. These are typically regarded as its cheaper and cheerier models. They tend to range between £80 and £180, although the odd few come in much higher than that, have more than enough megapixels to keep the pushiest salesperson smiling, a decent optical zoom range, the ability to record video, and sometimes are blessed with image stabilisation. Unlike Canon's dSLR range, which comprises a controlled range of cameras with clear spec expectations at given price-points, it's verging on the impossible to discern one compact model from another. Their variations in spec are so slender that they all merge into one rainbow-coloured haze.

Herein is their downfall. First, they're not something that you'd go out to buy when you have a wirelessly connected smartphone in your pocket. There's not really enough value-added to justify the outlay. Second: when there are so many different cameras with so little to differentiate one from another, it's little wonder that consumers' eyes glaze over and they decide to stick with what they now know: their iPhones and their Samsung Galaxys. Choice is a good thing, but sometimes offering too much choice, without making obvious why it's needed, is self-defeating.

Let's not forget, that little tot-up of cameras didn't include any of Canon's Powershot SX range, which covers the superzooms, its D-series rugged cameras, the S- and G-series, which are its high-end compacts, and the quite-frankly-ridiculous N-series.

If anything can convince you that Canon really ought give up on the definitely-fled smartphone crowd, it's the N-series of cameras. They smacked of desperation, of designers under pressure to produce something 'young and funky and with-it' in an attempt to recapture a market long since gone, and engineers who'd rather be working on any other project than that one. Yes, they are out of the 'sub-$200' bracket of cameras that are expected to be axed, but they have no place in the range, either.

By relieving itself of the burden of the cheap end of the compact camera spectrum, Canon can refocus its attentions on the areas where there is hope, where there is potential, where there really is a market. Most definitely on its dSLRs, that seem to have gone off of the boil ever so slightly of late. Perhaps on its higher-end compact cameras, which are still selling and I believe show that compacts do still have a place in the canon of cameras, but could benefit from some innovation and development. And maybe even in the mirror-less division, where the EOS M has been so painfully disappointing.

This shouldn't be regarded as a move of panic or despair on Canon's part. I actually think it's rather mature. It shows how it might be beginning to analyse the market, to identify its strengths and weaknesses, and to come to terms with the idea of an evolving photography world.

Emergency smartphone support: a piece of string!

It's a truth universally acknowledged that the steadier you can keep your camera, the better your photos will be. Keeping your smartphone steady can be a bit tricky because it's small and light. Sure there are smartphone specialist supports, but there has to be a cheaper, lighter way that's in-keeping with the pocket-sized nature of smartphone photography, no? I'm not entirely sure why I decided that I needed to modify an emergency string tripod for use with a smartphone, but obviously I was channeling MacGyver somewhere, so I gave it a go. If you've never used an emergency string tripod, it's a loop of string secured to your camera to help keep it steady. You might've heard of it as a chainpod.

For my proof-of-concept smartphone stringpod, I used baling twine. It's not the ideal material because it's too coarse and too slippery against the phone's casing; however, we have an abundance of it and I just needed to prove my idea. A thinner string with a less shiny finish, like kitchen string, would be better.

Take a length of string that's at least double your height and tie together the ends to form a loop.

Use the loop to secure a girth hitch around your smartphone. Girth hitch: the technical name for a simple knot made with a loop. You can see better distructions here.

You should now have your string looped around your smartphone, and the rest of the loop hanging down from it.

Place your foot (or feet) through the loop and pull your smartphone to taughten the string.

That should stabilise your smartphone on the vertical axis, meaning that you can concentrate on horizontal stability. You should have a better chance of taking wobble-less landscapes and shake-free selfies now.

If you need to shorten the loop, just put a twist in it and secure it with your feet on the twist. Also: don't forget to keep your elbows in when you're taking a photo, no flapping around like chicken, thank you!

How's that for a camera stabilisation device that costs pennies and fits in your pocket?

Moment wants to bring more variety to smartphone additional lenses via Kickstarter

How many different lens manufacturers can you name in the next ten or fifteen seconds? Quite a few, I bet. We're accustomed to being able to choose between our camera manufacturers' lenses as well as third party lenses manufactured by the likes of Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Samyang et alios. Now that smartphones are the snapshot-camera-du-jour, and a vertaible feast of apps and accessories are springing up to help people make the most from them, why not a selection of additional lens manufacturers? Moment is aiming to bring some diversity to the smartphone lens accessory marketplace with its Kickstarter project that launches today. If it successfully raises $50,000, it should be shipping wide-angle and telephoto lenses, suitable for iPhones (4s, 5, 5c, and 5s), iPads (third and fourth generation iPad 2), and Samsung Galaxy smartphones (S2, S3, and S4), to its backers around June 2014.

The wide-angle lens offers a 35mm equivalent focal length of around 18mm (it varies slightly according to phone model); the telephoto lens' focal length equates to approximately 60mm, again depending on the smartphone model, in 35mm equivalent. Pledge $49 and you put yourself in line for one lens; $99 will secure you a pair.

The mounting mechanism attaches a metal plate to your phone—either with or without a case—and to this you secure the lens with a bayonet fitting. The Moment team thinks, after lots of prototype testing, that this is the easiest, quickest, and most secure mount around.

Moment is convinced that it offers the best quality lens you can attach to a smartphone. Some of its developers have worked in the manufacture of cinema lenses, and they've applied that knowledge to Moment's smartphone attachments to minimise distortion and chromatic aberration and maximise sharpness. Without a model to test, you have to take the manufacturers' word for it; but that's the gamble of Kickstarter.

You can check out the Moment video down below, or wander over to its Kickstarter page for a closer look!

Update! Moment reached its Kickstarter funding goal in under 24 hours. But that shouldn't stop you from taking a look!

Will Toshiba be bringing Lytro-like refocusing to smartphones?

We've grown accustomed to the idea of photos that we can refocus after the fact thanks to Lytro's lightfield camera and to Nokia's Refocus app that takes between two and eight photos that you can play with to your heart is content. Now Toshiba has announced the first dual camera module designed for inclusion in phones and tablets, which is able to record depth data and well as an image simultaneously. The catchily named TCM9518MD comprises two quarter-inch five-megapixel CMOS camera sensors and a dedicated processor. This dual camera module can capture images where the foreground and background, and everywhere in-between, are in focus along with depth data for each object in the picture. Not only can the module allow you to focus, defocus, and refocus the images it produces, but it can generate 13-megapixel images by up-scaling images taken by its two cameras.

Andrew Burt, vice president of the Image Sensor Business Unit, added that: 'Not only does the dual camera module enable these advanced capabilities [e.g. refocusing] with fast digital focus and little shutter lag, the device doesn't require any focus motors, so it can be built much thinner than today's 13-megapixel camera modules.'

Toshiba has made sample modules available to smartphone and tablet manufacturers (they cost $50 a pop), so which devices will be the first to feature them?

(Headsup to the Verge, further information from PR Newswire)

What's the situation with the Snapchat hack?

The Snapchat security vulnerability is a story that has quietly grumbled on over the Christmas and New Year period, but is hopefully reaching some kind of resolution, at least for the bugs highlighted on Christmas Eve. To recapitulate, Gibson Security discovered potential exploits in Snapchat's Find Friends feature and informed the app's developers of them in August 2013. One of these bugs allowed someone to upload a list of random telephone numbers and match them to Snapchat users' names. The other allowed the creation of multitudes of dummy accounts. Bring on the spammers and maybe even stalkers, then. Although Snapchat made some moves to address the faults, it didn't close the loopholes entirely. Gibson Security, therefore, took it upon itself to document Snapchat's API on Christmas Eve, making the vulnerability obvious for anyone who wanted to abuse it. The hole was exploited on New Year's Eve, when 4.6 million of Snapchat users' partially redacted names and telephone numbers were published online, albeit for a limited period of time.

With the ante having been upped, Snapchat has been forced to issue an update to its app that patches the vulnerability. It hasn't been released yet, but when it is, it will allow users to opt out of the Find Friends feature after they have verified their telephone number. Snapchat has also stressed that no other information, including images, was accessed during the attack.

Bugs happen and so do security breaches; what matters is how companies and developers respond to them. Perhaps the most disturbing element of this situation isn't that Snapchat users' details could potentially have been exploited, but Snapchat's ostrich approach to security. Rather than addressing the situation thoroughly and immediately when first informed of it, it made a half-baked attempt to implement a patch that could still be exploited. When it was called out, it reacted slowly with a fix that is opt-in rather than opt-out, and it hasn't apologised to its users. Food for thought.

You can read what Snapchat had to say for itself on its blog.

An order of smartphone camera units suggests Amazon might be venturing into phones

Rumours of an Amazon mobile phone aren't exactly new. Speculation started when the Kindle was released; it heightened when the Kindle Fire came out; it has rumbled on since then with suggestions first that Foxconn might be manufacturing the handsets, and then HTC. Now it's being reported that Amazon has placed orders for smartphone compatible compact camera modules with Taiwanese manufacturer Primax Electronics, ready to launch a new device in the first half of 2014. I've not been able to dig up any more information on the camera unit specs, but even with a world-beating camera, any Amazon smartphone is going need to strong hold in the app market. Apart from an interface that not everyone gets along with, the Kindle Fire's primary shortfall is its lack of apps. If Amazon wants to compete in the mobile market, whatever the price of the device, this is something that will need to be addressed.

(Headsup to TechRadar)

A bundle of gift ideas for smartphone photographers

If you're stuck for a gift idea for someone who's permanently attached to their mobile phone, addicted to Instagram, and knows the precise order of Snapseed's editing functions, here are a few ideas that might fit the bill. Depending on where you are in the world, most of these can just about be ordered in time for Christmas, if you're quick.

Get up close with a macro lens

I've been messing about with my Easy Macro lens band over the past few days. It's low-tech but a lot of fun. At $15 a go, they're inexpensive and they're compatible with a vast range of different phones, too.

Buy the Easy Macro Cell Lens Band at the Photojojo Store!

Should you have a little more to spend and want to give your recipient a lot more control, Olloclip has launched a 3-in-1 macro lens kit, that offers three different magnification factors and baby lens hoods. This will cost you $70, though.

Ditch digital zoom with a telephoto lens

Digital zoom sucks. And wide-angle lenses are very unflattering for portraiture. What you need is a telephoto attachment.

Photojojo offers a $20 telephoto lens that's compatible for iPhone or Android devices. If you'd prefer to splash out a bit more on an iPhoneographer, Olloclip has a $100 telephoto lens that comes with a circular polarising lens on its other end.

Send camera shake packing

Camera shake: it's a horrid business that has ruined many a potential masterpiece. It's particularly noticeable when you're shooting with a small device, much like a mobile phone. Thankfully there are a good few options out there to help keep you on the straight and level.

I love my Tiltpod, which is a bargan-tastic at $15 for an iPhone 4/4s version or $30 for a 5/5s version; however, Joby—the guys behind the ubiquitous Gorillapod—make Griptights, which can be pared with Lollipods for far more flexible smartphoneography.

Let there be light

Flashes on smartphones aren't very forgiving: they're harsh, they're close to the lens, and they're not at all flexible. So how about some pocket-sized external light? Photojojo has its Pocket Spotlight for $30, or you can pre-order a super-stylish iblazr, which should ship sometime in February, for $50.

Buy the Pocket Spotlight at the Photojojo Store!

Prints and such

Print options for mobile images and Instagram shots are everywhere. Everywhere! But is it something that you'd think to do for yourself? Well, maybe, or maybe not. So being presented with a gift card so that you can choose your own pictures for printing is a great excuse.

Origrami (with the extra 'r') lets you select gift cards for its fabulously packaged range of prints, shipped anywhere in the world. Or there's Prinstagram, that has a huge range of products that includes mini-books, stickers, and posters.

Doing it better

Smartphone photography is marvellously easy: open the camera app, point, shoot. But you can always do it better and there are some terrific books out there to help you. Start with Stephanie Calabrese Roberts' The Art of iPhoneography or Android Photography by Jolie O'Dell.

Don your photos

Wearagrams are custom-made pendants featuring your own images. They're set in silver pendants strung from organza ribbon, covered with a glass cabochon and produced by Etsy-maker 80sgirlart. They can be shipped world-wide and cost about £14.

So, those are just for smartphone photography. There must be something that catches the eye?

Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year? Selfie

'Selfie?' I've been taking them for yeeeaaars, dahling! The word isn't exactly new, we've been using it since 2002. And the concept definitely isn't new, seeing as the first one was taken in 1839 by one Robert Cornelius. But a staggering 17,000% increase in its use over the past year has meant that 'selfie' has taken the crown as Oxford Dictionaries' 'Word of the Year' for 2013.

It had stiff competition from the likes of 'twerk' and 'binge-watch', but fought them off with unselfconscious vigour and now joins the likes of 'credit crunch' (2008) and 'omnishambles' (2012) in the pantheon of neologisms. Its next task is to gain respectability from an entry into the Oxford English Dictionary. A place in the Oxford Dictionaries Online, awarded in August this year, isn't quite sufficient.

For some, selfie is an indictment of the self-obsessed instant-gratification generation. Those of us in the know, however, aren't at all concerned by the self-portraiture arrivistes with their smartphones and duckfaces. And you can always keep one step ahead of the game with a little help from Haje's book!

Ooh! Ilex has some copies of Haje's Shooting Yourself to give away in honour of this momentous day! All the details are here!

What's Nokia brought to the mobile photography landscape with its new phones?

There's been a lot of love for the cameras that Nokia have been squishing into their mobile phones of late. It isn't just about the 41 megapixels found in the Lumia 1020, but more about their cameras' quite impressive low-light capability, image stabilisation, and the control that the camera app affords you. With the anouncement of the Nokia 1520 and 1320 in Abu Dhabi today, has anything new been brought into play in the smartphone landscape? Let's start with introduction of a Windows phone-compatible Instagram app. Instagram is hardly new to smartphoneography and if filtered, shared photos don't float your boat, it'll hardly seem like a big deal. However, for people at Microsoft and Nokia, the lack of an Instagam app on their phones was considered to be a significant factor in holding back sales of their devices when compared against Instagram-friendly iOS and Android. The Windows phone has now been opened up to a wealth of people who might otherwise have dismissed it out-of-hand, and with it, its camera's capabilities and functionality have been pitted against those of other manufacturers.

Lots of the other toys might not bring anything revolutionary to the Lumia cameras, but they are fun and functional.

The new Refocus app isn't new to camera technology—it's the same idea as a Lytro, allowing you to refocus your images after you've taken them—and something similar is available for iPhones, with the Focus Twist app, but it is bringing more functionality to Nokia phones and giving more options to users. Refocus also allows your Facebook friends (and other socially networked people) to fiddle with your photos and interact with them.

The Beamer app and the Storyteller function are meant to make Nokia phones more interactive, too. Beamer will allow you to share photos with anyone whose screen is compatible via a via social media, email, or SMS link. Storyteller creates a temporal story of your photos, placing them on a map along with chronological notation.

Previously, there were two separate camera apps in Nokia phones: Smart Cam and Pro Cam. These have now been combined into a single Nokia Camera app, which should make shooting quicker and simpler.

But the introduction of Raw file support does signal that Microsoft/ Nokia does mean business with its cameras. If they can do it, why shouldn't or couldn't any other camera manufacturer? We're seeing the gradual adoption of larger and larger sensors into smaller and smaller camera bodies; why not the introduction of Raw files into smartphones as standard?

Sleek and smooth: it's Triggertrap Mobile 2.0

It's sleek, it's smooth, it's the new Triggertrap Mobile 2.0 that allows you to trigger your dSLR in 14 ways using your smartphone and a dongle. Want to record a timelapse—that is a sunset timelapse that makes use of bulb-ramping, or timewarped timelapse that has varied intervals between shots, or an HDR timelapse? Or trigger your camera using sound or vibration? How about create a distance-lapse? Maybe record star-trails? Fancy having a go at long-exposure HDR? And do it all wirelessly? Triggertrap has you covered. There's even a wireless flash adapter you can hook it up to for high-speed photography.

The new version is available for both iOS and Android devices and has a simplified design that's not just a pretty screen: switching between triggering modes is now easier. There were a few bugs in the old version that should now be squashed and Android users will be happy to hear that the app can now run in the background, even when the phone is locked, allowing you to timelapse away until your heart is content without fatally draining your battery.

The Triggertrap team is rather proud of version 2.0: 'We saw the opportunity to combine what we learned from the first generation app with the tips we received from our diehard fans to make Triggertrap what we always envisioned it could be,' said CEO and Triggertrap inventor Haje Jan Kamps. 'It certainly helps that our fans wear the pants around here and aren’t shy about letting us know what could be improved, and as a result, Triggertrap Mobile 2.0 is the best triggering solution you’ll find anywhere.'

If you don't already use Triggertrap, you can download the app for free from Apple's App Store or Google Play. It works with your device's internal camera or can be hooked up to supported dSLRs or flashguns using hardware available from the Triggertrap shop.

And if you'd rather watch a video, Triggertrap's made you one of those, too!

Have you seen Flickr's new avatars?

As well as the new layout and the new business model that it rolled out this week, Flickr also introduced 12 new default avatars for anyone who chooses not to upload her or his own identifying image to attach to their homepage and comments. Designed by Charis Tsevis, they're bright, blocky, and I have to say I rather like them. The designs fall into the genre that Tsevis calls 'Neo-Futurism' or 'Neo-Cubism' and feature stylised cameras that include Canon or Nikon dSLRs; medium format, twin lens reflex, and old-fashioned polaroid cameras; mirror-less cameras that might be from Olympus, Nikon, and maybe Sony; as well as compact cameras resembling Fujis and Sonys; and of course the smartphone. He goes into more detail on the brief and his design process on his blog.

I think I might start a round of Flickr avatar bingo. Anyone up for it?

(Headsup to Design Taxi)

Metroprint, you've a slight problem with your Instagram print service

Pretty-looking prints, but...

I've just received one of 'those' press releases. One where everything seems so promising until you reach a key detail that makes you raise your palm to your forehead and start muttering 'Why?'

Metroprint, a British-based print provider has just unveiled its Instagram print service. It's online or you can walk in to its London store, prints are 35p a pop, and you have a choice of matt or gloss finish. So far, so good. Until you reach the all-important point where you upload your images to their servers. This vital stage in the production of your photos, photos taken on your Intergoogle-enabled smartphone, has to be done from your desktop. There's no mobile app and if you try to upload from your iPhone (as I did) you're told 'Very sorry no-can-do, because we rather need Flash.'

Really, Metroprint? You've set up a print service for a mobileography phenomenon that can't be accessed directly from a smartphone? And isn't ever likely to be accessible from a smartphone as HTML5 has won the war, leaving Flash to slink away and lick its wounds. Did you actually think this one through? Doesn't it strike you as maybe inefficient? Or perhaps counterintuitive? How about entirely contrary to the spirit of Instagram? What about really embarrassing?

If you were the only print service providing Instagram-specific photos, it might, possibly, swing in your favour. You'd be filling a gap in the market and people would probably be prepared to forgive your inconvenience because of your unique service. But you see, you're not. PostalPix is a free app, with reasonably priced paper prints and even aluminium prints. Printstagram isn't app based, but it's simple enough to upload your images straight from your phone or your desktop. It connects directly with your Instagram account, meaning there's no tiresome downloading and re-uploading, a key factor that you seem to have overlooked.

Like anything in life, people love Instagram for a heap of different reasons, but I'm certain that one of those is that it's simple to use and another is that it's verging on instantaneous. When you're setting up a print service for Instagram, no matter how high quality your prints, you have to mirror those attributes or you'll not appeal to your customer base. The workflow that you've implemented for your Instagram prints is clunky and unappealing, if I'm going to be polite about it. If I'm going to be brutally honest, by using obsolete technology for one of the hottest trends around you've made yourself look more out-of-touch than Miss Havisham stepping foot into a Soho club. 

I suggest that you re-think this one, Metroprint.

As for the Metroprint Instagram service, it's available here.

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Update! Metroprint got in touch with me to inform me that there is Flash-free upload option that functions from both Android and iOS devices. At the time of the press launch it was down, however. I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt that they had covered this option, but I'm far from impressed that functionality hadn't been assured when the news was announced.