Fisher - The mobile photographer: an unofficial guide to using Android® phones, tablets, and apps in photography workflow

Acknowledgments

Id like to thank Craig, Kate, Barbara, and the rest of the team at Amherst Media for having the confidence to move forward with this project and the patience to work with me.

In addition, Id like to acknowledge the app developers who went out of their way to answer questions and provide support for their software while I was writing the book and the companies that helped supply me with accessories for evaluation and inclusion in the book.

Copyright 2015 by Robert Fisher.

All rights reserved.

All photographs by the author unless otherwise noted.

Published by:

Amherst Media, Inc.

P.O. Box 586

Buffalo, N.Y. 14226

Fax: 716-874-4508

www.AmherstMedia.com

Publisher: Craig Alesse

Senior Editor/Production Manager: Michelle Perkins

Editors: Barbara A. Lynch-Johnt, Harvey Goldstein, Beth Alesse

Associate Publisher: Kate Neaverth

Editorial Assistance from: Carey A. Miller, Sally Jarzab, John S. Loder

Business Manager: Adam Richards

Warehouse and Fulfillment Manager: Roger Singo

ISBN-13: 978-1-60895-824-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014944596

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise, without prior written consent from the publisher.

Notice of Disclaimer: The information contained in this book is based on the authors experience and opinions. The author and publisher will not be held liable for the use or misuse of the information in this book. Android is a trademark of Google Inc. The Android robot is reproduced or modified from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

Contents

Robert Fisher is a commercial and fine art photographer and freelance writer based just outside of Toronto, Canada. His love of photography began nearly twenty years ago when he was first exposed to the impressionistic style of photography. This style captivated his imagination and served as the red pill for his journey into the photographic rabbit hole.

Robert holds an honors Bachelor of Administration degree from Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario. His photographic knowledge has been gained through trial and error, asking questions, and informally studying photography and photographic techniques.

He has traveled as far as the Czech Republic to cover events and has held several solo and group shows. His work has also been exhibited in several galleries. Robert has also leveraged his education in business to publish several articles in finance industry publications.

Outside of photography, Robert is an enthusiastic and experimental amateur chef, a gardener, a player of really bad guitar, and owner of two adopted dogs he affectionately refers to as The Idiots.

May you live in interesting times.Unknown

T here is much debate about the origin of the above quote. There really is no debate though that, as photographers, we are living in very interesting times.

In just over a decade since the first widely used digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera, the Canon 10D, was introduced the world of photography has undergone a revolution. The roles of film and digital imaging technology have been reversed 180 degrees. We now have high-quality DSLR cameras that can produce stunning still images as well as capture very high-quality video capable of being used in Hollywood productions. A television network in Sweden used D800 cameras to go live-to-air for a studio soccer show during the 2012 Euro championships.

The last five years of that decade have seen another revolution in digital imaging: the smartphone. Smart-phones, with their puny 1 or 2 megapixel cameras, burst onto the scene with the iPhone and the first Android phones about five years ago and changed the world of photography. Those first smartphone cameras were not very good, of course, but that didnt matter. People were happily snapping away and posting to this new thing called social media instantly. The cameras improved along with the capabilities of the phones, and carrying a single device instead of twoa phone and a camerabecame possible. Smartphones began to supplant small point-and-shoot cameras as the device of choice for snapshooters everywhere. Not just still photos either, but video as well.

Image I.1 Can you smell it? Freshly roasted coffee at St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, ONa photographic cornucopia. Nikon D800, ISO 640, second, f/2.8. Initial RAW conversion in Photo Mate Pro with final adjustments in Photoshop CC2013.

Smartphones began to supplant small point-and-shoot cameras as the device of choice for snapshooters everywhere.

In early September 2013, both Acer and Samsung announced mobile devices that are capable of recording 4K video. That is a tremendous leap forward in technology. While there are limitations, such as a single framerate of 30 frames per second, and while we should not expect the video captured by these devices to be cinema-quality, the fact that such small devices costing well under $1,000 can do something that high-end DSLRs costing three to ten times as much cannot do is intriguing to say the least. Mid-October 2013 saw two new mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras brought to market by Sony. Whats so interesting about that from a mobile standpoint? Both have WiFi connectivity built in. However, both also include Near Field Communication (NFC) connectivity. Sony also introduced its own camera control app and with the inclusion of NFC, connecting the phone to the camera can be done simply by touching the two devices together. Two days after the Sony announcement, Nikon released information on a new D5300 DSLR that had built-in WiFi and a new companion smartphone app that would allow the user to control the camera remotely. In early 2014, Fuji introduced the X-T1, and it, too, has built-in WiFi and a companion mobile app that allows users to control the camera from a smartphone or tablet.