Photoplus Offers Options for Mobile Photographers
By At the Jacob Javits Center in New York City last week, the annual PhotoPlus convention was held. The event showcases all things photography, and this year, mobile photography was a small but growing part of that.
Apps were everywhere at the show, with everyone from manufacturers to distributors promoting their iPhone and/or Android apps for information and ordering of products. One was the Canon Idea Mine, designed for the manufacturer by Carbone Smolan Agency (CSA). The free iOS app serves as an idea-provoking tool for photographers, and was previewed at the show – it will be available before the holidays in iTunes.
But the show wasn’t limited to just apps when it came to mobile photography. The two biggest pieces of hardware take the iPhone from a phone that takes pictures into a full-fledged camera.
First was the Steadicam Smoothee Stabilizer. Based on the technology used by professional videographers to get steady, smooth motion, this is a smaller version that the iPhone fits right into. The user can then pan it around and shoot video with a much smoother look and feel that just using the video camera with hands alone. Made by Tiffen Co. LLC, the device can be used with an iPhone or iPod Touch of any flavor, as well as any other devices of a similar size and shape. With the iPhone 4S capable of beautiful HD quality video, and when available, innovation like this make filming a feature with it a reality and not some far fetched idea!
Watch The Steadicam Smoothee™ from Tiffen on Mobile
The second exciting piece of hardware at the show for mobile was the iPro Lens from Schneider Optics. It is a lens kit, actually, designed to take the iPhone camera further. It comes with a case that will allow the lenses to be easily taken on and off, and a handle that attaches to the case to make it easier to use the iPhone as a video camera, as well as doubling as a universal tripod mount, allowing users to take advantage of equipment they might already own. Inside the handle are two lenses – a wide-angle and a fish eye, with more planned for the future. The fish eye gives a 165-degree view, an the wide-angle increases the overall field of vision on the iPhone by about 35 percent.
