why i am leaving my fancy camera at home

Lately I have been finding myself reluctant to take my DSLR camera. It is big. I don’t even like carrying a purse. And my iPhone is taking better and better pictures thanks to a few secrets I am about to share.

How to take pictures with iPhone

olloclip

The olloclip is a 3-in-one lens for iPhone 4 and 4S.   The lens are fish eye, macro and wide angle. It slips over the corner of the built-in phone lens.   The only drawback is that it won’t fit over a cover.   The lens comes in a little bag that easily fits into a pocket when not in use. Here is a photo I took this week at a Ranger game with the fisheye lens. The olloclip can be used with the iPhone camera or with any of the photo apps that I love.

Instagram

I know that Instagram is NOT new.   In fact, I have been using it for a year or so, but that doesn’t discount how amazing it is! It has become my digital scrapbook.   I take photos all the time that never make it to a blog or FB, but there they are on Instagram to look back or share.   I love how easily it interacts with twitter. A quick phone shot can look great with just a click of one of the filters. This was taken at the ballpark at the game that Rhett and I attended.   I snapped it and posted to Instagram which shared it with twitter automatically. It also saves it to my phone photo album where I grabbed it to text to grandparents watching the game on TV and daddy who had to work. If you are on Instagram, please follow me – I am texasholly over there.

DMD iPhone app

This is one of my new obsessions.   It is SO cool! It is a panoramic photo taken in multiple shots and automatically added together to create one large photograph.   You simply hold your phone upright and pan across the scene you want to photograph and just tell it when to stop.   Magically, a few seconds later you have something like this… This photo was actually 5x the size I can show here.   Depending on how many shots are seamed together, the size can be quite large. I also really like how they are shown on the iPhone screen with a panning movement.   It really makes you feel like you are there. I have been using the olloclip wide angle lens with this. PicFrame iPhone app You know how I am mourning the loss of Picnik.   One of the reasons I love Picnik so much is the ease in which a collage can be made.   So imagine my surprise when I found PicFrame could do this FROM MY PHONE: {I did add the June Cleaver Nirvana text}, but the collage is all made on PicFrame using photos I took on my phone. There are a ton of different collage options that can all be modified into other collages.   Once you have your collage finished, you can save it to your phone or share it on nearly every social media platform known to woman.

Camera Awesome or Camera Plus Pro

I have been using Camera Plus for a year or so to take pictures on my phone when I didn’t have the latest phone.   It was a huge improvement over just using the iPhone camera.   When I upgraded to the latest iPhone, I found the camera was MUCH improved and I didn’t need it to get a good picture. I still use Camera Plus to edit photos that need help or if I am going to be taking a bunch of pictures, I might take them through Camera Plus so editing is easier. And then a month or so I found Camera Awesome.   Which is awesome.   It has even more filters, textures and edits and can be used just like Camera Plus. This photo was a mess before I put it into Camera Awesome.   You can see that Reid in the background is moving, but I loved the interaction between the boys and the look on Rhett’s face.   I “awesomized” the photo and then applied a texture and something else that looked kinda fancy when I was doing it.   A few clicks later, I have a photo to post to Instagram that I adore. I don’t want to play favorites between Camera Awesome and Camera Plus because I use them both! I still use my BIG camera at home or if I know I will be spending the day taking photographs, but for everyday life with the help of these apps and add-ons, my iPhone does a great job.