Fig Tree

Late twilight can be lovely lighting for most subjects, particularly foliage. This fig tree showed great detail in the leaves which has been enhanced with the clarity setting of Camera+.

Dog Talk

There aren't many places around the city where dogs are encouraged to go walkies, but along the airport end of Lyall Bay Beach is a very popular dog-friendly zone.
This shot is unedited ie. yes, that sky is real - Wellington is in the middle of some classic summer weather (classic for somewhere like Fiji, not Wellington!).

Creature from Below

This discarded cicada shell has been left on an oak tree that often plays host to these creatures. I'm pretty sure that one of my very early blog entries was another shot similar to this, but taken on an iPhone 3G (the first model iPhone to be sold in New Zealand).
Link added - old cicada post

This image hasn't been edited at all but I did use a small magnifying glass held in front of the camera lens to allow it to focus closer than it normally would.

Water Tower

This sculpture is in Petone next to the outlets for a well known and popular aquifer. People come from near and far to fill all sorts of containers with the cool clear water.
I decided to use Camera+ to increase the saturation of this image.

Nasty View

Lying back in a dentist's chair is not often a pleasant place to be. Having someone use power tools on your teeth and charging lots of money for the privilege is a good incentive to look after your teeth!
I've edited this shot with Camera+ but the arms on the ceiling fan have 'bent' due to their movement during the exposure.

Keep Clear

I've been noticing more of these labels on buildings around Wellington. The wording seems strange to me... do they mean that a particular building is more prone to earthquakes than the building next door? I really think that the label should say 'damage prone building' or 'earthquake susceptible building'.

Southern Sunrise

Early morning in Picton with HDR mode on the iPhone camera app. This helps extend the tonal range to give extra detail in the shadow areas as well as the highlights - sometimes it can help an image... sometimes it can give a very odd false look.

Through the round window...

On a crossing of the Cook Strait this shot was taken after entering the Marlborough Sounds through a large 'porthole' window.
Another Instagram image.

Go go gadget

This is our daughter's cool wee gadget bag/purse - sitting on a table at El Matador (the location of yesterday's blog post).
A good subject for the Instagram treatment.

Indoor Outdoor Flow

One of Cuba Street's recent hospitality arrivals has set up this funky outdoor seating area for their customers.
This was shot on a lovely Saturday morning and the image hasn't been retouched.

Shadow Play

Pinot Gris in the sunlight - slightly modified with the Camera+ 'clarity' filter.

Where there's muck there's brass...

A local scrap metal dealer has been collecting junked musical instruments for quite a few years - seemed ripe for some Instagram treatment.

Mexi-combo

Guacamole and a margarita - it doesn't get much more Mexican around here... except maybe when I add a 'More Cowbell' filter to the photo (courtesy of Camera Awesome... and La Boca Loca).

The Bat Scooter

The motorbike parks around town are usually full of all types of scooters - this one has a certain appeal. 

I used one of my favourite filters from Camera+: So Emo.

Homely

This is one of Wellington's older bus stops, and one that's had a bit of media coverage lately. Before Christmas it had a random makeover to give it a few homely touches - there was even a decorated tree set up in December. It seems the bus company is quite happy to leave the furniture and decor touches in place.

The image was shot with the HDR setting on and then given a few adjustments with Snapseed to bring out some detail and knock back some saturation.

Tunnel Vision

Another camera test to see how it performs in difficult lighting situations. This was taken at about 9.00pm, 320 ISO 1/20th sec shutter speed. There are a few apps that dig out the metadata from photos on the iPhone - the screenshot is from app called Lab.

Sign of Summer

Today is certainly not one that could conceivably be considered as a summers day.... but through the magic of scrolling through my camera album... I decided to chose a classic harbour-side summer scene.

Cropped and filtered with one of the earliest popular photo editing apps around - Best Camera (endorsed/promoted by top photographer Chase Jarvis).

From the garden

Scallopini fresh from the garden and ready for a tasty stir-fry.

I used that old iPhone standby, Instagram, to process this shot.

Photography with Flare

Shooting towards the sun is often a good test of a lens (or how clean a lens is) and the 5 certainly handles the extremes rather well, with good contrast away from the flare. 

There's been a lot of talk of purple flare with the new iPhone camera, and although there's certainly evidence of it happening, it doesn't seem a major issue at all. 

Witness For The Defence

Grabbing a park in town is often a tricky affair. This time I was in a zone just outside a timed bus clearway... but the electronic meter wouldn't accept any money and seemed to have been programmed for the wrong zone. Luckily there was a helpful warden nearby who agreed that he'd be a witness (luckily I didn't get towed).

Another instance where always having a camera with you can be a big timesaver.

I used the Photo fx app to pixelate the warden's face and number.

More than a Zephyr

Wellington (and the country) has been buffeted by pretty severe winds over the last few days. This kinetic sculpture, titled 'Zephyrometer', sways in the slightest breeze but it rarely gets pushed this far.
I imported this image into Photo fx and added a grey grad to the blank sky, got rid of some background haze and cooled down the colour temperature.

First Job

A few days ago I needed a few images to post online of items to sell... so of course it was time to reach for the iPhone 5 (fitting for this classic piece of Apple hardware and the iBook under it).
Due to the odd angle I had the camera at, the gyroscope was fooled and the image displayed upside down, so I used the native photo app editing tools to rotate the image, save it, and then send it to the auction site and this blog.

Twilight Sailing

This driftwood structure made an interesting frame to the Interislander Ferry leaving Wellington harbour.
I increased the saturation of this shot slightly using Snapseed.

Show time

The foyer of Embassy Theatre just before another screening of a little movie called The Hobbit.
Cropped and given the retro look with an app called Retrogram.

Security Ports

Loving the overall speed improvements of the '5' over the iPhone 4. It may have been that my 4 had been 'clogged' with dozens of apps that I hardly ever used, or that it had been Jailbroken and had quite a few tweaks applied (I do miss them...), but I guess it's mostly the faster processor and more RAM that means the '5' is able to access the camera quicker and apply changes to images almost instantly.
This image was worked on in Camera+.

Gelato Weather

Wellington's waterfront was teaming with tourists and locals enjoying the sunshine today... they say you can't beat Wellington on a good day, and today was a very good day.
This shot was taken in a busy gelato shop and filtered with the first iPhone photo app (I think) that I used on an iPhone 3G - CameraBag. Nice to see it still provides a good edit and works really quickly on the '5'.

Afternoon Rosé

A difficult decision today - do I post a photograph of my coffee or my glass of wine?
This shot was treated with a filter called 'Brownie - Dark' in the app Ttv PS.

Beach collage

A quick wander around the beach with the new iPhone - the camera manages to capture great dynamic range and good colour depth.
These few quick snaps were put together in the Mixel app.

Urban Panorama

I've used numerous panorama apps for my earlier generations of iPhones - some have been simpler than others But the new panorama function of the iPhone 5 is just so easy it's tempting to use it all the time.
Most of these types of images are made of static landscape views, which it's most suited to. You can see some visual anomalies that can happen with moving subjects, as I'm panning the camera while people are walking.

Whole New World

Well, how about 'New Year, New iPhone'. Yep, am getting to grips (happily) with an iPhone 5 - loving the capability of the camera, the taller screen and the speed of the processor.
This image was made using the new panorama function to shoot a 'short' panno at Oriental Bay.