Smart Phone Photo Apps - recommendations?

AndyH said:

Some good ideas here. I could not agree more with awty's statement that some apps save you from all the odd bits of paper bobbing around in the bag.

Although I rarely shoot astronomical photos, I've been trying to learn Photo Pills the past couple of weeks, and find myself using it more and more for daytime shots, given the rapidly retreating hours of daylight. Saving locations I pass by in my travels for another day, looking for moon or sun alignments over landmarks, adding phone-snapped pictures as notes to a site, and scouting a far-away location in advance of visiting it to decide on date and hour are all uses irreplaceable by any other tool. Used in combination with a good weather application and Google Maps, it has saved me a ton of wasted time in going to locations where lighting conditions won't be favorable, or avoiding trips to places where the view isn't as expected. It's really worth checking out if you haven't yet.

Another hint - download PDF manuals for all your gear onto your phone. This is especially helpful for digital rigs that contain features you don't use often enough to become totally familiar with them. Also, if you want to see the hyperfocal distance for an odd lens or other bit of gear that you don't use regularly, the old manuals and instruction books had lots of such information.

Andy

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AndyH said:

Here are a few of my favorite apps.

The Photographer's Ephemeris -
The original and still one of the best. Lat/Lon calculations and planning hosts made easy. I've supplemented it with Photo Pills, which I find more usable in some areas, but it's still a great and inexpensive app.

Photo Pills -
Great shot planning app, with easy geo-synching, and augmented reality views for sun, moon, and Milky Way. This is probably my most used app. It also has a DoF calculator and several other usable tools. Most comprehensive.

Shutter-Speed
This is a nifty app to check the accuracy of shutter speeds by taking a sound recording of the shutter going off. You can also get a very accurate light plug-in that is super accurate, but with a little experience I've been able to make pretty accurate readings. The cool thing is that you can save the accuracy tests to specific profiles for each camera, so you can easily look up whether that vintage Contax is 2/3 stop slow or fast.

myLightMeter
The original free app is still my favorite. The latest version has added calibration, and the spot and incident functions are quite usable. Handy to check on old selenium meters or when the batteries fail on your Luna Pro or Sekonic.

Lens Lab
Good and intuitive DoF calculator, useful for zone focusing and quick hyperfocal calculations for any focal length.

LE Calculator
Basically a filter factor calculator. Simplifies the math involved in heavy ND filters and long exposure times. I wish it had half stops, though.

Light Meter
If you want your readings in Lux or Footcandles, this is your app...

Google Maps / Google Earth
What would we do without these? The street view, combined with Photo Pills, is a dynamite combination for visualizing shots and timing them.

Does anyone else have favorite smart phone apps for their film and digital photography? I'd love to know.

Andy

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Alan Edward Klein said:

Andy, How is Photo Pills better then TPE in some areas?

Does shutter speed check film cameras too?

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winger said:

Snapseed. It works on my phone and iPad and has lots of cool edits that are not just the usual filters. (though it won't flip a shot from negative to positive or the opposite - I need a good one for that)

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Pentode said:

I use Develop! And Light Meter all the time.

I’m mostly a sunny 16 shooter, but I’ll often take one reading before I start shooting a roll and it’s a lot easier to do it with a phone that I’m already carrying anyway. It’s pretty accurate, too.
I downloaded fotometerV2 and myLightMeter as well and they both work just as well. I don’t have a strong preference either way, but I tend to use Light Meter for its simple layout.

Develop is awesome. I use a lot of different films and several developers and this app keeps track of all of it for me. I had trouble with the first version and contacted the developer. He asked me to be a beta tester for the next version and, during that test period, he fixed all the problems I had encountered. It’s been rock steady ever since. Nice guy, nice app.

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