Smart Phone Photo Apps - recommendations?

[AndyH]

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

 

[spijker]

This is the timer app that I use or film development and paper development:
https://www.apkmonk.com/app/com.webkist.android.DarkroomTimer/
It works very well, has a red display, no advertising and it's free.

 

[winger]

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)

 

[rst]

PinholeMaster - you can store all data about your pinhole cameras, also store your own film characteristics (like reciprocity) it has a lightmeter built in as well as a timer.

Lux - which I use as light meter when out with old cameras

Hipstamatic - when I use the phone to photograph (yes, sometime this happens) then I do it with Hipstamatic. Just for fun.

Develop - as timer app for film development. But I might try some of the above mentioned apps.

I do have apps like Snapseed etc installed too. But I do not use them very often. Not even rarely or should I say never?

Cheers
Ruediger

 

[awty]

Reciprocity https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.monochrome.reciprocity&hl=en
Calculates Reciprocity on most common films also calculates bellow extensions and filter factors.
Light meter tools https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lightmeter.hardware.lightsensor&hl=en
Does all the light metering up to f250 and much more.
Magic film viewfinder https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.kadru.filmviewfinder&hl=en
Very good directors view with plenty of film sizes and focal lengths and other stuff.
and my latest a bubble level https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.nenter.app.bubblelevel&hl=en

Saves caring a lot of bits of paper and other stuff. Still prefer a quality light meter to find the ev's to start with.

 

[AndyH]

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

 

[awty]

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

That looks like a great app, must try it out.

 

[adelorenzo]

I use the Kodak Mobile Film Scanner app (Android, Apple) for quick previews of negatives on the light box.

Art of Foto (Android, Apple) has useful calculations like reciprocity failure, bellows factor, focal length equivalent and chemical dilutions.

I also use Magic Film Viewfinder, Photographer's Ephemeris and Snapseed that have been mentioned above.

 

[radiant]

Shameless plug, but iOS app (by me) which can be used to check composition easily without need to take your camera gear out of bag (& setup). Shows also scene dynamic, lux, EV(100) etc. And free (no ads whatsoever) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kamera/id1484690352?ls=1

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

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

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

Does shutter speed check film cameras too?

 

[AndyH]

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

Does shutter speed check film cameras too?

Photo Pills gives you a more useful "virtual reality" view when you set up future shots. The find tool seems much faster and the location saving choices more flexible. You can add photos to your scouting ventures. The program gives Milky Way angles in addition to sun and moon. It also has quick tools for working with DoF calculations, hyperfocal calculations, and fields of view. Once I learned the basics of map orientation and timekeeping, I started opening it more frequently than I open TPE. The basic sun/moon view is very similar to TPE, and if you've used that one, you'll get used to the Pills quickly.

Shutter speed works ONLY on film cameras, as it uses the opening and closing sounds directly from the shutter. It records a little "seismograph" chart of the opening and closing sounds and puts it on a timeline that's long enough for you to see and hear the peak sounds. I don't think I'd trust it over 1/500, but with a little practice you can pick out the peaks and valleys quite well. For another fifty bucks you can get a little light that plugs into your phone and permits an actual light duration reading. I've tested it against a shutter recently CLA'd and it seems pretty accurate. Very reassuring on the slow speeds on some of my cameras.

 

[revdoc]

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)

The curves tool will flip a positive to a negative. Pull the lhs to the top left corner and the rhs to the bottom left corner, then tap the tick. In the edits stack you can also save this as a "look" so it just takes one tap.

 

[Helios 1984]

Timer!

 

[Pentode]

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.

 

[AndyH]

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.

Thanks for that referral. I'll check it out.
Andy

 

[MattKing]

Can anyone point me to an app that provvides Reciprocity calculations for recent or current Ektachrome?

 

[etn]

I would love an app to replace the Hasselblad Close-up calculator... in case someone has software development skills and wants to create one

 

[lamhaocc]

My favorite app is Alight Motion