For MyLifeScoop, I made a quickly-absorbed and extremely trustworthy video guide to apps and gadgets that'll help you take better photos with an iPhone. Better apps and add-on lenses (like PhotoJojo's, right) make a lot of difference, even if you've got a steady hand and good light.

  • hexmonkey

    Bummer that there’s no skimmable text version or list…

    • http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

      Gadgets

      Photojojo: http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/cell-phone-lenses/

      Holga Wheel: http://www.amazon.com/Holga-iPhone-Lens-Filter-SLFT-IP4/dp/B006B9NQUA/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1332789075&sr=1-1

      Apps

      iPhoto: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iphoto/id497786065?mt=8

      Camera+: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/camera+/id329670577?mt=8

      Hipstamatic: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hipstamatic/id342115564?mt=8

      Instagram: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252?mt=8

  • http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

    At the end of the day though, a truly great photographer is born, not made. You can have gadgets out the wazoo, won’t help a bit if your eye isin’t already there.

    • Peppermint

      Yeah, sure, because it’s all about talent and never about work.

    • SoItBegins

      What if you need glasses?

  • Than Saffel

    Or you could buy a Samsung Galaxy S II and enjoy amazing photos right out of the box – AND not have to root your phone to have control over it. 

    • jerwin

      The Samsung comes with photographic filters and interchangeable lenses? Wow!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Beth-Cravens/704440406 Beth Cravens

    I have a crazy idea, get a camera. Something that was designed specifically for taking pics.

    • http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

      Sure. I’d avoid cheap point and shoots, though. Smartphone cameras are good enough, these days, to make the pocket-cam entry point stuff like the Canon S100 or Nikon P300, if you’re going to bother.

      • Paul Renault

        1) Look up the definition of ‘depth of focus’.   (No, no, no, not ‘depth of field’, ‘depth of focus’.

        2) Find the focal length of the lens on an iPhone 4S (hint: it’s 4.28mm).

        3) Find largest acceptable ‘circle of confusion’ for a iPHone 4S, assuming it’s one pixel.  (8MP camera as 4:3, gives 3,264 x 2,448) (Sensor on  iPHone 4S is 7.9mmm, which works out to 2.4 micrometers.  The actual cell is 1.4 micrometers, but as long as the circle of confusion is small enough to not cover two cells, we’re OK.)

        4) Calculate the ‘depth of focus’, assuming focus at infinity, lens stopped down two f/ stops:
        (DoF)t = 2Nc*v/f = 2 * (f/number)N * (CoC)c * (ImageDistance)v / (FocalLength)f  (At infinity, the last two cancel out.)
        So t = 2 * 5.6 * 0.0024mm = 0.02688mm of dept of focus.

        That is, if the ‘imaging sensor’ to ‘lens distance’ if off (or is not-parallel) by more than two hundreths of a mm, the image will be a out of focus.  Yikes, probably holding a cold iPhone on one side is enough…

        Me, I’d rather have a large imaging sensor, thus longer lenses, thus more depth of focus, thus a fault-tolerant system.

        • http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza

          You do understand that your optic math adventure is as useless to normal people as a Friedman metaphor, right?

  • oasisob1

    Bes-ketsa? I never knew.

  • penguinchris

    BUNGLING

  • http://anomicofficedrone.com/ AnomicOfficeDrone

    As an owner of the Camera+ app, I have no doubt that all of these things can help you take better pictures with your iPhone.  That said, if I’m using my iPhone to take pictures, it’s because I forgot to bring my real camera, so there is no way I’d ever buy photography accessories and attachments for my iPhone.