lf-photo.org.uk

Firstly appologies to anyone to whom this doesn't interest or have no idea what I'm talking about - its just about these new fangled portable telephonic witchcraft devices.

Does anyone here using any kind of smartphone know of any useful applications for photographers? I've heard of a few for the iphone, but I've not managed to find anything much for phone running other operation systems like symbian S60 etc etc.

It strikes me that there may be scope for someone with the right programming background to come up with a few simple tools for photographers. Something with depth of field tables might be handy (these already exist but only really for 35mm/digital formats), something to give you reciprocity corrections for common emulsions, something to log exposure data on (like the sheets on tim parkin's blog) including audio notes perhaps, also a mobile version of The Photographer’s Ephemeris that integrated with the phone's GPS positioning could be very handy, especially when visiting new locations.

Another more exciting idea is that since all these phones have camera on them, technically it aught to be possible to use any smartphone as a lightmeter.

Do we have any volunteers who're hot at programming?

Hello Dave,
I have recently acquired an iPhone so I'm still searching for apps to use.
So far I have;
Sunrise & Set PRO - Obviously for sunrise and sunset times anywhere and anywhen. The PRO version also gives azimuth and inclination which is also very useful to know.
Flickr - for the iPhone. Also allows you to upload from iPhone camera direct into Flickr. Useful if you want a digi note copy of your 4x5 image.
DoF Plus - For depth of field, Hyperfocal distance and field of view. You can restrict focal lengths to just your lens set and specify distancesyou are interested in. Only shortcoming is minimum aperture is f/32.
Plus - I record all my shot details in a spreadsheet. The Plus App is a small spreadsheet which I use to record info in the field. Should then be able to export this to my PC though havn't tried yet.
Cropulator - An app for cropping your iPhone camera images. Useful for your FLickr uploads.
FNDMobile - Development times for B&W films and chems. Can add films beyond the supplied set so thought there may be scope to expand the use. Still investigating.
Thats all I have at the moment.
Have fun.

Nice - some of those look handy. I could do with S60 versions for my 5800!

I have a few photography based apps for my iPhone :

PhotoCalc - DoF, Hyperfocal etc, Sunrise/Sunset & Twilight times. You can input different types of camera etc, so can be used for Large Format as well as SLRs etc.

PhotoJot - great tool for making notes on a shot, tags the location by GPS, enter in aperture, shutter speed, ISO, compensation, notes, iPhone snaps and voice annotation for a shot. Also has a sunrise/sunset calculator.

Expositor - very flash looking exposure guide, not sure how useful it will be. Only goes up to f32.

Tides - gets the low/high tide information for the nearest tide station to your current location.

FNDMobile - haven't found this to be useful at all, as I don't do my own developing, I'm sure it might be useful to those who do.

And another app which just came to my attention the other day, which is NOT for a mobile device, but a desktop/laptop, is The Photographer's Ephemeris. Absolutely brilliant tool, you can look up locations with full interaction with Google Maps, and it will tell you the Sunrise/Sunset time, Twilight times, Moonrise/Moonset times, and the directions ( on the map ) of the sun/moon rising/setting, and also can adjust for terrain, so you can place a horizon marker on a mountain on the map, and through the Google Maps terrain data it will take that into account and work out what time the sun comes up over the mountain

For the Landscaper, it looks like a fantastically useful planning tool. Available from :

http://stephentrainor.com/tools

for both Mac and Windows and Linux.