A couple of months ago I wrote about how photos taken with the iPhone 3G can be much improved with camera applications such as CameraBag and ShakeItPhoto. These apps can add much character to an otherwise washed out and often bland offering.

Several weeks ago, the developer behind CameraBag for iPhone announced CameraBag Desktop, for Mac OS X. At the time of the release, there was no trial before buying which was a little disappointing, but because I had enjoyed the speedy way to enhance a photo on the iPhone I decided to jump right on in and plump up the $19 asking price. This was done mostly with the intention of checking it out so I could write an honest review here and let you, my dear readers, know whether it was worth parting with your money.

The application is extremely easy to use. Drag a photo onto the app window and you have all of your filters along the bottom as you can see. There’s plenty to choose from: Helga, Lolo, Mono, 1962, 1974, Instant, Magazine, Cinema and Colorcross – a filter that is not yet in the iPhone app. Aside from applying one filter, you also have a multi-filter option.

Let’s have a look at some before and after photos. First up is a photo I took today of my Nintendo DS…

And here is that same photo, with the Colorcross filter applied, along with a medium border…

In just one click, it has made a boring photo look really quite interesting. Here’s another of a sign post I took last year…

And here with the Colorcross filter, once again…

And finally this photo of the Millennium Bridge in Newcastle upon Tyne…

And now with the Instant filter applied…

CameraBag Desktop is a great way to make your photos look interesting in one click without spending time in your usual photo editor. I can’t say I will be using CameraBag Desktop as often as I will Pixelmator for photo editing, but when a photo calls for more than just a little contrast and vignette then it will be very useful.

I’m going to give CameraBag Desktop a rating of 3 stars. It would have received more had the 15-day trial been available when released, to avoid blindly buying.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

You can download a 15-day trial of CameraBag Desktop, here. Saving is disabled and images contain a watermark in the trial version.

In my initial thoughts post on the iPod nano 5G, I promised some video soon so you could all see the quality as that’s been the most requested of me on Twitter. I took the nano out with me today and was approached by someone who thought my bright orange gadget looked rather tasty. Luckily I was able to capture his enthusiasm on video.

Like I mentioned in my last post about the nano, I am seriously impressed with the video quality but I’m also extremely pleased with that of the audio. Of the more expensive camcorders I have owned over the years, the audio quality was somewhat of a disappointment. Either quite muffled or an over-sensitive built-in mic, something that the Aiptek AHD200 suffered from which meant that a gentle breeze would quickly be translated as a force nine gale.

Here’s another video taken with the nano today…

My usual path when uploading video to the Mac from the nano is via iPhoto, then from within QuickTime I can quickly trim a clip and upload it to YouTube from within QT, or pop it onto Flickr. Both of the videos here are direct from the nano and uploaded to Flickr. If I want to do something special with it then I’ll import it into iMovie and do some editing in there. However, one of the things I bought the nano for was quick simple video I could upload to twitvid which will then be auto-posted to Twitter. That’s simply a case of syncing the nano, importing the video into iPhoto, again just trimming in QuickTime and then saving the video (.mov) and uploading to the twitvid site. They’re usually very speedy in processing the video to share instantly on twitter.

I know video quality of the iPod nano is something that many people out there are interested in knowing about, as was I before I decided to purchase. But I hope the above videos go some way to reassuring you that this is no fuzzy pixelated offering from Apple.

As mentioned in this post, if there’s anything specific you would like to know about the iPod nano from someone that is enjoying playing with it then do feel free to ask in the comments

From The Next Web, regarding the iPhone now being the most popular camera on Flickr…

The iPhone is now showing us what it means when we combine technology. The camera isn’t ‘just’ a lens stuck to an iPhone. The fact that you always carry your iPhone, it is always connected to the web and always knows where you are makes it far more effective and efficient than ordinary digital camera’s that is isn’t surprising that it is quickly becoming the most popular camera.

I was just discussing this with a friend recently. I’ve been spoiled with the ease of uploading a photo to the internet in seconds with the iPhone without the nuisance of wires or docking that I rarely take my digital camera out with me now. I had recently considered buying a digital camcorder but wouldn’t the ultimate all-in-one device be the iPhone 3GS? Why take two bottles into the shower? Indeed.

How many times have you docked your iPhone and cursed iPhoto for popping up and getting in the way? For me it’s one of the most annoying actions as 99.9 percent of the time I head straight to that little red circle in the top left corner of the window to close it right back down so I can get to the app I want: iTunes.

Now there is a way to silence iPhoto when you plug in your iPhone, with a neat (and free) little system preferences pane called Cameras. You can manage what happens when you connect your Digital Camera(s), iPhone, Digital Media Writer and any photo device.

Upon installing Cameras you plug in one of your devices to get started and the app will ask you what want to do. As you can see from my image above, I have asked it to Open iPhoto for my Digital Camera but to Do Nothing for my iPhone.

Now all we need is a clever little plugin to stop iPhoto going into slideshow mode when we press play on our Apple Remote which was intended for a song….

I’ve always wanted to apply effects to a photo which creates the illusion that you’re looking at a miniature model, like the examples here. It seemed, though, that all the tutorials for creating such effects were done using Photoshop – a program I don’t use. I couldn’t find any tutorials for doing the same thing in Pixelmator. However, I’ve discovered something just as good which takes moments to do this to your photos…

These effects were applied to my photos at TiltShiftMaker. Simply upload your photo, select the area you want in focus, save your image.

I’d still like to be able to achieve this effect in Pixelmator, just so I can feel the satisfaction of having done all the hard work myself. If you have a tutorial please share!

This afternoon as I was in the middle of taking this weeks Project 52 photo, my camera had an unexpected meeting with the wood floor beneath it. As I was adjusting the subject of my photo, I stepped back and kicked the tripod with my foot. I didn’t turn around, I just heard the inevitable clatter, knowing what I’d done. After I’d spoken two words, the first being “Oh” and the second beginning with “S” (showing restraint with my chosen expletive) I turned around in what seemed like slow motion, expecting to see my beloved Fuji S5700 in a million pieces on the floor. Instead it was on it’s side in full tact with what appears to be absolutely no physical scars after it’s accident.

Gingerly I switched it on, desperate to hear it’s ‘beep’ which would assure me it was still alive. It beeped. I breathed again. I tried a few of the settings, zoomed in and out and took some photos. All appears to be well. The camera cost me a little over £100 so it’s not like it’s massively expensive to replace, but I have to say I do love this camera and have absolutely no intentions of parting with it. This is the photo I was in the process of taking – this one was taken post-fall.

Many a time I have put the camera on the tripod and been concerned that I would accidentally kick it and knock it to the floor. I didn’t have such a concern today as the tripod wasn’t extended to it’s maximum height, so it seemed reasonably stable.

So, that was an unplanned test of the Fuji Finepix S5700’s robustness and durability on behalf of Fruit Bytes readers. It passed.

I found a fun little app for the Mac today which turns your digital photos into Polaroid-like pictures, called Poladroid. Here’s one I made earlier from one of my photos of my favourite bookstore in Newcastle upon Tyne…

Once you’ve downloaded the application you simply drag your photo onto the polaroid camera icon where it will make all those realistic noises, then spit out your photo and you can either wait a few minutes for the it to develop or you can even shake it as you would a real polaroid.

Poladroid have a Flickr group where you can upload your creations to.

Sometimes when I photograph objects, particularly something like my iPod touch which is very shiny, it’s difficult to get the exact results you want without seeing tons of reflections which can easily ruin a shot. I don’t want to buy anything professional like a lightbox for the amount of photography I do, but I’d still like to take some shots and have that plain white background which you see in magazine ads and catalogues.

I happened upon some photography on Flickr which looked like it was taken in a professional studio, when infact the apparatus to help create that shot was just over £5. Today I purchased that apparatus from IKEA, placed a few objects in and took photos. Here are a some of the results.

So, how was this achieved and what exactly are IKEA doing selling photography products, I hear you ask? Well, they don’t. It’s a pop-up laundry bag which acts like a photography tent. It’s perfect and it’s called SKUBB which costs £5.29. I haven’t positioned any lights on it for the above photos, I was just allowing natural daylight coming in through the windows. For the shiny floor I simply placed an A4 sheet of glossy photo paper into the laundry bag, then hooked my digital camera up to my JOBY Gorillapod tripod, set the camera to Super Macro and had fun experimenting. Very pleased with the results which will make photographing small and shiny objects so much easier in future, especially the shiny metal behind of the iPod touch!

I’ve been admiring photographs taken with Lomo cameras for a while on Flickr and this week I bought my first Lomo – the Fisheye. I’d seen it a couple of weeks ago at the Baltic Contemporary Arts Centre shop in Gateshead, priced at £40. I got mine for just over £22 on Amazon (store/seller: gadgetepoint) on Sunday night. It arrived Tuesday morning sharp.

I bought a pack of two FUJICOLOR C200 (36 exp) 35mm film for around £3 and popped a roll in. This week I have been a bit pushed with other things so hadn’t really planned on going anywhere special to take some photos. I did manage to pop out on Thursday afternoon for a couple of hours. I must admit it all feels a bit strange to take a photo and not have immediate playback on an LCD screen to see how it turned out. Plus having to wind the film on after I’ve taken a photo is something I’m having to remember. And there was also the weird self-conscious feeling of using a camera which looks and feels a little like a Fisher Price toy!

I popped the film into ASDA Walmart yesterday lunchtime and had a few options. I didn’t necessarily want the photos printing as to be honest I had few expectations of these photos, given it was my first time with something quite different – and I’ve learned positioning is rather important for a camera with a 170 degree field of vision!! A few photos had my sleeve in, knee in and even my hair in! So, I was given the option to have the photos scanned to disc, no printouts. This suits me as it’s just going onto my Flickr stream anyway and if there was anything worth printing I have a couple of photo-printers at home. There were, as expected, some ropey shots – but a few did turn out okay. Best part is it only cost 97p to have the photos developed/scanned to disc in 1 hour.

You can check out six of my Lomo Fisheye photos, here. Those were the best out of the lot. I had to take some random shots to use up the last of the film as clearly I didn’t take many when I was out, but was keen to get it developed. This isn’t a camera I will use a whole lot, but I do like the way it really enhances the clouds in the sky. I will be taking this on some of my photo walks as it takes quite interesting shots.

If my Fuji S5700 Digital Camera was feeling out in the cold after the arrival of the Lomo Fisheye then it needn’t have. Yesterday it got some attention with a new wide angle lens.

I bought it last week for around £10.50, plus £13 shipping from Hong Kong, through eBay. It’s good to have a wide angle – really liking it’s effect. Hoping for a dry and sunny day next week to go and experiment with it.

Today I bought a Joby Gorillapod tripod for my digital camera and HD digital camcorder. Gone are the days when I shove a bunch of books under my camera to get a little more height when taking shots on a flat surface.

I bought it from PC World (I know, sorry!) for £19-99. The maximum weight load for this particular Joby is 275g. I searched through my digital camera manual and discovered the total weight of my Fuji S5700 is 400g. My camera is a bridge, so physically it’s more like a DSLR – but the Joby Gorillapod SLR (max weight load 800g) is more expensive and I didn’t want to pay too much for something that is only for occasional light useage. It takes the weight of my Aiptek High Definition digital camcorder no problem and it will be very useful for that as that won’t happily stand or balance on any surface.

You can check out the Gorillapod range, here.