My RFF-inspired camera app

[Brian Legge]

thomasw, when I downloaded it there was a message about a fix already submitted to Apple to fix the location services issue.

A few thoughts -

The iso and speed displays are nice but less useful after taking the photo. I assume there isn't a way to get that info before the photo is taken? The distance marker is a neat idea but isn't working for me at all. Not a huge loss.

It would be nice if I could immediately delete photos I don't want to keep.

I don't suppose you can influence the shutter speed? I find myself shooting at 1/15th of a second rather frequently. I'd rather have a wider aperture or faster iso... though I'm sure others would make other tradeoffs.

 

[valdas]

thomasw, when I downloaded it there was a message about a fix already submitted to Apple to fix the location services issue.

A few thoughts -

The iso and speed displays are nice but less useful after taking the photo. I assume there isn't a way to get that info before the photo is taken? The distance marker is a neat idea but isn't working for me at all. Not a huge loss.

It would be nice if I could immediately delete photos I don't want to keep.

I don't suppose you can influence the shutter speed? I find myself shooting at 1/15th of a second rather frequently. I'd rather have a wider aperture or faster iso... though I'm sure others would make other tradeoffs.

My observations are quite similar. If fact - distance marker does change for really close shots, but anything >0.2 is infinity. Nice application in general, especially filters (love this "cross process" filter). For some reason indoors shutter speed is almost always 1/15 (even if iso is 125!).

 

[HuubL]

this looks very interesting. i'll have to update my cell phone shortly and this app alone pushes me towards the iphone...

 

[JMQ]

Dear Ben,

Your app looks wonderful, and I will be buying it. Would you please drop everyone a note once the location services fix is in place? Congratulations!

Regards,

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

first impression - it's much cheaper than a Leica

Well, that settles it. Wait: is it cheaper than a Nikon D3?

 

[bensyverson]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all your kind words! The location services bug fix has already been submitted to Apple, but it's a weekend, so it probably won't be approved until early next week. 🙁

There is a way to get ISO, speed and distance before the photo is taken, but the iPhone insists on generating a shutter sound when it happens. It's not a problem if you're on silent mode, but it can be annoying if you're not. So I took it out of this first build, but I think I'm going to add it in as a preference in Settings. It's definitely nicer this way.

As you have figured out, you can't directly control the ISO and shutter—the iPhone is permanently in aperture priority with auto-ISO. So those displays are mostly there to help you indirectly dial in an exposure, or keep the exposure consistent between shots.

It can be useful, for example, if you notice it's dipping to 1/15 even though there's enough light to be at 1/30—just point the camera at something slightly brighter, like a lamp, then recompose. Later, using the exposure adjustment, you can bring up the exposure if necessary.

Focus-wise, the distance scale is really more useful when you're photographing something up-close. If the scale says infinity, the focus will be off. Sometimes it can be really hard to see the distinction between in focus and out of focus on the screen, so this helps with that. The iPhone camera has such a tiny sensor that it will infinity focus (hyperfocal distance, really) at anything past about 1m / 3 feet. But that scale will show the full range between about 0.1m and 1m.

 

[JMQ]

Dear Ben,

I just purchased the app, and am looking forward to trying it. Question: does the zoom work ?

Regards,

 

[JMQ]

Forgot to mention that your Location fix has been implemented by the iTunes store. Thanks.

 

[The Meaness]

Very cool app! Is there a way to delete photos in the app without saving them? Ability to control ISO would also be excellent, as well as being able to swipe through previous shots.

I LOVE the simple filters and controls for contrast, etc. The shutter button with lock is a revelation IMO and makes shooting horizontally possible one handed and so much more ergonomic. Thank you!

 

[bensyverson]

Thanks Zak! Unfortunately the iPhone doesn't allow you to set ISO independently, but hopefully they will add that in the future!

I save your photos automatically because otherwise you're forced to tap a Save button every time you take a photo, which is something I just can't stand in other apps. To me, "Save" is implied by the shutter. But you can always go into the Photos app to delete photos you don't want.

You can get to previous shots from the Photo Library button at the bottom—as an added bonus, Mattebox is the first photo app to offer nondestructive editing even after you save. If you open a photo that you edited on Mattebox, and you still have the original, you can pick right up where you left off. So if you decide you used a little too much contrast on a shot you processed yesterday, you can just open it up and dial it down.

Features like that are so nuanced that I don't even talk about them in the website or video... At some point I'm going to add some of these finer details in the Techniques section of the site.

 

[gliderbee]

is there any chance that this app will be released for Android....? it sounds really cool, congrats!

Same here! You do know more Andriod phones are sold now then Iphones?

congrats,
Stefan

 

[bensyverson]

More Android phones are sold, but the app market hasn't caught up. It's still much smaller than iOS for developers. Most Android users want free apps, and there are plenty of teenagers churning them out. So there's no draw.

The bigger problem is all the different Android phones. Mattebox is carefully engineered to work seamlessly on the iPhone. There aren't enough hours in the day for me to make sure it's perfect on the 1000 possible combinations of Android software and hardware.

But I promise that if Mattebox is an unexpectedly huge success, I'll track down someone smarter than me to manage a development team for Android!

 

[bensyverson]

Dear Ben,

I just purchased the app, and am looking forward to trying it. Question: does the zoom work ?

Regards,

Thanks JMQ! I thought long and hard about the standard "zoom" and flash features. In the end, I decided to keep both of them out. The digital zoom degrades picture quality and is fussy to manipulate if you're holding the phone with one hand. So it had to go.

I know you didn't ask about flash, but a few people have. I went back and forth about it, but I really was trying to do this in the RFF spirit. That little LED light will illuminate the subject, but you end up with photos that don't match the idea behind this app. That's one reason why I worked so hard on the exposure slider with auto highlight recovery. You can take photos in extreme low light and "push" them in a way that looks pretty filmic.

 

[JMQ]

Thanks Ben, that's what I thought when I couldn't find the zoom. Not a big deal, it's a digital zoom anyway. Again, nice app.