At last someone has produced a Photography Magazine that makes good use of the features available to iPad users!

I wondered when it would happen and now it has thanks to publishers Ilex.

If like me you have subscribed to a few online magazines only to be dissappointed when presented with a PDF type version of the printed copy of the magazine? Not only that but often every other page appears to be devoted to advertisements, even more than in the hardcopy.

Well if you follow this link you will be able to download this excellent magazine through iTunes and on to your iPad.

I can thoroughly recommend this great initiative – if you do try it let me know what you think?

I have just discovered a wonderful app for the iPad from Dragon software. If you hate two fingered typing and would prefer a quicker, more effective way of getting your text based information into your iPad then I highly recommend this very clever app.

In fact I have dictated this blog entry straight into my iPad and the results are truly amazing. I expected lots of errors and misspellings but apart from a few minor problems the app seems to work extremely well. You simply start the recording and speak into the inbuilt microphone and then press stop when finished.

Following a quick processing cycle your words magically appear on the screen. You can then use the keyboard to do any tidying up that may be necessary.

You can link the app to your email and / or social media so that you can update them verbally.

Ten hours battery life is good, there is no denying. Excellent in fact but if you are away from your base and nowhere to plug in this smart portable solar cell charging set could be the answer you are looking for. The cells on the panel charge an internal battery which can then be plugged in to any USB charged device. The cells are extended from each side so you could place it on a windowsill or the parcel shelf in the car. The level of charge is displayed in a window which also displays current power input and active connections.The manufacturer claims 2 hours for the iPad, which would see you through the last few hours on a long haul flight for instance. It comes with a selection of adaptors ( not just iPad ) . It is tough and water-resistant as well.

The breadth of coverage is huge and although US based, with specific city coverage it is not inward looking and is useful as an supplement to other international coverage.

As a photographer I was really impressed with with Photogene on the iPhone. It allowed me to take quick photographs “on the fly” with my phone which I always carry with me. I could then make quite dramatic changes to the images using Photogene and then upload them to Facebook or the many other options for getting photographs online via mobile uploads. Here is an example of a photograph tweaked with Photogene that was taken, edited and uploaded during an early morning walk last year.

Well now there is the iPad version! With all that extra screen area available on the iPad and the vast array of tools in this application, editing photographs is a real joy. Have a look at the video from uTube and you will see what I mean.

Of course the iPad doesn’t have a built in camera so you need to get your image files across to the iPad first. There are so many ways to do this and I will cover that in a separate post. Many critics bemoan the lack of a built in camera but the iPad isn’t meant to be lugged around to take photographs now is it?

That would not be a very viable option at all!

I can see how a web cam would be useful but not a stills camera ….

There is an app that allows you to take photographs remotely, controlling the iPhone camera from the iPad which is pretty cool. I can see a few creative opportunities there which again I will cover in another post.

There are new applications appearing every day for the iPad and some really interesting ones for photographers and other visual artists … I will keep you posted on the best ones I find.

If anyone else has found a great app post a comment and share it.

The iPad isn’t a laptop or desk based PC or even a MAC. We use it in an entirely different way to how we would use a traditional computer.  There is no mouse or trackball. No five minute wait to actually start using it.

It’s use is instictive and people who haven’t used a computer before – not many I know – but think older generation or even three year old children, they will pick it up and start playing with it in no time at all. You touch and interact with it. iPhone owners will already be aware of how this feels more natural than pushing a mouse around to get to the content they want.

The iPad is all about content not computer files in the traditional sense. Like the iPhone and even the iPod before it the iPad’s about the content, not what lies behind the content; i.e it is about music, video, photos or images ….. not mp3 files, jpeg files etc .. you don’t even need to know that stuff, PCs try to hide it but not very effectively.

It is a brand new way to make content more natural and easy to use …. that’s the whole point of it.  Many people especially the critics haven’t seen this yet. It loads in seconds, you just press the button as you would on an iPhone, no waiting around for your PC to “boot up” and load it’s operating system and a dozen and one other utilities and virus checkers as well … no waiting , it’s easy to use, it’s all about usability !!

The built in Ipad Photo App is incredibly simple and intuitive to use.

Steve Jobs said “it is the best device I’ve ever seen for enjoying and sharing photography.” Of course he is slightly biased ….

But there are truely some really nice features such as the ability to display albums of photographs as stacks of smaller thumbnail versions.

You can “pinch” and expand the stacks to see more before opening them completely and once opened each image will rotate to landscape or portrait format as you turn the device in your hand.

A bar of the thumbnails appears at the bottom of the screen and you can rapidly browse through these to locate a particular photograph.

Meta data from  your PC or Mac will transfer across with your images allowing them to be sorted and if you use iPhoto on the Mac there is the option to sort by Event, Faces & Places as well.

With the iPad dock you can also use the iPad as a photo frame ( Portrait style only ). The slideshow options are also incredibly simple to use complete with background music added if you so desire.

Publish an eBook

The iPad is set to turn the publishing world upside down with the possibilty to publish and sell, books, magazines and all manner of content rich publications through iTunes.

Just think how iTunes has changed the distribution of music over the last few years, through the ubiquitous iPod, iTouch and more recently the iPhone.

The iPad could be the perfect platform to really allow for the selling and publishing of still images and / or moving images in a way that has not been achieved before. Multimedia content on a “tablet” device hasn’t  been widely available until now and if the iPad becomes as popular ( or more popular ) than the iPhone / iTouch there will be a whole new market opening up.

The big publishers are already on to this in a big way!…

Connect to a Camera

Apple are already selling an adaptor that allows the downloading of images straight from the camera or via SD camera cards.

I am sure that there will also be a whole host of third party add-ons that will expand on this facility.

Once connected it would make a very useful backup and display device.

Perhaps there will eventually be a ‘live view” type of utility with the iPad acting as a portable viewfinder, although there would most likely need to be some form of hood in bright sunshine to enhance the viewing conditions.

Display Your Portfolio

The battery on the iPad is claimed to be very good compared with the average laptop so what better device to display your photographs and images on.

The display is crystal clear and with the ability for  your viewers to hold it in their hands and flick through images or click on a slideshow or even play video presentations you have the perfect portable display device.

If you have an online portfolio via your own website or through one of the many photo and video sharing sites you can show that via a wi fi connection or through 3G if your iPad is equipped with it.

Here is an interesting link to a blog post by Greg A. Lato of Latoga Photography on the same subject. I agree with his view that the biggest plus of the iPad at this time is for the consumer of photography rather than as a photographic aid per se. Another very interesting post from Dave Beckerman….