By Graham K. Rogers

An interesting effect that some photographers like to use is Tilt and Shift: a part of the image is nicely focussed while other sections are blurred. This can be useful in both still photography and in video. To do this properly requires specialist lenses which can be quite expensive with the additional technology that goes into them. It has been possible to create the effect using software and there are also apps to do this for iOS devices.

Background

Recently appearing in the New & Noteworthy section of the Thailand iTunes App Store is MiniatureCam for iPad. Neither the short description nor the name of the app give any real indication of what this does. The screen shots and fuller description in the panel for the app in the store were much more interesting. So was the price: $0.99 currently. I downloaded this and installed it on the iPad.

The website for the developer, Figtree Labs, does not seem to be updated too often, and suggests that the developers are not native English speakers. There was nothing on the site that gave any information about this app. There was more on the Support link and I also discovered that there was a separate app for the iPhone, MiniatureCam, so I downloaded that too.

While I prefer the iPhone for any such work, I looked at the iPad installation first, but did find that there were now two versions of the app on the device. The iPad version opens full-screen, while the one that is really intended for the iPhone was displayed in the x1 and x2 modes. A close look showed also that the icon for the iPad version has a small text "HD" at the bottom right. I deleted the extra version from the iPad especially as I would expect to be running this app mainly from the iPhone.

MiniatureCam

At the top, above the image viewing panel, are two controls: to the left access to the album; on the right, to the settings panel. On the iPad, partly due to the size, but also to slightly different contrast, these are more visible. On the iPhone, once I knew they were there -- read that opening screen carefully -- access was easy, but they are not easy to spot on the iPhone with brief familiarity.

The video settings for the iPad app were not as varied as for the iPhone version with 720p, High and Medium only. On the iPhone there are more options and these are indicated differently: 720p (iPhone 4S), High (4S/4), Medium (4/3GS) and Low (3GS). Photo quality settings were the same for both apps at Full (maximum 2048), 1200 px, 720 px and 612 px. Other settings for both devices include Toy Effect (on/off) and Save to Camera Roll (on/off). When the save option is active, the image saved is not a Tilt-shift image but the original from the camera. Saving a manipulated image is done using the standard Export arrow from the MiniatureCam album.

The rest of the controls are identical on both the iPad and the iPhone. The significant sliders and buttons are below the square image panel. Being square, unlike many videos or photographs apps, orientation of the device does not matter.

At the centre of the bottom section is the red, video start/stop button. This changes to black (circles) when the still camera is selected. Above the button are three selectors, marked, A, B and Default, which is at the center and slightly above the others. Default applies no effects to the output.

Selection of "A" shows parallel lines on the screen. The inner area is sharp and the outer areas blurred. There are three ways to adjust the lines: with a finger we may move them up or down the screen; a "pinch" gesture widens them; and also using two fingers we may rotate all the lines on the screen.

Selecting B brings up a circular (target) control with the center focussed and outer sections blurred. As with the parallel lines, the circles may be moved around the screen with a finger; or with two fingers the areas may be widened and reshaped to an oval.

Controls to the right adjust the image output: Blur, Contrast, Brightness and Saturation. When one of these is highlighted, a slider to the far right can be used to adjust the level. Blur affects the outer areas when using the parallel lines or the circles, Contrast and Brightness work in similar ways to the controls in an editor, while there is a wide range for Saturation, from monochrome output, to a fairly rich image.

Camera controls to the left select the type of output (still or video). When movie output is selected, two other controls are active just above: Stop Motion; and Speed. The default speed is x2, but pressing the selector brings up a small panel with four options from half speed (slo-mo) to x8.

Output

That said, there is no discernible difference at the three larger size options when producing output from either the iPhone or the iPad. Once the settings are chosen, and this must be done before the camera is used. Post-editing is possible of course, and I was able to trim a clip down to a few seconds quite easily in the Photo Album. Output can also be edited in other apps, such as Aperture when the images were transferred to my Mac.

When images or clips are viewed in the app library, as well as the Export arrow for the Camera Roll or Email, the panel displaying a clip has three other buttons: Facebook, Twitter and "Submit to Contest" (being run on YouTube). Still images have icons for Facebook and Twitter only.

Comments

I did have a couple of minor problems with the iPhone app when deleting photographs. Once or twice the app crashed. Once the app froze completely when saving a photograph and that needed me to restart the iPhone. This did not occur when using the iPad app.

Apart from these minor oddities, the app for the iPad (or for the iPhone) is good value at $0.99 for those interested in adding to the variety of output possibilities for their iOS devices.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.