pictures

Nokia Lumia 920's Camera - A Second Look

Smartphones

By George Ponder, Monday, Nov 12, 2012 at 8:22 am

One of the key focal points of the Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone is the 8.7 megapixel camera with Pureview technology. Nokia ventured into uncharted territory with the 41 megapixel Pureview camera on the Nokia 808 and we waited with much anticipation to get our hands on the lower resolution camera that was fitted to the Lumia 920.

We saw plenty of post production samples of how this camera shines from the optical stabilization handling a ride on a remote control car to low-light demo we witnessed at the New York launch event. The Lumia 920 has the potential to take our Windows Phone cameras where they've never been before. While the pre-release demos and samples were impressive, we needed to get our hands on the Lumia 920 and see for ourselves how well the 920 performed.

After taking the Lumia 920's camera out for a test drive over the past few days it is an impressive camera. Low-light performance is remarkable but the camera is hindered by a few in-camera settings. Settings that leave images slightly soft. Nothing to make you scream and the softness is easily corrected with post-processing software. We feel that this softness can easily be fixed with a firmware update to allow the Lumia 920 to reach its full potential.

While there is room for improvement, the Lumia 920's camera is still impressive and it remains a key attraction for the Windows Phone.

Samsung ATIV S Photo Samples

Windows Phone News

By George Ponder, Thursday, Nov 8, 2012 at 8:20 pm

We had the opportunity to take the new Windows Phone from Samsung, the ATIV S, out for a quick photo shoot to see how the 8 megapixel camera performed.

It was a little bit of a mixed bag as far as image quality. But the ATIV S seems to be on par with other cameras we've seen from Samsung such as the Focus, Focus S and Focus 2.

Fhotoroom: Windows App Review

Apps

By George Ponder, Thursday, Nov 8, 2012 at 8:36 am

There a plenty of photo editing options available for your Windows Phone. One such option is Fhotoroom. Fhotoroom is a nicely featured photo editor that has recently migrated from our Windows Phone Store to the Windows Store on your Microsoft Surface and Windows 8 PC.

We took the Windows RT version of Fhotoroom out for a test drive recently and found Fhotoroom to be a capable photo editor with potential but with some room for improvement.

Microsoft's Windows Phone monthly photo contest winners for October

Windows Phone News

By George Ponder, Friday, Oct 19, 2012 at 5:39 pm

Microsoft has wrapped up its second monthly photo contest. The October contest theme was your favorite places and there were some really nice shots chosen as the winner. Such as the photo above submitted by Geoffrey Gelb of the Eilean Donan Castle in Scotland. Geoffrey shot the photo with his Samsung Focus.

There is no word on what the contest theme will be for next month but once we hear, we'll pass it on. In the meantime, if you're sharing photos via Twitter, use the hashtag #WPPhoto and Microsoft may highlight them on their official handle.

Windows Phone App Review: Tola

Apps

By George Ponder, Thursday, Oct 18, 2012 at 8:46 am

deviantART is a website dedicated to entertain, inspire, and empower the artist in all of us. Tola is a Windows Phone app that taps into all that artistic greatness and delivers it to your Windows Phone.

While not an "official" deviantART app, Tola is a nice app to surf around the photography and paintings that deviantART has to offer. You can browse through the various categories of art or take a gander at the daily Deviations which is a random collection of pieces from deviantART.

Windows Phone App Review: MagicPhotos

Apps

By George Ponder, Monday, Oct 1, 2012 at 4:54 pm

There's not much to the Windows Phone photo editing app MagicPhotos but that's not necessarily a bad thing. MagicPhotos is a simple app that allows you to apply four editing effects to your photos. Going a step further, MagicPhotos allows you to deselect these effects to give your images a unique appearance.

MagicPhotos is a nice photo editing app for your Windows Phone if your looking for a small collection of straight forward editing tools or just looking to expand your editing app library. It's not as feature rich as... say... Thumba, but it does a nice job of things.

Windows Phone App Review: Pickr

Apps

By George Ponder, Wednesday, Sep 26, 2012 at 8:25 am

Pickr is a photography app for your Windows Phone that lets you browse and search for images that are posted to Flickr. It's from the same developers that brought us Video Diaries and isn't a bad image surfing app.

Pickr offers pages to view images uploaded to Flickr for the past seven days, which keywords are hot for today, and a favorites page to pin your favorite images to. At the bottom of the Pickr's pages is a magnifying glass button to let you search for images by keyword or by photographer.

Windows Phone App Review: CamVintagizer

Apps

By George Ponder, Tuesday, Sep 25, 2012 at 8:14 am

CamVintagizer is a photo effects app for your Windows Phone that allows you to apply some interesting special effects to your photos. If my count is correct, CamVintagizer has thirty eight effects spread across nine categories. Effects can be stacked and edited images can be shared on Facebook or saved to your Windows Phone.

CamVintagizer is a nice photo effects app for your Windows Phone and nice addition to your photo editing library.

Windows Phone App Review: Picture Info

Apps

By George Ponder, Thursday, Aug 30, 2012 at 8:42 am

Here's a short take on a simple, straight forward photo app for your Windows Phone. Picture Info is an EXIF reader that not only displays the details of your photos but it will also map out where the image was taken if GPS information is present.

For those not familiar, digital image files have an embedded EXIF file (short for Exchangeable Image File format) that contains all the technical data on that particular photo. Data can include camera settings, date and time of the photo, image size, GPS coordinates, any copyright information, etc. The amount of data in the EXIF file varies from camera to camera.

SoMee for Windows Phone updated and free for a limited time

By George Ponder, Monday, Aug 27, 2012 at 1:11 pm

SoMee is a photo editing app for your Windows Phone that was recently updated to version 1.3 and it appears the $1.99 paid version is now free for a limited time.

SoMee lets you crop and apply various filters, effects and frames to your pictures. SoMee will also let you share your photos on Facebook, Twitter or simply save them to your Pictures Hub.

Microsoft's Windows Phone monthly photo contest

Windows Phone News

By George Ponder, Wednesday, Aug 22, 2012 at 1:12 pm

Microsoft's Windows Phone Monthly Photo Contest - Pets

While there have been a few hits and misses, for the most part our Windows Phone cameras have helped many capture some fantastic photos. In recognition of our Windows Phone photographic talent, Microsoft has launched a monthly photo contest.

Winning photos will be featured on the Windows Phone Blog and across Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest channels. Each month a photo theme will be tapped with the first month asking for pet photo submissions.

Windows Phone App Review: Fhotoroom version 2.0

By George Ponder, Monday, Aug 20, 2012 at 9:18 am

Fhotoroom v2 brings a new look to the photo editing app

Fhotoroom is a popular photo editing app for your Windows Phone that includes a Photo Sharing Network that throws a social networking twist into the pot. We mentioned over the weekend that the app was recently updated to version 2 which brings a new menu and user interface layout to table.

It's not as if the old layout of Fhotoroom sucked wind but the new version moves away from the multiple page editor to a single page layout. The results is a larger preview image and one stop editing. The Photo Sharing Network may not appeal to everyone but if you're looking for a straight forward photo editor with plenty of filters, Fhotoroom is worth consideration.

Fhotoroom updated, major layout overhaul and new features added

By George Ponder, Friday, Aug 17, 2012 at 11:06 pm

Fhotoroom is a popular photo editing app for your Windows Phone that not only allows you to edit your images but also has a social networking aspect to it. Editing includes basic tools such as cropping, exposure edits, and rotating the image as well as filters and frames. Edited images can be saved to your SkyDrive account, Windows Phone as well as shared on the Fhotoroom Photo Sharing Network (free registration required). The network will let you show off your images with other Fhotoroom users, get and give feedback and message other members.

Fhotoroom was recently updated to version 2.0 which brings a major overhaul to the photography app. The update not only brings new features to the editor, social network and in-house camera but also brings a new layout and user interface to the app. You also have the routine bug fixes and performance tweaks.

118

Windows Phone Central Lumia 900 Photo Contest

WPCentral News

By George Ponder, Friday, Aug 17, 2012 at 3:03 pm

Take a photo with your Lumia 900, win a $50 gift-certificate!

While we have been critical of the Nokia Lumia 900's camera in the past, both Dan and I agree that after updating to Tango the Windows Phone camera has much improved.

In celebration of seeing the fixes to the Lumia 900, we're having a short photo contest show off the new camera enhancements. There's nothing fancy to the giveaway but there are a few rules...

Windows Phone App Review: MonsterCam

Apps

By George Ponder, Thursday, Aug 16, 2012 at 8:39 am

MonsterCam is a photography app for your Windows Phone that will allow you to put an interesting twist on your pictures. Twist, whirl, spins, and other distortions that is.

Effects can be applied to newly captured images or photos you have tucked away in your Pictures Hub. MonsterCam allows you to apply a number of effects to your images that gives them a carnival mirror type appearance. You can give you girlfriend a huge nose, bug eyes, or squinch her face up. Just be careful and make sure she has a sense of humor before you apply MonsterCam to her portraits.

Windows Phone App Review: Memento

Apps

By George Ponder, Monday, Aug 13, 2012 at 3:54 pm

Memento is a photography app for your Windows Phone that lets you apply one of nine film effects to your photographs. Memento has a simple, straight forward interface, some cool filters but does have room for improvement.

The main menu offers options to take a picture to edit, load a picture to edit, view your gallery (images already tweaked) and tap into Memento's settings. Settings are limited to turning on/off the app's Facebook integration.

If you opt to take a picture, the app will launch your Windows Phone camera app and return once you accept the new image. If you choose to apply the effects to an existing photo, just pick the image out from your Pictures Hub and you're in business.

Deal alert – CleverPhoto for Windows Phone is now free

Apps

By Daniel Rubino, Monday, Aug 6, 2012 at 7:15 pm

We reviewed CleverPhoto way back in October 2011 and gave it quite favorable feedback:

“The layout is clean. The editing tools are enough to do a decent job at cleaning up your photos or give them an artistic feel. And as someone who has processed what feels like a bazillion photos over the years, the editing history tile is a very nice touch. It's easy to forget if you've adjusted contrast or what filter was applied and the history tile leaves no room for doubt.”

The photo editing app always stood out amongst the herd. The app fetched for $1.49 with a free trial but it is now marked as free in the Marketplace with the price drop just occurring. In addition, the app hit version 2.0 at the end of July making this a double win if you had not already purchased it...

Nokia Camera Extras starting global roll-out. Now available in the U.K., Australia, Italy and more...

Apps

By George Ponder, Thursday, Jul 26, 2012 at 4:20 pm

Nokia's Camera Extras for the Lumia Windows Phones has been available in the US for a while now. While the initial release was in the U.S., Indian and Chines markets, we knew it was only a matter of time before other markets would get the camera app. Such is the case now with Australia, the United Kingdom and Italy (and probably other markets) where Windows Phone shutterbugs in these Countries can enjoy the extra camera settings.

Pictures Lab for Windows Phone edits price

By George Ponder, Monday, Jul 16, 2012 at 2:35 pm

Pictures Lab is a very nice photo editing app for your Windows Phone. The app offers a wide selection of editing tools that includes filters, borders, exposure adjustments and more. The app is in the top five photography apps on the Marketplace and has recently had it's price cropped. The original $1.99 price tag on Pictures Lab is dropped to $.99 making the app a steal of a deal.

Pictures Lab has Facebook and Twitter integration to make social sharing of your photos easier. Settings allow you to set the image quality on images you share and save. Plus you can add an artist name (e.g. copyright) to the image's EXIF file. plus you can set the image quality in the app's settings.

If you're not sure about Pictures Hub, there is a free trial version available to let you try before you buy. The full version is running $.99 and you can find Pictures Lab here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Aviary's Photo Genius application lands on the Windows Phone Marketplace [Video]

Apps

By Daniel Rubino, Tuesday, Jul 3, 2012 at 11:02 am

A few weeks ago we reported on Aviary releasing their SDK for Windows Phone, allowing developers with little effort to plug in the company’s photo editing suite into any application out there. Rowi was one of the first to do this, allowing its users to quickly do sophisticated photo edits without ever leaving the popular Twitter app.

Today, Aviary has released Photo Genius, a standalone version of those tools for all Windows Phone users. The app is a “demonstration” one meaning it’s meant to show off what Aviary can do but for you all that means is you get an awesome, full featured photo editing program for your phone.

The app behaves like the “Auto Fix” feature built into Windows Phone. It analyzes a selected photo and then recommends a sweeping set of changes which you can enable with a quick “checkmark”. You can then compare the before and after images with a simple toggle, allowing you to see if you like the modifications.

If you don’t like the alterations or want to do more, you can hit the “Edit” button and load up Aviary’s full set of photo manipulation tools. Such tools include controls for brightness, contrast, sharpness, cropping, rotation, red-eye fix, filters, stickers and more—it really has it all.

Once you’re done you can just hit the “Save” icon and that’s it and you have your fully edited photo.

Overall, Aviary Photo Genius is a great little app. It’s “smart” and has a ton of features on board, allowing you to really control every aspect of how your photo looks. It is a big sluggish on loading photos initially (in the gallery) but once you’re up, it works just like any other app.

Pick up Aviary Photo Genius for all Windows Phones here in the Marketplace for free. And read more on the app release here on Aviary's blog.