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Thread: Photography apps for smartphones

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    Default Photography apps for smartphones

    OK, so I just entered the 21st century and got a smartphone (droid 2 worldphone). So help me make this thing indispensable with things I need as a photographer, as I'm close to sending it back and going back to my old world phone with the pull-up antenna. I'm used to 5+ days of battery life on a 6-year old standard battery. The droid 2 went down to 20% battery on an extended battery after only 10 hours! And I barely used it. So now it seems like I must add a car battery to my backpack if I'm going to be away from power very long. Two days battery life would be the minimum I think is acceptable.

    So, convince me this this really is useful. I downloaded a sunrise/sunset moonrise/moonset time app. That's cool. I would like to have azimuth too. How about a good tide calculator? What other apps do you use on your smartphone?

    And if anyone knows of some tricks to get the battery life longer, I would be appreciative (mind you my 3 sons, 2 in IT and all 3 smart phone wizards have tried helping).

    Roger

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    Avian Moderator Randy Stout's Avatar
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    Roger:

    I am sure you have done this, but on my droid, if I disable the GPS location function, it seems to help battery life. It is in the menu for settings. How often do you have it set to refresh email?

    In the settings menu >About phone>battery use it gives you a percentage display of where your power is going to . Very educational. 35% of my battery is for display, 14% phone idle, etc. Might give you a sense on where your power is going.

    Good luck. Yes, battery is an issue compared to my dumb phone, but wouldn't be without it.

    Cheers

    Randy

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    My favorites and most often used free apps (on droid). I charge mine every night and rarely have battery issues.

    AppKiller (will save battery life)
    CNN News
    Sports Tap
    ShopSavvy
    Sunrise_Sunset
    DeluxMoonlight
    Shazam
    Google star maps
    Bubble level
    DOF finder
    StopWatch
    Adobe PS
    The weather channel
    Droid light

    Not all the greatest but lots of fun and in many cases very useful. Love my droid, don't send it back!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Randy Stout View Post
    Roger:

    I am sure you have done this, but on my droid, if I disable the GPS location function, it seems to help battery life. It is in the menu for settings. How often do you have it set to refresh email?
    Hi Randy,
    Yes, I have gps, wifi, and other things turned off. I have auto email checking turned off, so I only check email when I manually do it.


    Quote Originally Posted by Randy Stout View Post
    In the settings menu >About phone>battery use it gives you a percentage display of where your power is going to . Very educational. 35% of my battery is for display, 14% phone idle, etc. Might give you a sense on where your power is going.

    Good luck. Yes, battery is an issue compared to my dumb phone, but wouldn't be without it.
    Yeah, 36% display (using it only a small fraction of the time), phone idle 23%, cell standby 18% etc.

    Roger

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nick Palmieri View Post
    My favorites and most often used free apps (on droid). I charge mine every night and rarely have battery issues.

    AppKiller (will save battery life)
    CNN News
    Sports Tap
    ShopSavvy
    Sunrise_Sunset
    DeluxMoonlight
    Shazam
    Google star maps
    Bubble level
    DOF finder
    StopWatch
    Adobe PS
    The weather channel
    Droid light

    Not all the greatest but lots of fun and in many cases very useful. Love my droid, don't send it back!
    Nick,
    Thanks for the list. I installed several. Which DOF program? I did not find "DOF Finder"
    Also which sunrise sunset and does it do azimuth?

    I installed deluxe moonlight free version, but it doesn't do much. Do you have the $6 version and does it doe azimuth for any date and location?

    The google sky is pretty cool, as is the bubble level.

    Thanks,
    Roger

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    Roger

    Sorry I didn't have my phone in front of me its called "Depth of Field Calculator"

    The App killer is "Advanced Task Manager"

    There is a program I have on my iPAD called "Go Skywatch" it does azimuth (of course I don't know how to use it), not sure if it is available for Droid. Deluxe Moonlight is the other one you may like. The only thing I use is rise and set of sun and moon, so the free programs are all I need for now.

    Good luck!

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    Hi Roger,

    I use the iphone applications below re photography. Perhaps some have been ported to droid as well.

    JR

    iBirdPro Explorer
    NDCalc (calculates new exposure time when using ND filter)
    Magic Hour by Vela Design Group (yes, it gives the azimuth)
    DofCalc by neymedia
    Tidegraph by Brainware
    Starwalk by Vito Technology

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    BPN Member Chris Ober's Avatar
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    Do you go out of range often? I don't know about the android phones but a Blackberry's battery life is significantly reduced if it's out of range and all connections are turned off instead of constantly searching for a signal.
    Chris


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    I use the following apps on my HTC Incredible for photography reasons:

    ASTRO - Like Windows Explorer for your phone, allows easy display of your pics (in my case my portfolio)
    Compass
    Depth of Field Calculator - mentioned above
    Places - comes pre-installed, but useful in storing the GPS coordinates of a specific location you wish to wish to store notes on or come back to later
    PDANet - shares my internet connection with my laptop (when no WiFi is available)
    Photo Tools - more robust that Depth of FIeld Calucalter
    Photo Droid - Basically does the same functions as Photo Tools but not as robust
    Power Manager - to kill any tasks that aren't being used and extend battery life
    Poynt - Uses your GPS to find restaurants / gas stations etc near your current location (great when traveling)
    ShopSavvy - Scan the barcode of any product before purchasing and it will find where you can find it cheaper
    Sunrise Sunset - this function is included in the Photo Tools, will probably delete
    TideApp - great app for tides
    The WeatherChannel - don't like it all, Weather Underground app is much better, but costs a couple bucks

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    Nick, Joerg, Aj,

    Thanks for all the suggestions. I've downloaded some, will do more.

    All: Keep them coming--great list so far.

    Roger

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    BPN Member Bill Jobes's Avatar
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    Roger,

    I really like DOFMaster.

    - Bill
    Bill Jobes



    www.billjobes.com

    My BPN Gallery

    Walk Softly and Carry a Big Lens

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    Default IBird Pro now available for DROID

    I have the HTC EVO 4G DROID phone and downloaded IBird Pro from the "Market" (19.95). This was the number one reference app on the IPhone, now us DROID folks have it too. It's a great app and runs flawlessly on my DROID.

    Jimmie

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    Some things you may want to check on your phone for battery life would be that many apps are constantly trying to reach out to update themselves - facebook and linkedin are 2 big ones, but other social media apps do it too. Not sure where it is on the Droid but find where the controls are for those aps and make sure they only update when you want them to. Even though the wifi, 3G & GPS and other features are off the apps can still be running in the background. One thing to do is to google droid battery loss or droid battery life and check the boards - for the iPhone there are plenty of learning places.

    I found that many of these apps were nicer on the iPad and dont have many left on my phone. Huge votes for iBird Pro and Birds Eye. I also like Simple DoF, and if you like wine cor.kz taps you into the wine world equivalent of birdphotographers.net! If you like cameras and photography more broadly try Hipstamatic - a fun old camera and film algorithm fro the phone's camera. Finally, LightTrac is an interesting satellite map plotting the sun's angle across the day throughout the year for the location you choose. Really helps to time when to be at a location if you know the angle of the idea shots.

    If the phone continues to frustrate - come out of the dark side to an iPhone!

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