FieldCam Turns your iPad 2 in to a old dry-plate camera

App Store Description: Take your iPad 2 back to the Victorian era with this wood-and-brass evocation of an old dry-plate field camera.

Features:

• Double shutter-release buttons sit right beneath your thumbs (exactly where you want them on an iPad - whether you're right- or left-handed)
• Fixed focal length lens (no digital zoom to make your photographs fuzzier)
• Framing grid to help you keep your verticals and horizontals where they should be
• Correct proportions reflect the 8½-inch by 6½-inch full-plate originals (1.31:1, rather than the standard, unnecessarily stretchy, 1.33:1)
• Elegant, sepia-toned photographs provide a true vintage feel

App Store Link: FieldCam; Price: £0.59/$0.99/€0.79

Editors comments: This is a uniquely interesting app from the developer of 6x6, the square format iPhone camera app.

Comments

[Bill]

Not a bad app, but I'd like a couple changes. Firstly, I really don't like the shutter sound. It's an SLR based sound with the electronic shutter noises. I'd like that nice "thunk[thunk" sound of a actual field camera.

Additionally, the output photo is very nice, but I'd like to see further film options such as an ambrotype-style output and daguereotype-style output.

[Jason]

Shouldn't the preview image be upside-down and laterally inverted as well for full authenticity? :D

[Mike Hardaker]

Hi Bill - I'm the developer of FieldCam and I am looking at adding other types of output. I'm just experimenting with user-interface ideas, trying to get something that doesn't look too absurd in the wood-and-brass context of this app. The next release should have them, though.

The shutter sound, I'm afraid, is a system-level sound that Apple's frameworks require camera applications to use. I'd rather have a more authentic noise, too - but the only way to get one would be to use coding techniques that would guarantee the app's removal from the App Store! Me, I turn the sound off altogether...

[Bill]

Mike,

Thanks for the info. The UI is really nice. I like the stark wood and brass look. It's almost steam-punkish. One tiny possibility is adding grain to the shutter button to simulate the look of worn ivory?

Bill

[Bill]

Bill here again. Check out M. J. Ranum's contemporary work with ambrotypes. That blue/silver emulsion on black glass makes for some incredibly compelling images.

Bill

[Mike Hardaker]

Bill - the shutter button was meant to be ceramic (or, maybe, enamel - I wasn't really sure). But I'll look at it again as ivory.

And I'll certainly check out M J Ranum's ambrotypes - thanks for the tip.

Jason - that would indeed be more authentic and I actually considered it! However, with a 0.7 megapixel camera at the heart of things I think of any iPad 2 camera as a bit of fun rather than a serious bit of photography kit, and decided that would probably just be too alienating for too many people... ;-)

[Bill]

Mike,

What about the possibility of providing a variety of film/plate stock and an inverted view screen/right side up view screen in future version with controls for them in a Settings option?

Bill

[Mike Hardaker]

Bill - that's what I'm looking at, although it may not happen all at once. For me, the big issue is delivering this stuff in a way that doesn't mess with (for want of a better term) the integrity of the concept. In other words, I don't just want to slap a little (i) in the corner and have another panel slide over with the settings options; I'm looking for something more elegant to aid the suspension of disbelief. Perhaps this is silly, but it's how my current thinking is going!