Inked

I have been enjoying Instagram with millions of others on my iPhone for a couple of months now. I understand how some think it’s pointless and silly, especially as it “downgrades” photos from what is a very good camera on the iPhone 4, but I have to say I enjoy the manipulation you can make with it as it lets you see your photo’s in different ways.

I just put a collection of my photos from Flickr into Instagram, giving them the Instagram treatment to see if they got the same reaction. It’s interesting that whether you view the original on Flickr or the retro version on Instagram, the same pictures get the high ratings/most favourited.

My latest photos as featured on Instagram/Inkstagram

I don’t think Instagram will replace Flickr or my normal style of photography but for snap shops with a creative twist it’s fun to use and experiment with. Of all the add on Camera/Photography apps on the iPhone it’s the one that I have used the most and (most importantly) kept on my iPhone.

I discovered a Inkstagram yesterday which allows you to browse your account online – nice touch which has the same feel and most of the functionality of the app but sadly you still seem to need an account to view.

I know Instagram is huge but it would be great to have to open to the masses and maybe integrated into such established photography services like Flickr.

Excuse me, do you have a PEN?

Ok so as you know from a previous post, Richard purchased an iPad.

Well St Albans saw the opening of a Solutions Inc which is a premium reseller of Apple products. We didn’t plan to go down but some how we ended up in the queue waiting for the “grand opening”. Within about five minutes we were in the store and taking advantage of the 10% off offer for the first 50 customers.

Ten minutes later we left the store with a new iPad case, a free gift bag which included Sennheiser earbuds and a memory card amongst other things and a 1TB Time Capsule!

I am not sure we can squeeze any more Apple tech into our house

The tech frenzy does not stop there though as I am now the very proud owner of an Olympus PEN EPL-1.

Me and my Olympus PEN

For a while I have been thinking about replacing my faithful Lumix, which was a great little camera, but I wanted to stretch my photography further. We did own a Canon EOS 300D which was a fantastic camera but we never took it anywhere due to all the kit we owned (lenses and so forth).

Last weekend we decided we would put the Canon on eBay (which ended up being bought by a friend) and I also managed to sell the Lumix to another friend.

Ultimately the PEN was a steal and thanks to Richards powers of persuasion we managed to get the 14-45mm lens pack with an official PEN leather bag and memory card.

I got my hands on the camera on Thursday evening and have spent some time taking plenty of shots around the house to test it out. Today I took it on my first road trip around the Verulamium in St Albans.

The PEN is a fantastic everyday camera with heaps of features including intelligent auto which means you don’t have to worry about aperture priority or shutter the speed – the camera does it for you. You can however use the PEN as a SLR as it’s completely programmable.

It’s about the same size (body) as my Lumix but with interchangeable Four Thirds lenses so it’s not as bulky as a traditional SLR.

The PEN is also a fully functional HD camcorder which enables you to take traditional footage in crisp HD quality alongside the all the art filters that you can use in the camera mode. Check out this time lapse footage I took whilst at the park.

A river runs through it

Of course there are lots of photo’s online from the garden, the park and of course of Miss B. Please take a look as I am especially proud of them.

Brandy's latest close up