Chase Jarvis Releases The Best Camera Book, Community and iPhone App
One of our favourite photographers – Chase Jarvis – this week released a cool new book and iPhone application called ‘The Best Camera’.
You can see the book listed on Amazon at The Best Camera: Is the One That’s With You and can see the iPhone App here at iTunes.
The concept is simple and pretty obvious in the title – Chase argues that the best camera is always the one you’ve got on hand and for most of us it’s the camera in our phone.
The App – Chase has been using an iPhone for a while now to take some stunning images (the book features many of them) so he’s made the iPhone application to help take, edit and share the images.
The book is all about celebrating the images we take with these kinds of cameras.
The site – in addition to this Chase has developed www.thebestcamera.com which is a photosharing site for those using the application – there are some great images being shared there by the looks of the front page.
Want to know more or see Chase talk you through the concept – here he is in a video sharing it for himself.
8 Responses to “Chase Jarvis Releases The Best Camera Book, Community and iPhone App” - Add Yours
September 27th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
This guy is simply brilliant, I’ve had the same idea long time ago but never been keen enough to do it. He rocks!!!
September 27th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
From the feedback on Twitter, seems like a very cool app.
Unfortunately (for me) got no iPhone yet.
This photo was taken with Sony Ericsson K800i – http://www.ilanbresler.com/2009/06/together-and-alone.html
My first (and only) cellphone photo yet.
September 28th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Chase Jarvis’ work is some of the best and most innovative photography I’ve ever seen. His talent is immense and his work seems to get better all the time.
I haven’t read or even seen his new book, “The Best Camera: Is the One That’s With You” but I have seen and tried his iPhone app, “The Best Camera.”
While the app has some wonderful features, it’s most notable feature is its worst. More than anything else his app is perhaps one of the most obnoxious cases of self promotion I’ve ever seen. Mr. Javis needs to check his ego in this app somewhere in the help section, rather than put “Photo from Chase Jarvis’s Best Camera” as the caption for every photo you produce from it. This isn’t a free app ($2.99), so the shameless self-promotion needs to be dropped. There’s no place in the app to edit the caption to your own.
The app contains some really amazing stuff, such as stackable filters, but the “in your face” branding the app uses is way over the top and completely dominates it.
The app has other problems too. You can only save the edited version of the photo, not the original, from within the app. I like saving originals if I want to take my photos in a different direction from what I did first. The app crashed during several uploads. This needs work. There are so many photo sharing websites out there, so personally I don’t need a new one, though this is minor. I wish the app could upload directly to more than what it does connect to, such as Flickr and Smugmug.
On the whole, unless Mr. Jarvis modifies the program to remove the self engrandisement, I couldn’t recommend the app, even for a second, even though it contains many very slick tools.
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:41 am
Got the app, used the app.
Some important things about it are very true:
1) filters are fun
2) it brings the focus to “photo opportunity” instead of “guy loaded with equipment and expertise”
3) it brings out the real value of camera phones: it’s in your poket!
In that sense, this little app scores 3 on 3. Love it.
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:36 am
I agreed with “ned”. Good app for $3. But, if I am forced to be part of the marketing by having the app name branded onto my images, then I will probably use it sparingly.
Peace.
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:43 am
@Ned, regarding the caption issue you mention, this is a known program bug and there is a posted work around on the Best Camera website in the support section.
http://www.thebestcamera.com/support.html
January 8th, 2010 at 5:49 am
Lots of great information on this site. I stumbled across your site on Google, and I’m glad that I did… I’ve bookmarked your site and will check back regularly. Keep the good content coming!
Hollis
January 15th, 2010 at 5:34 am
very good post, have me sorted many doubts I had. Thank you.
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