Vacation photos are great, they remind you of the good times you’ve had, the people you’ve had them with and the places you’ve had them at. Here are my tips for vacation photos, and “reminiscing” type photos in general.
Cameras
They say the best camera and accoutrements, are the ones you have on you. My last vacation I brought the iPhone 7, Google timelines, a selfie stick, and a 360 camera. Here are my thoughts on them:
iPhone 7
The camera I always have on me - I love it. The only thing I’d recommend more would be the iPhone 7 plus because it has the optical zoom. Here are some tips I didn’t know about the iPhone 7 and wish someone had told me:
- You can take pictures by pressing the hardware volume buttons.
- Using a deep 3d touch on the camera app, you can launch camera into selfie mode.
- You can take really nice photos underwater (you need to use the hardware buttons as the screen won’t work)
- In setting you can set camera to always start in live-photo, photo mode.
- In settings you can turn on a grid so you know the framing of your photo.
Google timelines
Buried in the google maps app is a feature called Timelines. Timelines tracks your location, and overlays your path on a map including your photo. The feature reminds you where you’ve been and what you’ve done. Even in its early forms it’s a great tool, and I look forward to it becoming more and more powerful. Check it out in the google maps menu in app, and on the web.
Selfie Sticks
Many people complain about selfie stick users, calling them vain, but in my experience they are great! You get the feature everyone knows, taking a photo of yourself (and your companions), but you also get the ability to take photos from non-standard angles even when while using the rear camera.
I’ve recently begun my selfie-stick journey so I expect more updates here. So far I’ve realized there are short sticks (7’ retracted, 32’ extended), and long sticks (about to try ‘em). The short stick is good because retracted it fits in your pocket, but when extended I often wish it was a foot longer. For long sticks, reviewers complain the collapsed length is too long, and I’ve got one in the mail so I’ll tell you about it soon.
360 degree cameras
360 degree cameras are an interesting idea that I wanted to try out. Essentially they let the viewer look around all 360 degrees in a photo or video. 360 photos and videos are a nice way to let a viewer look around a place (vacation rental, scenery) themselves. Viewers can look around on their phone by putting the phone in front of their eyes and moving the phone around.
While an interesting idea, recording and viewing software is still lacking. You can only view on YouTube and Facebook, and recording software requires manual post processing. I think being able to make video calls using 360 video will be incredibly interesting, but that isn’t supported yet.
360 cameras are an interesting technology to watch, but I’ll give it another 6 months before trying again.