kickstarter – Appotography

Capta: New Smartphone Photography & Videography Companion

Smartphone designers are always working to release devices that are more and more sophisticated, but they do not always have the actual needs of their users in mind. What if you need a tripod for your iPhone and how many of them have you purchased already that have become unusable after switching to the latest model, just because of design flaws or inconsistencies?

To make the life of users — iPhone, Android, Blackberry, you name it — much easier, the folks at Unique Design (Bojan Smiljanic and Adewale Adelusi-Adeluyi) created Capta, a hybrid two-piece accessory for smartphones that is intended as an implement working across multiple platforms.
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AstroClip: iPhone 4’s Best Stargazing Friend

How many committed stargazers are there? Among those, there are also many iPhone users with a passion for photography. If you are into both astronomy and iPhone photography, an ongoing project on Kickstarter will perhaps interest you: AstroClip will help you taking photographs of the starry sky directly on your iPhone 4.

AstroClip is a special iPhone 4 mount to fit all telescopes with a 1.25″ wide eyepiece — which is to say, most telescopes, since 1.25″ is the most popular size for eyepiece barrels. The body of the mount, in black or white color, is made of rigid plastic material and features three screws to allow perfect fit to the telescope’s eyepiece. AstroClip is minimally designed and sturdy enough to keep the iPhone steady while taking photos at night. Using AstroClip, you won’t need other camera equipment to take photos of the moon with your telescope (it goes without saying: you have to have a telescope to use AstroClip).

With a pledge of $25 or more, the project backers will get an AstroClip mount in the color of their choice, while by pledging $40 or more they will get a limited Kickstarter edition AstroClip in red color and a T-Shirt. For higher pledges, there are more extras available.

The goal is to raise $15,000 by September 3, 2011. The funds will be used to start the production, which will employ quality injection molding. Matthew Geyster, the project starter, points out that AstroClip will be entirely manufactured in the US. For now, AstroClip is only designed to work with iPhone 4. However, if pledging will be successful, it’s likely AstroClip’s compatibility will be extended also to upcoming iPhone models.

If you want to know more on AstroClip, please visit the project’s page on Kickstarter.

iShuttr: Turn Your iPhone 4 Into A Point-And-Shoot Camera

Choosing the right camera case is not as simple as it seems. Some cases put the accent on stylish and fashionable looks; some others on protection and comfort: deciding what are your priorities can be tough.

Differently from most other cases, iShuttr‘s purpose is not only protecting your iPhone. iShuttr is a sleek camera case for iPhone 4, designed to turn your iDevice into a point-and-shoot camera, for more control and easier use. The project is under development and currently open for funding on Kickstarter. Although at the moment iShuttr is an iPhone 4 exclusive, there are plans to bring it also to iPhone 5 and Android models.

The ergonomic shape of iShuttr’s plastic body can be held or mounted on any standard 1/4-20″ threading tripod. iShuttr has embedded firing flash on its back side, powered by external battery system. Relying on external battery permits better management of power: preserving battery life is a critical issue for iPhone camera users. The case features also zoom in/out buttons, making more convenient to use entirely external commands, instead of the touch screen.

Given the possibilities of the upcoming iOS 5, it’s in the intention of the developers to make use of the new features to the advantage of iShuttr camera case.

The goal is to hit $50,000 by August 14. The fundraising will help developers to acquire all the needed components and the MFi test kits for building the final prototypes that will be presented to Apple for approval. The retail price for iShuttr camera case will be $69.99. With a pledge of $50 or more, you will receive the iShuttr camera case at a special price. If you pledge $100 or more, you will get two iShuttr camera cases, mini tripod and a few more extras.

If iShuttr tickles your curiosity, please take a look at the project’s page on Kickstarter for more information.

GoPano Micro: 360-degree Videos for iPhone 4

It is not a mystery that iPhone-related projects on KickStarter are always very popular. Anyhow, the success of GoPano Micro (KickStarter page here), a lens for iPhone 4 that will let users take panoramic videos at 360 degrees, is still remarkable. With less than 48 hours left to the end of the fundraising, more than 2500 backers have pledged to the project, for a grand total of nearly $160,000: 8 times the prefixed $20,000 goal.

GoPano Micro:360° Videos for iPhone 4 — KickStarter's fundraising has been a huge success for this special lens for iPhone 4

As usual for KickStarter projects, people pledging to the project will get some rewards; in this case, if you pledge $50 or more, you will be sent a GoPano Micro as soon as it becomes available, for less than the planned retail price of $80, according to EyeSee360, the company producing the lens and specialized in producing tools for panoramic imaging. The physical product must still be produced, so it will take a while before backers can get their hands on their lens.

As interesting and cool as the idea might seem, GoPano Micro has also its drawbacks. Once you have taken a video with your iPhone 4 equipped with the custom lens, the data must be uploaded to EyeSee360’s website for processing and sharing with the world through their 360-degree video player; a viewer app will also be available for iOS platforms. At this point, it is not clear if GoPano Micro will allow some export feature (for example, what if I want to extract a traditional single point of view video from the overall 360-degree video?). A video in the project’s page and following speculation seem to point to the fact that it will be possible to export the video in some player-independent format.

Another issue is obviously the final output resolution; since the 360-degree data must be compressed into the iPhone 4’s camera input, the single point of view video will be in lower resolution and quality than a normal video taken with an iPhone 4.