Foto Friday: Feeling hip with hipstamatic

I feel like I’m getting hipper by the day.

You see, it’s all about photographs with me. I love having a cell phone that does the things it’s supposed to do — you know, make phone calls or text. But with the iPhone, there are so many other great things. As I’ve posted before, the photographs it can take are really incredible.

(Side note — people with the iTouch or other things that can download Apple apps can use all of this, too).

I recently started looking at Hipstamatic again. I downloaded it shortly after getting the iPhone, but wasn’t too interested. I figured I had wasted the $2 I spend on it and chalked it up to a learning experience.

With the recent release of Hiptamatic Disposable (more on that later in the post), my interest raised again.

I’m glad it did.

For those of you who like the old plastic/toy film cameras — or just the look of old images, Hipstamatic is a perfect fit. With the beauty of having some iTunes gift cards still on my account, I splurged and purchased the bulk of the add-on packages for the app. That means, for this wonderful “film” camera, I have 10 lenses, 13 types of “film” and eight different flashes. Now, remember that the app itself comes with a good variety of lenses/film/flashes, so one doesn’t have to purchase the additional items to really enjoy the app. I just so happened to have some iTunes money remaining and was very curious about all the additional things.

It also appears that there are other special packages — lenses, films, cases etc. Maybe these come out for special occasions or were used once and now gone. Hopefully they’ll be back because I’d like to keep building my Hipstamatic collection as I think this will be an app I use quite often in many different situations.

And after doing some research, it looks as though some things — once gone — are gone for good. And it stinks, because two of the most recent ones were Winter 2010 and December 2010. Both look like awesome additions (especially the Winter 2010 one) and I can’t get ’em. Argh!

One of the coolest things with this app is you can shake it when open and it will give you random mixes of film/lenses. So you can have all sorts of wild combinations of everything.

Over the past few days, I have tested things a little. I’ve shaken the camera, used certain combos on purpose and generally just wanted to see what this app could do.

I like it.

I own a Holga, which is a plastic film camera. It does a lot of the stuff that this app does. But the best part about the app is that it’s all digital and I don’t have to pay for expensive processing on 120 film! (Though I do have several rolls of 120 I need to get developed from the Holga). After messing around with this app, I realize now I can get the same setup as with the Holga — and with many more options.

Now I realize many people still love film. They love that feel and everything that goes along with it. I’m fine with that. But I don’t like it anymore. I can’t afford every aspect of it. It adds up. I can snap hundreds of photos now and delete what I don’t need. When I use my DSLR, I still mess with settings as I would on a film SLR. The difference? I’m not wasting film. I can see right away what I need to do to switch things around. I do miss some things about film, specifically black and white in the darkroom. I loved the smell of the chemicals and being able to do different things during the process.

For those who have worked in a dark room, can’t you still somewhat smell the D-76 developer or picture the stop bath stopping the developing? All under that red light?

But, that was then. This is now. And seeing something instantaneously is what I like now.

Anyway, back to what was being discussed.

This app takes away all of that, but at the same time gives you one heck of a film look — in color and black and white. The films are very cool and give you different feels. Same with the lenses. Eventually, I’ll test the flashes out a little bit, too.

The app, much like these old cameras, is a bit quirky. You can line something up and the image will come off as off-centered (note the mailboxes image). There are little things to learn as you go along with the app, which makes it even more fun.

The best, however, is that you can get instant satisfaction, unlike the day of the film. I won’t like — I used to love the rush of picking up a roll of film — but as things are in this day and age, this is just as much fun. And if you really want prints of these images, you can order them through the Hipstamatic website, or find a place where you can take the digital file and have it done somewhere else.

Hipstamatic Disposable

As I noted earlier in this post, there’s another Hipstamatic product that I have been really enjoying. In fact, it’s this product that made me get back into Hipstamatic.

The basis behind this app is a disposable camera. But, it gives you an even more realistic feel of a disposable camera — you can’t see the images until you finish the roll (24 exposures). Once you finish the roll, you will see them all.

Incredibly cool.

What’s even better is that there’s many different types of cameras, too. You get three free when you get the app (which, for the record, is free). There are seven more you can purchase. Of those seven, four give you unlimited use of the camera for $.99. The other three have different price levels — 9 cameras (at 24 exposures each) for $.99, 36 cameras for $1.99 or 99 cameras for $3.99.

Each of the cameras do something different — and give you a different look. I have a few going right now. One of the cameras is a black-and-white camera, which is cool.

The best part of this camera?

You can share. That means you and others can all be using the camera at the same time. Once the camera is finished, you and all the others get access to the camera and get all the images. How cool is that? As of now, however, it’s based on your Facebook profile.

Someone posted to the Hipstamatic Disposable page on Facebook, however, and asked if there would be a time when others can be invited without using Facebook and someone from the company responded that they were working on that. That is excellent news because I keep my Facebook king of low-key and only really add people I know in real life. To know that I might be able to share photos with someone via Twitter or e-mail or something is excellent news. I hope it happens soon as this app is one I’m really liking a lot.

I have a few other cameras going at this time and hope to eventually have it all set up so I can share cameras with people throughout the US and world. I think it would be a lot of fun to see things through the eyes of other people and this app really is giving us a chance. Kudos to Hipstamatic on this app and I hope it continues to grow.

Some external links to check out (added after initial post):

• Hipstamatic: http://hipstamatic.com/
• Hipstamatics (a blog): http://www.hipstamatics.com/
• Hipstame (in the United Kingdom): http://www.hipstame.com/
• Hipstamatic Magazine: http://www.hipstamagazine.com/

Note: Foto Friday is a new feature I plan to do each week. It’s not going to be just a photo, it’s going to be one or more of my favorite photos of the week, with explanations or stories behind them. The images might come from my DSLR or my iPhone and some other app. With getting back into the 366 project this year, I’ll be taking photos more, so hopefully I’ll have more images to share. Foto Friday also might be something else to do with photography — a guest post, perhaps, or something like this post about a product or something else.

I used “Foto” as a throwback to the old Fotomat drive-thru developing booths. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy this new feature at A ‘lil HooHaa!

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