The Software

I’ve been using the app both with and without my POPA, and it’s become one of my favourite iPhone photography apps. What I love most about the app is its speed.
Since upgrading to iOS5 the camera on my iPhone 4 has become so slow and hesitant it’s almost unusable. The Apple camera app hunts for focus before allowing you to take your photograph, or rather missing your photograph in many cases, whereas the POPA app takes the shot as soon as you press the shutter button. This means you get the odd blurry shot as you can press the button before the camera has focused, but more importantly it means you get the shot of the moment you wanted.

The classic camera aesthetic of the POPA are carried into the app with some lovely design touches. I love that the app says it’s ‘developing’ your photos when moving to a full screen view, and the sharing dial looks and sounds like a control dial from an old SLR – lovely.

The POPA app stores your photos on its own film roll from where you can save to the iPhone film roll, send images to other photo apps or share you shots via social networks. When you select multiple images they are highlighted as if circled by a white chinagraph pencil as if you are your very own Magnum film editor.

When moving through your images in full screen I found it odd that when deleting an image your are dropped back to the latest image in the film roll rather than moving to the next image in full screen view. If you have a lot of images in your film roll it can be a bit of pain to find yourself back at the other end of the roll.

I had some issues saving multiple images to the iPhone film roll; Beep are aware of this issue and will be fixing in an update soon.

Whilst the app has a few niggles it’s great to see how quickly Beep are rolling out updates with both bug fixes and new features. The latest update will allow saving directly to the iPhone film roll, and Beep recently shared a sneak peek of some filters and effects that are coming to the app soon – I can’t wait to play with them

The app is great app for taking fuss free images quickly with or without a POPA.

The Hardware

POPA has attracted a lot of attention since its launch on Kickstarter, where it was fully funded very quickly, and quite rightly as it is a lovely piece of design and engineering.

The POPA’s body is cast from metal and covered with a real leather grip just like my first film SLRs. The shape of the POPA is perfect and when attached to your iPhone forms a great hand grip with the big red shutter button on top which is in just the right place for your finger.

To attach the POPA to your iPhone you need to rotate the inset base to open a door exposing the iPhone connector. This is the only part of the POPA design I’m not keen on. Having large fingers I find it difficult to get a grip on the base which is also rather stiff to rotate. If I was being very fussy, and I am it’s my nature, I feel the plastic used for the door does not match the quality of the other materials used in the construction of POPA.

Once the door is open the POPA simply pushes onto the base of your iPhone. There is some resistance when pushing the POPA on but it’s this resistance that then keeps it securely attached to your iPhone. I was a little worried about having my fragile iPhone hanging from the POPA, but it is incredibly secure once attached – I have no concerns about carrying my iPhone by the POPA alone.

The POPA is such a nicely made object I often find myself just playing with it when it’s not attached to my iPhone. Chatting with Brendan Dawes of Beep about the POPA he said:

“I always wanted to make POPA a thing by itself – not something that looked like it was missing another bit, or was even an accessory to something else.”

I think he succeeded.

The Whole

The app really comes into its own when connected to the POPA; where the app will work without the button the button will not work without the app.

Connecting your POPA automatically opens the app, and you are ready to shoot straight away.

I once had an issue with the app not recognising my POPA and not firing when the shutter button was pressed, but restarting my iPhone solved it, and I know that Beep are working to fix this.

The attention to detail and quality of POPA extends to its packaging which is a delight and the inclusion of a drawstring pouch for your POPA and a real leather wrist strap that attaches to the tripod bush on the bottom of the POPA.

The app is a great iPhone photography app, and the POPA is a lovely piece of design and engineering which combined transform your iPhone into an easy to hold and easy to use camera. POPA brings back the speed to iPhone photography and adds a new level of comfort and utility with the addition of a handgrip and big red shutter button. If you like photography and use an iPhone then a POPA will enhance both.

I’m delighted to say that my friend Brendan Dawes has offered me a POPA to use for my Photo 366 shots. POPA is the big red button for your iPhone that Brendan’s company Beep Industries designed, and started to produce last year.

I’ve been using the POPA app for a while, and was planning on buying a POPA soon, so I’m obviously very keen to get my hands on my own POPA. I highly recommend the app; it makes iPhone photography fast and fun again, and has some beautiful design touches and moments of UI delight.

I’m hoping my POPA will arrive today. As soon as I’ve had a chance to play with it I’ll share a review here.

Only after I’d setup a Tumblr site I’d intended to use to collect these photos did it dawn on me that 2012 is a leap year, and therefore has 366 days. So I will after all be taking a photograph a day, every day, for a year. Duh.

With my iPhone I always have a surprisingly good camera in my pocket, and I often share photos through Instagram, Twitter and Flickr. So I thought it would be good to have a focus for this photography, if you’ll excuse the pun. Having to take a photograph I’l be happy to put my name to will I hope make me look harder for better photographs.

I think my Photo 366 project will be a challenge to keep fresh with interesting photographs. I commute to London at least four days a week, well I say London but my employers recently moved to Angel; a Northern suburb of London, and possibly the most uninteresting, and un-photogenic area of London I’ve visited. So finding subjects worthy of photographing and not resorting to repeated pictures of the London skyline will be a challenge.

In addition to my iPhone I have a nice Nikon point and shoot which I might start carrying with me to allow for more control than the iPhone allows. I’m also hoping to buy another ‘real’ camera this year which will add another element to my challenge.

But to start a journey you must take a single step, and here is my first step – today’s photograph:

You can see my Photo 366 photographs on their own site 366.davidhughes.org or collected in my Flickr set.

I was talking to my friend Christian about my post The Story Behind The Picture when he reminded of his favourite photo from our trip to India.

We were staying in McLeod Ganj in Himanchal Pradesh, and decided to have a look around the nearby town of Dharamsala. We thought a bus might be more interesting than a taxi so headed to the bus stand. This was my first ride on an Indian bus, and I was looking forward to the amazing views on the road down the valley.

Chris bought a paper near the bus stand, and started to read it as we waited to leave, and this page caught my eye – I think it was the use of the word ‘charred‘ that was particularly diverting.

Of course our bus journey was quite uneventful, and we had a very pleasant morning looking around Dharamsala followed by lunch at The Dhauladhar hotel overlooking the Kangra Valley.

This morning, just a few weeks later, I was struck by how much lower the sun is in the sky.

Summer is gliding away.

When summer gathers up her robes of glory,
And, like a dream, glides away.

Sarah Helen Whitman

I spent two weeks in India in 2003. On my last day I travelled from Delhi to Agra with my travel buddy Ben to see the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri.

After leaving Delhi at dawn we had an eventful trip to Agra featuring security checkpoints, dancing bears and no less than three punctures. I’d never seen a car tyre with an inner tube, and I’d certainly never seen an inner tube with so many existing repair patches already in place.

The Taj Mahal was every bit as breath taking as legend suggests. It’s hard to comprehend just how majestic this building is without seeing it for yourself. I walked around for hours in quiet awe.

Getting a good tourist free photograph of such an iconic attraction is of course very difficult so we hatched a cunning plan. Ben would stand in front of the Taj as if having his photograph taken, then on the count of three he would duck out of the way allowing me an undisturbed photograph of the Taj Mahal.

Unfortunately Ben got a little carried away, and rather than merely duck he threw himself bodily to the floor. This is why the edges of the photo are lined with bemused looking Indian tourists, and why Ben spent the rest of the day limping.

Of course the irony is that because of this the tourists make it a much better photograph.

If you know the story behind it.

As I walked along Upper Saint Martins Lane, London yesterday I noticed this wire angel lying discarded on the pavement. What is was for or where it was from I can only wonder.

As we had the kids with us we thought we’d head to the coast for the day. In true English seaside fashion it was a little misty, and chilly by the time we got there, but Southwold still showed the charm that only an off-season English seaside town can have.

More Photos on Flickr

Minsk was not what I expected; it felt more like old Europe than old Russia or at least what I imagine old Russia to be like. I’m due to return in April but frankly the fights back were so bad I’m unlikely to; check out the last photo – my knees still hurt.