The Blue Planet in Copenhagen

If you are in Copenhagen you might want to visit The Blue Planet - Northern Europes largest aquarium.

Bring your camera! You get to see beautiful, strange, weird and funny animals. You can read more at 

National Aquarium Denmark

If you can read Danish, you can download their app for your iPhone or iPad at https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/den-bla-planet/id616898584?mt=8 

It is a challenge to get good iPhone pictures through the aquarium glass. I found out that the iPhone 4S has difficulties focusing on smaller animals when there is a lot going on in the background. This picture shows that:

Why the long face? - iPhone 4s, as shot

I tried to get the eye in focus but was not able to even after several attempts. Kind of annoying, the roots confused the iPhone. I would like to have a smaller focus rectangle so I really could pinpoint the focus, I thinks it's the large focus area that makes it so hard to focus on small details in the image.

In retrospect, I could have locked the focus on something the correct distance away and then moved the iPhone to get the eye in focus. Didn't think of that when I was there though. Aha! Camera+ would have worked great for that since I could have controlled focus and exposure independently!

Trying to photograph sea horses with flash proved difficult as well:

Sea horses - iPhone 4s, flash

Turning off the flash gave this:

Sea horses - iPhone 4s, no flash

You can see quite a bit of distortion because of the glass, especially in the lower left corner. But if you put the difficulty of taking pictures aside, the visit is still worth it. You get to see many interesting creatures. The walk in the glass tunnel through the large tank is really something!

But the fish and chips in the restaurant were not:

Tasteless meal - iPhone 4s

The plate, or stone slab, was the best thing about the meal. There was a hair in my dip so I had to get a new one, of course that can happen anywhere but still.... The fish was quite tasteless, (hey guys ever heard of salt and pepper?) the chips ok but a little cold and for 115 Danish crowns the whole meal was a disappointment. You can bring your own food if you like, there is a separate area with chairs and tables for those who bring their own meal. I recommend that, or that you plan to eat somewhere else.

There is an area with open aquariums where you're allowed to touch and hold any of the animals in them - fishes, crabs, sea stars... Be prepared, the water is really cold! Then there are the piranhas, the sea lions, and many more!

You can buy tickets online at www.denblaaplanet.dk/en/

"Ghetto Style" Cable release for iPhone camera

If your hands are anything like mine, they are shaky. I'm not exactly brain surgeon material, and while I've never had the ambition to go down that route I would like to take sharp pictures.

From the DSLR world we are used to tripods and cable releases, so why not bring them to the smartphone photography world? That's the reason we have technology, to help us do what we want. I want sharp pictures.

Before iOS7, you could hold the shutter button, and when you released it the iPhone would take the picture. This helped you take sharper pictures as you could hold the button while you steadied your hands, braced your body and waited for things to settle before releasing the button and taking the picture. With iOS7 this is gone, the camera takes the picture as you tap the button. And that, in my case anyway, tends to introduce camera shake. Even if you are on a tripod it's far too easy to bump the camera as you touch the button.

Solution? Plug in your cable release! The Earphones that came with the iPhone doubles, as you probably knew, among other things as a remote for the music app and as a remote for the camera.

Tap the screen as usual to focus or change exposure. Any shake here won't affect the picture so hammer away if you feel like it. When you are satisfied, press any of the volume buttons on your Earphones to take the picture. This also works with Camera+ but not NightCap and Camera! I think NightCap would benefit from this so let's hope they fix it with an update.

I have a broken pair of Earphones just for this. When I yanked (no, don't ask) on them one time too many the left earpiece went silent. But they work perfectly as a cable release, and since they already are broken I don't mind jamming them into my pocket. They are more manageable ever since I cut away the earpieces:

Butchered Earbuds = cable release - iPhone 5s

Perhaps a bit disgusting for some, but when I shoot things where I need both of my hands such as Though The Lens I use my teeth to press the button. One hand holds the phone, the other the loupe and my teeth substitutes the third hand that´s never there when you need it. 

For the more creepy people out there, using the remote may enable some stealth-mode photography. You could easily look as you are playing or shuffling music or talking while you are in fact taking pictures. 

If you are on an iPhone 5 something you have the EarBuds instead. They work the same but are much more comfortable and sports a better sound. And come with a clever case that let's you wind up them neatly. I really like them! 

UPDATE January 12, 2014:

I just heard from Chris at Interealtime Software regrading NightCap. I wrote a quick mail suggesting they should enable the cable release. He told me that the reason why NightCap doesn't support the remote: "...unfortunately it’s actually quite difficult to add this feature in a way that apple will allow on the store, which is why we’ve delayed it so far (we did add it in a previous version, but had to remove it again). 

However, it is high on our priority list, hopefully we can get it implemented soon."

So, what do you know - let's hope for the best!

Thanks Chris for getting back to me!

XtremeMac support - really good!

Well, I bought this XtremeMac case for my iPad mini. The fit was not perfect, I had to massage it a bit to make it snap in place. Some time ago I noticed that the corners were cracking. Man, that was annoying - I spent some 40 bucks on that case!


Regardless of what you´ve spent, this is not what you want to see:

Cracked corner - iPhone 4s, some cropping

Cracked corner - iPhone 4s, some cropping

Usually I just give up and think well, that was a bad buy, but this time I decided not to. I went to the XtremeMac website and filled out the support form. I politely asked if I could claim the cracked case under warranty. Guess what? They replied that in deed I could, and provided me with the option of either going back to the store or, if I couldn´t go back, to email them pictures of the case and the receipt and also give them a reason why I couldn´t go back to the store.

Well, I did email all those things, and soon got a reply that they are placing an order for a replacement to be sent out. Thats customer service as it´s supposed to be!

The text below has ben added as things went along, I left out dates but the result is here:

After a few days I received a confirmation mail telling me that the new case was on it's way. As said, this is customer service as it's supposed to be!

After a few weeks (!) it finally arrived, yay! I suspect the international shipping and customs delayed it. Thats out of Extrememac's control so on the bottom line I'm a satisfied customer! 

And yes, the new case is holding up just fine, I probably got a bad one the first time. Made in China... The new case they sent had a hole added for the newer iPad mini, so its obviously not from the same batch as the one I bought.

UPDATE January 2015: The new case is still holding up fine. Perfect!