Brian Cooley: Essential Gadgets For iPhone Photographer
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) - With summer travel season upon us, a good camera is essential and your iPhone is 4 or 4S is one of the best - especially if you add any one of these accessories.
Instead of spending $200-$300 on a new camera, these add-ons amount to a little over $100 and you won't have a separate camera to carry, charge or lose. Most importantly, using a smartphone as your camera means you'll the have the ability to post and share your vacation as it happens rather than transferring all the pictures to a computer when you get back and making sense of them long after the fact.
1. The Joby Gorillapod Magnetic ($25) is a mini tripod that steadies your camera on flat surfaces, wraps around irregular ones and clings magnetically to metal ones. If you can't steady your camera with this, I'll be shocked.
2. The Glif ($20) answers the question "how do I mount my iPhone on a tripod in the first place?" This small, rubbery foot has a tripod socket on it and mounts around one corner of your iPhone. Easy and simple.
3. The OlloClip is the most expensive item on our list ($66) but gives you a set of additional lenses for your iPhone that are great for getting everyone in the picture or capturing wide vistas. The two wide angle lenses are really quite useful; the macro lens, however, is crummy.
4. I hope you didn't throw away your Apple earbuds when you upgraded to better-sounding ones. When you're in camera mode, the "+" button becomes a remote shutter release. Just plug them into the headphone jack normally to use this little-used feature.
5. Get Camera+, an app that unlocks all kinds of new picture taking power on your iPhone. Its just 99 cents. Trust me on this one!
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